Civil Society Organization in Mbandaka, DRC organizes protest march for MONUSCO’s significant presen

23 mai 2014

Civil Society Organization in Mbandaka, DRC organizes protest march for MONUSCO’s significant presen

Mbandaka, 21 May 2014 - In a memorandum submitted Wednesday 21 May 2014 to the office of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO)/Mbandaka, the administrative capital of Equateur province, local civil society organizations want the UN Mission to remain in Equateur.

Addressed by the provincial Coordinator of the New Congolese Civil society organizations NSCC/Equateur to the UN Secretary-General through the Mission’s office in Mbandaka, at the end of a peaceful rally that took place across the city of Mbandaka, the memo underscored “it would not be right to do the Mission’s downsizing in the West of DRC now”, alluding to the ongoing reconfiguration process within MONUSCO in which the bulk of the staff are being redeployed in the Eastern DRC from the west.

In light of the upcoming provincial, municipal and local elections, the numerous inter-communal conflicts in the province as well as the insecurity currently prevailing in the neighboring Central African Republic, an electoral unit should remain in Mbandaka, with a meaningful presence of peacekeepers and Radio Okapi “to guarantee the elections reliability.”

The head of MONUSCO/Equateur, who received the memo, echoed a statement made by the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General in the DRC, Martin Kobler, in a recent visit to Mbandaka on 2 May 2014. MONUSCO’s reconfiguration is a “political decision” made by the UN Security Council specifying that the Mission shall not however disengage itself either from Mbandaka, or Equateur. Moreover, the head of MONUSCO/Equateur urged the civil society organizations to get this message across to the population.

Jean-Tobie Okala