Photo: Sylvain LIechti/ MONUSCO

Goma, 6 September 2011 – United States Ambassador in charge of United Nations reforms, Joseph Torsella, recently visited Goma, Nord Kivu province, to see first-hand the challenges facing United Nations Peacekeepers in this part of the Democratic Republic of Congo that is plagued by insecurity.

"I am amazed at the discipline, the sense of commitment and responsibility with which you perform your duties in a particularly difficult environment," he said after a visit to Kimua, a small village in the Walikale territory on the outskirts of Goma, the provincial capital. The US diplomat also visited, Kinyandoni, in Rutshuru territory, a region largely controlled by armed militias of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

In both Walikale and Rutshuru, "the FDLR presence is linked to looting, rape, killing and other forms of abuse on the civilian population," members of the local communities told the envoy. They said their main concern is insecurity. "We lived peacefully before the arrival of the FDLR in our region," they told him and added "since their arrival, we have been experiencing nothing else but misery."

At its inception, the FDLR was an armed group created on Congolese soil in 2002 with the aim of protecting Rwandan Hutu refugees seeking refuge in the DRC following the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Shortly thereafter, the group took refuge in areas around several villages in Nord-Kivu, mainly in the forests of Walikale and Kinyandoni, around the Virunga National Park, and turned against the local people. They used one of these localities, Kimua, as their training quarters, before the site was destroyed in February 2009 by the joint Rwanda-DRC military operation known by its Swahili name "Umoja Wetu" ("Our Unity"). Weakened but not defeated, the FDLR are presently scattered in the bush, sustaining through raids against the civilian populations.

In light of this situation, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) has deployed military contingents in Kimua and Kinyandoni to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian access to these besieged areas.

In all areas that he visited, Ambassador Torsella took note of the security challenges ahead of the general elections which, it is hoped, will be peaceful.

Ambassador Torsella said there are many lessons to be learned from MONUSCO's experience in peacekeeping.

Alexandre Essome/ MONUSCO