{"id":31653,"date":"2017-05-05T12:30:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T02:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=31653"},"modified":"2017-05-05T13:25:52","modified_gmt":"2017-05-05T03:25:52","slug":"un-deaths-drc-time-support-sanctions-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/un-deaths-drc-time-support-sanctions-work\/","title":{"rendered":"UN deaths in the DRC: it\u2019s time to do more to support sanctions work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image<\/p>\n

The recent loss of two UN sanctions experts<\/a> in the Democratic Republic of Congo has highlighted the riskiness and conditions of the experts\u2019 jobs. UN experts work in some of the most volatile environments imaginable to support the organisation\u2019s efforts to bring peace to troubled countries and associated regions. Yet little\u2019s known about their work outside of the UN Security Council, and even less is known about the safety precautions they must take.<\/p>\n

UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres announced<\/a> on 28 March that the bodies of Zaida Catal\u00e1n and Michael Sharp had been located near Bunkonde in Kasia Central province in the DRC. The pair were members of the UN\u2019s Group of Experts supporting the Security Council\u2019s Sanctions Committee on the DRC. They were investigating large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations in the deeply unstable region by the Congolese army and local militia groups at the time of their disappearance. The UN also announced<\/a> that its investigators had discovered 17 new mass graves in the Kasai region, after the Congolese military killed at least 114 people, including 41 children, during its campaign to combat an insurgency by the Kamuina Nsapu militia.<\/p>\n

Little is known at present about the circumstances of the experts\u2019 deaths. Most recently, the DRC Government attempted to rebut suggestions of its involvement by releasing a video<\/a> of the murders to assert that anti-Government militia committed the acts. The experts\u2019 disappearance marked the first time that UN experts had been reported missing in the DRC and was the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces. The experts reportedly traveled through the bush on motorcycles, accompanied by four Congolese, as traveling in UN vehicles might have made them a target. The DRC government has criticised the UN for failing to protect the experts, stating that \u2018if the Government had been informed of the activities of these officials, perhaps they would have had an escort for their safety\u2019.<\/a> However, given the experts\u2019 investigations extended to the conduct of the Congolese army, notifying the government of their movements was never a realistic option.<\/p>\n

Gutteres has confirmed<\/a> that the UN will conduct an investigation into the deaths of Catal\u00e1n and Sharp and encouraged the Congolese authority to also fully investigate the incident. Similarly, the Security Council has issued a press statement<\/a> which condemned the murders and called on the DRC government to swiftly and fully investigate the crimes and bring the unidentified perpetrators to justice. According to Human Rights Watch<\/a>, the Uruguayan peacekeepers and Tanzanian Special Forces, who deployed to locate the experts, found the DRC government uncooperative\u2014which indicates that the UN may hit some roadblocks during the investigation.<\/p>\n

The UN\u2019s public statements to date have focused on its intention to identify the perpetrators of the murders. However, the investigation must also involve an examination of effective safety precautions for experts. This should include revisiting protocols to determine where the experts can reasonably safely travel, ensuring that reliable security intelligence is available to the experts to inform their investigative approach, and assessing the preferred composition of security that should accompany experts in the field. A full contingent of UN security personnel would have hampered the experts\u2019 fieldwork as, in many respects, they needed to be agile in their work and not overwhelm locals that are key to their investigative work. However, a balance must be found to ensure that experts aren\u2019t unacceptably vulnerable when carrying out their work. It won\u2019t be an easy fix, but it\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n

France, as the Security Council \u2018penholder\u2019 on the DRC, will lead the Council\u2019s political input to the UN Secretariat\u2019s investigation. The US will also be active, particularly as Sharp was a US citizen. They will need to pressure the DRC to be constructive in the investigation.<\/p>\n

While Australia, a non-Council member, won\u2019t be expected to play a role in the investigation, our track record as a strong advocate for UN sanctions during our recent Security Council term gives us authority to contribute to reform efforts. We should add to the process by connecting with Council members and the UN Secretariat to add weight to their investigation. It\u2019s notable that the findings of the High Level Review of UN Sanctions<\/a>, which Australia led in 2015, acknowledged that experts had raised concerns about the physical threats they faced. Those threats \u2018could extend beyond dangers inherent in field work in conflict zones to include direct personal threat from individuals or entities being investigated\u2019 and contended that effective UN duty of care policies should be in place. While the experts didn\u2019t identify what they considered were the particular failed UN policies, the UN\u2019s Department of Safety and Security and Security Council Affairs Division could address concerns by tightening its protocols on threat assessments and security attachments prior to further approvals for field work.<\/p>\n

The deaths of the experts are a sad and timely reminder of the risks faced and the need for experts\u2019 protections to be strengthened. Vital to that goal is that the UN act forcefully to ensure that there\u2019s no impunity for these murders\u2014not only because that is right, but also because it\u2019s necessary to ensure that experts\u2019 important work supporting UN sanctions continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent loss of two UN sanctions experts in the Democratic Republic of Congo has highlighted the riskiness and conditions of the experts\u2019 jobs. UN experts work in some of the most volatile environments imaginable …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":641,"featured_media":31655,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[177,441,92],"class_list":["post-31653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-africa","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-united-nations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUN deaths in the DRC: it\u2019s time to do more to support sanctions work | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/un-deaths-drc-time-support-sanctions-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UN deaths in the DRC: it\u2019s time to do more to support sanctions work | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The recent loss of two UN sanctions experts in the Democratic Republic of Congo has highlighted the riskiness and conditions of the experts\u2019 jobs. 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