CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1      Background of the study
For donkeys of days, the world has witnessed armed conflicts marked by systematic violence and mass atrocities against civilians, and has increasingly looked to the United Nations, and in particular to UN peacekeeping operations, to prevent and or to halt such crimes. The failures of missions to provide security in complex crises such as Somalia, and to protect civilians from mass atrocities in Rwanda and Bosnia, tested the fundamental principles and capabilities of UN peacekeeping operations and demonstrated that reform was urgently required. Since then, notable efforts have worked to improve the overall effectiveness of UN peacekeeping operations, including their capabilities to protect civilians. For a decade, the UN Security Council has also expressed its resolve to support more effective missions, and to put a greater spotlight on the protection of civilians, as seen by its series of statements and resolutions, and the request that the Secretary-General issue regular reports on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. More tangibly, UN peacekeeping mandates have changed, as the Council has shifted peacekeeping well beyond its traditional role of monitoring the implementation of peace agreements over the last decade. Modern peacekeeping missions are multidimensional, addressing the full spectrum of peace building activities, from providing secure environments to monitoring human rights and rebuilding the capacity of the state. Increasingly, such mandates also instruct peacekeeping missions to put an emphasis on the physical protection of civilians. As part of this evolution, ten UN peacekeeping operations have been explicitly mandated to “protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.”3 The first mission provided with this explicit mandate language, the UN peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL, was authorized in 1999 inter alia “to afford protection to civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.”4 By 2009, the majority of the nearly 100,000 uniformed UN peacekeepers deployed worldwide operate with such mandates. The link between the protection of civilians and peacekeeping mandates is central. First, the safety and security of civilians is critical to the legitimacy and credibility of peacekeeping missions. Missions rely upon their legitimacy with the local civilian population and external observers alike to help build peace and maintain political momentum behind the peace process. Moreover, wherever peacekeepers deploy, they raise expectations among the local population and among those who view missions from afar that the reason for their presence is to support people at risk. As seen in Rwanda, the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Haiti, DRC and Darfur, among others, peacekeeping operations that are ill-prepared to address large-scale violence directed against civilians will falter and may even collapse. While missions work to manage high expectations, they also need to address the security of civilians to build and maintain the legitimacy and credibility needed to carry out their other mandated tasks to assist with the political and local reconsolidation efforts and peace building.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is experiencing unrest primarily in its eastern region due to various ethnic and political differences. Violence and instability have always been an issue in this former Belgian colony. The issue at hand today is to try to maintain peace in an area that has experienced two wars within the past decade with violence continuing to this day. According to the United Nations, 3.8 million lives were lost to wars and there approximately 1,000 deaths per day as a direct result from the interior conflict of the DRC. In addition, about 2.4 million people have been internally displaced and 388,000 people have been refugeed out of the country due to persisting violence in areas such as North and South Kivu, The Democratic Republic of the Congo is experiencing unrest primarily in its eastern region due to various ethnic and political differences. Violence and instability have always been an issue in this former Belgian colony. The issue at hand today is to try to maintain peace in an area that has experienced two wars within the past decade with violence continuing to this day. According to the United Nations, 3.8 million lives were lost to wars and there approximately 1,000 deaths per day as a direct result from the interior conflict of the DRC. In addition, about 2.4 million people have been internally displaced and 388,000 people have been refugee out of the country due to persisting violence in areas such as North and South Kivu, Katanga, and the Itori region.  However, violence and unrest is not limited to these areas. Sexual violence is the worst and most prevalent problem in the DRC, with a reported 14,200 cases of rape registered from 2005 to 2007.  Other problems include malnourishment, disease, and deaths by landmines. The DRC has the potential of being one of Africa’s richest countries, but is held back by its instability and constant conflict. Surrounded by nine other nations, the DRC is often central to regional conflict. Current violence involves influence from both Rwanda and Uganda, who have consistently tried to invade the region.