The Capstone Doctrine and its application in MONUC

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The ‘capstone doctrine’ refers to the United Nations Operations, Principles and guidelines, it was a document produced in early 2008and which aimed at streamlining the operations of peace keeping missions by the UN globally. It reconfirms and offers a contemporary guideline of how the peacekeepers and their commanders are to apply the three basic principles of peacekeeping viz, impartiality, consent and nonapplication of force except where force is necessary for self defense or the mandates defense. In the most basic, consent implies that the parties in the cease fire or peace agreement have agreed to an intervention. It is a particularly essential tool for the mission’s success and calls for constant management. Unfortunately, it is often lacking. Impartiality (not to be confused with neutrality) implies that the application of the mandate must be seen to be fair and not favoring or prejudiced towards one party of the peace agreement. No-application of force strategically refers to the nonapplication of force to enforce peace. The capstone doctrine recognizes this and pitches for operations based on consent. With the doctrine came the introduction of the term ‘robust peacekeeping’ which simply seeks to recognize that tactical force may be necessary for the defense of the mission and when mandate has been provided, protect civilians. The highlights of the doctrine are legitimacy; drawn from the UN charter and the security council, credibility which means that the mission has to constantly build and maintain its credibility among local communities in the face of challenging factors and local ownership. This last part seeks to ensure that the host state has to be responsible for its own governance.

The eastern region of the Democratic republic of Congo experienced long drawn out conflict arising from various ethno-political differences. The former colony of Belgium has historically had a series of conflict, violence and instability. The conflict has led to the loss of 3.8 million deaths according to the UN and more than 2.4million people have become displaced internally with a further 388, 000 people seeking refuge outside the country’s borders. At the height of the conflict, 1,000 deaths were occurring daily. Sexual violence including rape was the most common crime,, and it is reported that, between 2005 and 2007, 14,200 cases of rape were registered. As is common with wars, complications like malnourishment, disease and fatalities from landmines are also prevalent. United Nations peacekeeping force in the DRC was the largest at its peak. Though this involvement started as early as 1960 soon after independence, the involvement became more eminent in the 1990’s owing to the international attention captured by the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The MONUC which is the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo got its mandate from the resolution 1291 of 2000 of the UN Security Council with the basic mission of overseeing and implementing the ceasefire and the release of war prisoners, military captives and facilitate human rights improvements (Roessler and Prendergast 2006, p. 230). The initial force comprised 5,537 troops. At its peak, it had 18,385 personnel in uniform and other international and local staff and personnel.

MONUC and the Capstone doctrine

Consent and legitimacy

Cognizant of the fact that the local actors and main host have to appear to give consent so as to avoid a situation where the rationale of the peace keeping mission would be challenged, MONUC co operated closely with Kinshasa as the host nation. This is well within the capstone doctrines argument that peace missions have to incorporate skills that would mitigate against breakdowns in local consent. It means having a balance between forceful handling of spoilers while avoiding the concept of ‘even-handedness’ to be used to excuse inaction. In dealing with the spoilers, the force was forced to take sides with the FARDC with the mandate of the Security Council. This in the face made MONUC appear like an enemy of the forces opposed to the FARDC. Whenever it was concluded that it was more crucial to stop some spoilers or force them into joining the peace process, the mission would call on the FDLR or the LRA as local armed players. Legitimacy issues arose when groups like the FARDC were involved in military operations alongside mission officers. Though the missions were aimed at garnering greater control for the central government, the FARDC forces ended up being involved in human rights abuses by killing civilians and engaging in sexual crimes. There in lay the challenge for capstone. The doctrine insists on a distinction between principal parties and so called small spoilers. The distinction collapses where pockets of small spoilers exist within the major parties. The FARDC was not just a local actor that could be immediately labeled spoiler and militarily attacked, the process of identifying and sanctioning those units that were undermining the legitimacy of the mission was a complex one (Isberg, 2011). The legitimacy among the local population was thus dented by the sexual abuse scandal considering that it was generally weak from entry owing to the propaganda war by Kabila the UN was coming to re-colonize the country.

Civilian protection and the use of force

Though capstone advises the use of force only in a tactical manner, the mission can be said to have flirted with ‘peace enforcement’ owing to its involvement in providing fire support in instances where its commanders have deemed necessary (UN Secretary General 2009, Para. 5). The provision of force multipliers can also be termed as military involvement even though the mission’s soldiers are not involved in the frontline. This also extends to assistance in planning attacks and facilitation. In 2001, the UN secretary general Kofi Annan insisted that hunting down of armed groups and their forceful disarmament are not UN peacekeepers duties and no military solution should ever be considered by MONU (2001, Para. 103). This argument was based on the fact that most of these military groupings were interspersed with civilians and as such it was impossible to carry out such missions without innocent casualties. These arguments coupled with the fact that the deployed units have neither suitability nor the resources to carry out operations of the same level as war connects to the capstones limited goal for any military operation by peacekeepers. A caveat by capstone that allows military operation in protection of civilian lives has been well exploited by MONUC in the diverse occasions it was called to do so.

Conclusion

Though capstone is not a military document, it goes a long way in providing a guideline on how troops on the ground should operate. In the DRC, capstone has helped the Security Council make decisions on mandate extension, troops, enforcement, necessary use of force and eventually the end of the mandate. The conditions that capstone sets for success might not always be existent, but this does not mean that the Security Council has to terminate the troop’s engagement, rather it is necessary to achieve a far wider application of capstone in trying to establish such conditions.

References

Arnold, R., & Knoops, G.-J. G. J. (2006). Practice and policies of modern peace support operations under international law. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers.

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Cilliers, J., Malan, M., & Institute for Security Studies (South Africa). (2001). Peacekeeping in the DRC: MONUC and the road to peace. Pretoria, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies.

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Durch, W. J. (2006). Twenty-first-century peace operations. Washington, D.C: United States Institute of Peace and the Henry L. Stimson Center.

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Isberg, J.-G., & Victor, T. L. (2011). By all necessary means: Brigadier General Jan-Gunnar Isberg’s experiences from service in the Congo 2003-2005. Stockholm: The Swedish National Defense College and the authors.

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Mollel, A. (January 01, 2010). Evaluating UN peacekeeping missions in resolving armed conflicts: A focus on the MONUC. Journal of African and International Law, 3, 1, 49-90.

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UN. Secretary-General. (2002). Twelfth report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. New York: UN.

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UN. Secretary-General. (2000). Third report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. New York: UN.

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United States. (1995). Joint doctrine capstone and keystone primer. Washington, D.C.?: Joint Chiefs of Staff.