KAMPALA, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Defense chiefs from southern Africa and Africa's GreatLakes region have recommended the replacement of the UN peace mission(MONUSCO) in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with anAfrican force, a top military chief said here on Wednesday.
Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, Ugandan defense chief, told reporters here that the militarychiefs from the regional blocs of the Southern African Development Community and theInternational Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) met over the weekendand recommended to the African Union (AU) that the operation of the UN force behalted for its failure to protect Congolese.
"We are recommending that Africa takes over MONUSCO. We put in a brigade, theygive us assets and we do our job regional forces have been good at doing other thanthese international forces which come from outside the continent and they do not knowwhat they are doing," he said.
Gen. Aronda said that following a recommendation by the ICGLR summit last year todeploy a Neutral International Force (NIF) to fight negative forces in the eastern DRC,some members of the UN opposed the idea and instead said the NIF should beintegrated into MONUSCO.
"We will not accept the UN position of being integrated. It is up to the AU tocommunicate to UN. We want nothing less than taking over MONUSCO," he said.
Aronda said the defense chiefs decided that the regions stick to their original proposalof deploying the NIF.
He said the outcomes of the chiefs meeting will be forward to the AU Summit which kicksoff in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa over the weekend.
Great Lakes region leaders are critical of MONUSCO accusing it of looking on ashundreds of thousands of Congolese are made homeless and others fleeing toneighboring Rwanda and Uganda.
