South African General Derrick Mgwebi, chief of joint operations for the the South African Defense Forces, has been named commander of the largest U.N. peacekeeping force on Earth, the U.N. said Tuesday in a prepared statement.
Lt. Gen. Mgwebi, 59, will lead 20,000 troops of the U.N. Organization Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO) in Democratic Republic of Congo. MONUSCO has been engaged in operations targeting rebel groups in the country’s east.
South African troops have been engaged since 2013 in DRC as part of U.N. peacekeeping, according to South Africa’s ThePolitician magazine.
Mgwebi replaces Lt. Gen. Carlos Cruz of Brazil, who completed his MONUSCO assignment on Dec. 2, according to Pulse.ng.
Meet Derrick Mgwebi, the South African general now in charge of peace in DRC.
Mgwebi has more than 35 years of national and international military experience, according to the U.N. He was appointed director of special forces of the South African National Defence Forces in 1991. In 1993, he became director of training and operations. After the first democratic elections in South Africa’s history, Mgwebi served as military secretary at the Ministry of Defence from 1995 to 1997 in the Mpumalanga Command from 1997 to 2002. Then he was appointed Director of the South African Army Infantry Formation.
Lt. Gen. Mgwebi served as force commander of the U.N. Operation in Burundi from 2004 to 2006. He was the chief of human resources of the South African National Defence Force from 2007 to 2011. Currently he serves as chief of joint operations.
The current Congo conflict has been fought since 1994 when Hutu rebels crossed over from neighboring Rwanda – many of them having committed atrocities in the genocide there, according to Warchild.org.
More than 5.4 million people have died as a result — the largest death toll of any conflict since World War II.
Alliances and promises were made and broken involving Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola, according to Warchild. There are many militia groups and local warlords involved but the two main protagonists are the Congolese army (FRDC) and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels.
The Lord’s Resistance Army sought refuge in Eastern Congo and fought government troops. Bad pay, poor discipline and lack of equipment meant the Congolese army was almost as hostile to the local civilian population as rebel groups.
Source: Warchild.org.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission has nearly 20,000 uniformed personnel on the ground. It’s mandate is “to use all necessary means to protect civilians, humanitarian personnel and human rights defenders under imminent threat of physical violence and to support the government in its stabilization and peace consolidation efforts,” according to the U.N.
Tensions have flared over fears that DRC President Joseph Kabila will try and change the DRC’s constitution so he can stay in power, EyewitnessNews reports. Kabila has been in power since 2001. Elections are scheduled for November 2016 in DRC.
Seven party leaders in the DRC’s ruling alliance signed an open letter asking Kabila, whose second term comes to an end in 2016, to respect the constitution. Known as G7, they were later expelled from government, AfricanArguments reported.
Mapping the conflict in the DRC can be incredibly difficult, BusinessInsider reported. It may be the most complex conflict on the planet.
“Even after (rebel group) M23’s downfall (in 2013), the region is home to scores of combatants whose motivations range from plunder and ethnic self-defense to overthrowing the Congolese government and overthrowing the governments of neighboring countries,” said defense and military writer Armin Rosen in a Dec. 14 report.
“Violence is occasionally aimed at the Congolese state, whose military is one of the region’s major human-rights abusers and a primary driver of displacement. But overall, the war in the Congo is more like a web of mutually reinforcing social and political conditions, rather than a confrontation between easily definable ideological or political opponents.