The United Nations on Monday expressed concerns over a recent decision by the media-monitoring authority in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to jam signals of the U.N.-backed Radio Okapi amid an ongoing armed rebellion in the country's east.
The Congolese government suspended transmissions by Radio Okapi on November 30 after the broadcaster failed to submit its program schedule to the Superior Audiovisual and Communications Council (CSAC), which is mandatory under the country's legal system.
"This is particularly unfortunate given the current very sensitive and difficult situation in North Kivu province," Roger Meece, U.N. Secretary-General's Special Representative and head of the U.N. Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO), said in a press release.
"Radio Okapi is broadcasting essential messages to the population with appeals for calm by religious and other leaders, communication regarding a city curfew by provincial government authorities, and other essential information," he said.
"We find the timing and lack of notification by the CSAC puzzling and regrettable. We will be registering an official protest of this action with Congolese authorities," the U.N. envoy added.
Radio Okapi is a partnership between MONUSCO and the Hirondelle Foundation, a Swiss non-governmental organization, and it has the largest Francophone audience in sub-Saharan Africa. It broadcasts daily in five languages, including the country's four national languages. Most of its programming is in French. Currently, an estimated one third of the DRC's population tunes in to Radio Okapi daily.
The decision to suspend Radio Okapi was not communicated either to the broadcaster or MONUSCO, according to the peacekeeping mission. However, MONUSCO was able to obtain a copy of the CSAC written decree which cites a dispute over the submission of program scheduling to the CSAC as the basis for this decision.
"Given the seriousness of the security situation in Goma, the Special Representative took the decision to use alternate means to ensure continued and intermediate transmission of Radio Okapi in North Kivu," MONUSCO noted in the news release.
DRC's eastern province of North Kivu had recently witnessed an offensive by the 23 March Movement (M23), an armed rebel group comprising mainly soldiers who mutinied from the DRC national army in April as well as members of a former Congolese Tutsi rebel group which signed a peace accord with the DRC government in 2009.
The M23 rebels subsequently seized Goma, capital of North Kivu province, late last month after launching a new wave of attacks that uprooted more than 140,000 civilians. The group initially insisted that it will withdraw from Goma only after talks with DRC President Joseph Kabila Kabange, insisting that his government had failed to honor the terms of the 2009 peace deal which promised them army posts.
But the M23 rebels withdrew from Goma under the watchful eyes of the MONUSCO peacekeepers over the weekend, as demanded by African leaders who attended the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Summit in the Ugandan capital Kampala late last month.
Nevertheless, the rebel advance has already caused a humanitarian emergency in North Kivu, with tens of thousands of people uprooted amid armed clashes and reports of targeted summary executions as well as the widespread recruitment and use of children, unconfirmed cases of sexual violence, and other serious human rights abuses.
MONUSCU said in the press release that all U.N. agencies in the DRC remain "fully committed to addressing urgently the humanitarian and security needs of the population in North Kivu, providing full support to achieving a resolution of the threat posed by M23 military actions as rapidly as possible, and establishment more broadly of long-term peace and security for the people of North Kivu and the region."
MONUSCO, with 19,000 uniformed personnel, is the latest iteration of U.N. peacekeeping missions deployed in DR Congo. In late June, the Security Council extended the mission's mandate for one more year. U.N. peacekeepers were first sent to DR Congo in 1999 as part of international efforts to end the 1999-2002 civil war and establish peace in the region. The fighting had dragged in six other countries and left more than four million people dead.
Incidentally, a report released by U.N. experts last week had accused Rwanda and Uganda of supporting the M23 rebel group. Nevertheless, both the nations have denied the allegation. Notably, M23 rebels as well as members of the Rwandan government are mostly ethnic Tutsis.
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