Kabila now wants MONUC out

Oh, how helpful.

Just as some things were going better in the D.R. Congo, at least as a trend...

and Rwanda had come to some accommodation with the Congolese government to deal with the FDLR (Hutu-exile insurgents; the Rwanda Genocide perpetrators and supporters)...

and the focus was shifting to the (previously intentionally underreported) heinous conduct of the FARDC (DRC Army) in the Kivu regions...

President Joseph Kabila of the DRC gets a case of injured dignity and wants to end the MONUC United Nations peacekeeping operation in the D.R. Congo.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, diplomats and U.N. officials said President Joseph Kabila was putting pressure on the U.N. and Security Council ahead of the country's 50th anniversary next year to come up with a plan for ending the peacekeeping mission, known as MONUC.

...

"It's partly a question of dignity," one Western diplomat told Reuters. "Kabila's eager to show that his government's reliance on U.N. peacekeeping is decreasing. It's understandable. No leader wants to give the impression that he needs U.N. peacekeepers to stay in power."

Now that the attention is being focused on how bad his own army is, he gets a case of pride.

Moreover, the truth is that *he does need peacekeepers to stay in power* unless he resorts to violent suppression of all competing factions. And that will lead us right back to the internecine massacres of the Congo Wars.

Someone needs to take J. Kabila and company aside and tell them that's not acceptable. Privately. Then again, publicly if he insists on *not* taking the opportunity to reform the FARDC that cooperation with a re-enforced MONUC for a few more years brings.

Otherwise, the Security Council will likely be authorizing another peacekeeping operation in a few years to try and pick up the broken pieces of the D.R. Congo after someone brings Kabila down... and a whole lot more people have died.