Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative Anna Evstigneeva at a UNSC Briefing on the DRC
Madam President,
We thank the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Ms. Bintou Keita, as well as the Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone and Chair of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533, Mr. Michael Kanu. We are grateful for their reports. We welcome the participation of representatives of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda in the meeting.
First of all, we would like to note a ceasefire agreement signed today by the foreign ministers of the DRC and Rwanda. This is a truly important event, which we hope will lead to lasting peace and stability in the region in the wake of six months of active hostilities in the east of the DRC.
I would like to recall here that as a result of these hostilities, thousands of Congolese citizens have been killed since the beginning of this year. And hundreds of thousands have become internally displaced (IDPs), most of them repeatedly. The number of people who fled from the east of the DRC to neighboring countries (Burundi, Uganda, the Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Zambia) has exceeded 140,000. Millions of people are still in need of food and medical assistance. This is the price that ordinary Congolese had to pay for the military escalation.
Madam President,
In February, the members of the Security Council unanimously passed resolution 2773, which sets out the basic conditions for the settlement of the conflict and the relevant demands placed on the parties to the conflict. The content of the document signed today is yet to be explored by the Council, but we assume that it is based on the key provisions of that resolution. The implementation thereof by Rwanda and the DRC has always been the shortest path towards ending hostilities and developing sustainable and viable parameters for peace agreements. For a long time, they were being ignored in both countries. And we do hope that now Kigali and Kinshasa will finally heed these appeals and comply with the will of the Council.
Madam President,
It is important that the key elements of resolution 2773 are based on regional “recipes” developed within the framework of the Luanda and Nairobi processes, as well as of the ECCAS-SADC joint platform. This would be a direct projection of the principle of “African solutions to African problems.” We welcome the efforts made by the President of Angola João Lourenço, and Prime Minister of Togo Faure Gnassingbé to find ways to resolve the situation in the east of the DRC. It is important to make sure that international mediators, when providing their “good offices,” take fully into account the concerns of the parties to the Congolese crisis and the position of African leaders when it comes to the parameters of how to eradicate its root causes.
Madam President,
The escalation of the crisis has also seriously affected the ability of the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) to effectively carry out its mandate. For six months now, peacekeepers have been “coexisting” with M23 in the areas occupied by that group. The situation of the MONUSCO personnel in Goma and its surroundings is a good illustration of the fact that this forced status quo has exhausted itself. At the same time, we would like to emphasize that Russia continues to consistently support the Mission and its leadership, especially under the current circumstances.
In conclusion, we would like to congratulate our Congolese colleagues on having their country elected as a non-permanent member of the Council for the upcoming two-year period. We have no doubt that they will make a valuable contribution to the work of this body, especially given their experience of interacting with the UN and facilitating the implementation of Security Council resolutions on the peacekeeping track.
Russia will continue advocating the settlement of the conflict in the eastern DRC on the basis of the UN Charter and unconditional respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence of that country. We have no doubt that, ultimately, the states of the region will show political wisdom and will be able to demonstrate in deeds their commitment to implementing the mutually agreeable commitments that they officially undertook today.
Thank you.
