As operações de paz da ONU e o desafio paramilitar: o caso da República Democrática do Congo

Abstract

The United Nations (UN) Peace Operations system is one of the most discussed mechanisms of the institution due to the dichotomy between the use of the military apparatus and the objective of seeking peace or maintaining it. Paramilitary groups, or armed non-state groups, have become a challenge for the fulfillment of the purposes of the missions, as they have become protagonists in armed conflicts, even challenging the role of the State, placed by the UN on several occasions as the engine of international mobilizations. The general objective of this work is to analyze the effects of the actions of paramilitary forces in UN peacekeeping operations, based on the analysis of the civil conflict present since the 90s in the current Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with emphasis on how these missions changed their strategies and tactics as a result of the conduct of these non-state actors, based on the Responsibility to Protect and other needed arguments to justify their actions. For the realization of these objectives, it was necessary to carry out a documental research guided by the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, as well as reports and opinions of non-governmental organizations that are present in the territory and seek to improve their activities from the mapping of the kind of groups, in addition to a bibliographic exploration for the conceptual development of the research and its conclusion. Thus, the first attempt is to understand the organization's legal framework. The steps that a peace operation is built have a formula that changes from the movement of conflicts, however, there are basic concepts that seek to remain in the operation’s actions and that are challenged by the new actors in the field of the conflict. Second, the peacekeeping missions within the DRC are not exceptions to these transformations. Started mildly for the purpose of monitoring peace agreements, they have become robust over time. The reasons for this are based on how the paramilitary groups conduct the conflict. They are volatile actors, with heterogeneous performances that do not have simple forms of control. As a result, the UN needed to adapt so that its actions were more direct and incisive against these groups. These adaptations, however, did not guarantee the permanence of several principles preserved by the institution, such as impartiality, consensus of the parties and the minimum use of violence resources, which requires a clear documental transformation of the UN on its basic precepts so that there is greater coherence between documents and tactical actions.