The head of the United Nations worldwide peacekeeping operations said on Monday that criticism leveled at the U.N.'s mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is “unfair.” Residents of eastern Congo turned on peacekeepers last weekend, angered at what they perceive is the force's failure to protect them from rebel groups, and several press reports over the past few days have characterized the U.N's mission in the DRC as chaotic and lacking a clear strategy. “It's clearly not what I've seen or heard today,” said Alain Le Roy, undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations, who was speaking to reporters via video link from the embattled city of Goma in eastern DRC. He added that the governor of the embattled city of Goma had praised U.N. efforts. “The dimension of our task is immense,” Le Roy said. “The number of internally displaced people in eastern Congo is 1.5 million.” There is just one peacekeeper for every 10,000 residents in eastern Congo, he added. The U.N.'s mission in the DRC is its biggest in the world, with 17,000 troops, but Le Roy said there were a similar number of peacekeepers in Liberia at one stage, a country much smaller than the DRC, which is the size of western Europe. Likewise, he said there were 40,000 peacekeepers in Kosovo at one stage, which is 200 times smaller than DRC On a more positive note, Alan Doss, the top U.N. official in the DRC, said normality was returning to Goma, though a curfew remains in place. “The city is calm and people are going about their daily business. There's a sense of reassurance,” he said. Doss cautioned, however, that the ceasefire by Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda remains fragile and more troops were needed to protect civilians. Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday that he expects to travel to Africa late this week or early next week to hold talks with President Laurent Kabila of the DRC and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. He also announced that he has appointed former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo as his special representative to the DRC.
