Drones are those little aerial “unmanned” devices that have seen their use increasing in the last ten years. They are used to capture aerial data for meteorological or agricultural purpose in Latin America, or intervene when it is too difficult / dangerous for normal aerial vehicles in military context, as in Pakistan. When mentioning the use of drones in warfare, many would cite the Pakistani example and the very negative role that drones have played in that country, killing more than 300 hundred civilians out of which possibly 200 children. Another controversy is about the transparency that the US government has applied in its usage of drones, or lack thereof to be precise.
Away from the use of drones to kill, the debate on the use of drones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is about its efficiency. For the first time in history, the UN has decided to use drones in military intelligence and the lucky Guinean pig for this experience is once again the DRC, as it was in the 60 when the UN sent its first peace keeping mission ever to secure the newly independent State of Congo, as it was in 99 when the UN send its largest observation mission ever of that time, and as it was just in August this year when the UN decided for the first time ever to move from peace keeping to Peace enforcing mandate, meaning getting engaged in the conflict. On all those occasions, as for the drones, the UN had decided to explore something new in solving the DRC conflict(s).
The Drones in the DRC have been assigned an ambiguous mandate as reported by a recent BBC interview of two key users of the drones’ data. According to the UN Peace Keeping peace Chief, Hervé Ladsou, who made the trip to personally attend the first launching of the drones, they will monitor the movement of rebels across the porous DRC-Rwandan and DRC-Ugandan borders where hundreds of foreign troops have reportedly been crossing to reinforce armed rebel groups operating in the DRC. This monitoring will provide the UN and the international community at large with enough evidence of the presence (or absence) of foreign direct involvement in the DRC conflict(s). On the other hand, for the DRC Congolese Defense Minister Alexandre Luba Ntambo, the Drones will have the important task of mapping the rebel positions and communicating these key data to the Congolese Narional Army (FARDC) command in order to inform the FARDC timely and offensive/defensive operations.
Whatever the case, should we expect that these drones will make a difference in the DRC conflict? I am very doubtful, here is why:
As per my knowledge, the DRC conflict does not suffer from a lack of reliable documentation. Numerous national and international reports have already established why, how, where and when the rebel groups cross from Rwanda and Uganda in support of the rebel groups operating in the DRC. Also, from their violent and cruel modus operandi, the rebel armed groups positions are well known to the FARDC command. So how would the information relayed by the drones be news in such a context? Here are two considerations:
(1)For a long time, and despite all evidence Rwandan and Ugandan governments (especially Rwandan) have vehemently rejected all accusation of their involvement in the DRC conflict. Recently the US sanctioned its central African ally by suppressing part of its budget assistance (the military aid), but without enforcing its Public Law # 109-456, Section 105. On numerous occasions the “International Community” has warned all neighboring countries involved in the DRC conflict, without naming them, and with no reference to the UN and other international report that have establishing unequivocally the implication of Rwanda and Uganda in the deadly conflict. Would this change if the data provided came from drones and not the Congolese Civil Society, UN experts, Amnesty International or Human Right Watch, to name but a few observers?
(2)The error margin of drones in other areas where they were used (such as in Pakistan) also leaves a lot to desire and raises the question of civilian safety. How sure are we that the information relayed to the FARDC and FIB command will not be prejudicial to the local population and result in more collateral? The FARDC are unfortunately known for their violent retaliation on local population living in area they “liberate”. How efficient will the drones be in contextualizing the circumstances that may lead locals to cooperate with the rebels? The use of drones to inform the FARADC commands raises more questions than it can solve.
I am only moderately impressed by this new idea of the UN using drones in the DRC and would warn those speculating on the possible benefit of the use of drones in this conflict about the limitations and danger of this new technology. The problem is not collecting data, the problem is what we do with those data, and how national and international actors act on them. With or without drones, we need the FARDC to use the data in their possession to defend the DRC territorial integrity from attacks launched from outside or within, and we expect that the UN, the International Community and particularly the US will start enforcing their own rules and regulations in regard to the implication of Rwanda and Uganda in the DRC conflict, as stated in Section 105 of the United State Public Law # 109-456:
SEC. 105. WITHHOLDING OF ASSISTANCE.
The Secretary of State is authorized to withhold assistance made available under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151 et seq.), other than humanitarian, peacekeeping, and counter-terrorism assistance, for a foreign country if the Secretary determines that the government of the foreign country is taking actions to destabilize the Democratic Republic of the Congo
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