The True Cost of Peacekeeping War

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is lurked in a 'peacekeeping war' but its furtherance is costly to the elusive peace it's being sought.

Photo by Алесь Усцінаў on Pexel

A war elsewhere—in the far distant lands you can't imagine visiting someday—seems like a war erupting right infront of your doorstep thanks to social media and other suites of digital prints. Never has the world descended to fragment into enclosed spaces with imaginary boundaries (primitive interests), caveats, threats than we have witnessed within the recent years.

And eruption of war in DRC reminds us of the fragility of our century-old institutions when they're needed most. The faith of our democratic institutions is currently being put to test under strange circumstances. For an answer and a case study, head straight to Hungary, El Salvador, Turkey, Venezuela and round up with the newest recruit in the land of opportunities and you will notice the trend of acting like putin is catching on. War is only a way from the worst impulse.

And for the Eastern Congo, it wasn't and still isn't the failure of the security apparatus notwithstanding the role it plays. It was the failure of the then Mobitu Sese Seko-led administration to smoothen the fur of Banyarwanda, the refugees who fled away from the then war-torn Burundi and Rwanda, in desparate need of refuge and a new life (at least as per former President Thabo Mbeki reflection). What ensued was a perpetual state-sponsored wrong response to a situation that only required acceptance, love, empathy, respect, and assimilation.

While the Rwandan government christened (and still does) them as purveyors of genocide and even point the butt of their gun towards them to push them further away from her boarders, Mobutu Seseko led the onslaught on the other end. Banyarwanda feeling emotionally disconnected from the rogue DRC government, chose the common denominator; armed themselves.

This current Goma crisis is a case study on how not to seek peace through fact-challenged wars. In January alone, the conflict-inflicted humanitarian crisis has left millions strugling to survive without access to clean water, electricity, food, and basic necessities, with more than 400,000 Congolese getting displaced. The few existing medical facilities are overflowing with wounded patients; health staff are overloaded, with waterborne diseases emerging. Rescuers out of fear of fresh attacks rarely reach those in desperate need of their services.

The long-standing order is that politics of course was primed to bring fractioned societies together, pool little resources, and forge for common things like diseases, ignorance, misinformation, totalitarianism, and swathe of other ill vices.

But, unfortunately, that covenant has been amputated. What we are currently witnessing is a reversal of the progress that we've build, brick by brick, into today's institutions we can be proud of. Today, however, those gains stand on the thread; our common rights, our freedoms, our basic rights are being mortgaged.

If our revered founding fathers and dozens of goodwill ambassadors including Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, and Malala Yousafzai were to wake up today, they would faint, witnessing the ruins of the institutions that they help warmblood from scratch, with little to nothing resources.

Apart from current crop of autocratic-leaning leaders failing the basic marking scheme, they openly take an axe to what they don't align with personally; they are determined to find ways to disrupt and upend world affairs on a whim.

There is no escaping the fact that once war has started, no one wants to lose it but history reminds us that no war has ever been won; the US invaded Afghanistan, achieved little and even after its withdrawal, war still rages like a wildfire. The current Israel-Palestinian genocide is only as active as those who still believed war is the only solution to the current crisis of human defilement. The Libyan Civil war is still on, long after a decade since the killing of Muhamar Gaddafi.

The downside is we will never reach the breakeven point of escalated wars, the point at which everyone regardless of religion, boarders, color, gender will profit from. Power mongers, so far, remain the only known profiteers at this stage. And economic, political, economic systems are set on the path to ashes. Peace prevails when wars are starved of hate, oligarchy, ethnic chauvinism.

May peace prevails in Congo 🇨🇩 and elsewhere