S/PV.8807 Security Council

In accordance with rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite the representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to participate in this meeting. The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. Members of the Council have before them document S/2021/605, which contains the text of a draft resolution submitted by France. I wish to draw the attention of Council members to document S/2021/560, which contains the letter dated 10 June 2021 from the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo addressed to the President of the Security Council. The Council is ready to proceed to the vote on the draft resolution before it. I shall put the draft resolution to the vote now.

The draft resolution received 15 votes in favour. The draft resolution has been adopted unanimously as resolution 2582 (2021). I shall now give the floor to those members of the Council who wish to make statements following the voting.

China congratulates the new Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was successfully formed last month, and welcomes its focus on restoring national stability and improving people’s livelihoods and well- being in the next stage of governance. We support the international community’s efforts to help the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to improve its national governance capacity and achieve national peace, stability and development at an early date. China has always believed that sanctions are only a means, not an end. As the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo enters its drawdown phase, the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo will gradually assume the primary responsibility for maintaining national security. The Security Council should heed the wishes of the Government and respond positively to its concerns regarding an adjustment of the sanctions to make sure that those measures do not adversely impact the development of the Government’s security capacities.

I now give the floor to the representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I thank you, Sir, for having organized this meeting on the situation in my country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, more specifically, on the renewal of the sanctions regime against the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I welcome this opportunity to address the Security Council today. My delegation takes note of the adoption today of resolution 2582 (2021), renewing the sanctions regime and the mandate of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I pledge the full and ongoing cooperation of my country’s Government in the fulfilment of the Security Council mandate to restore peace and security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My delegation wished to take the floor at this meeting in order to address several concerns raised in the text of the resolution and during the negotiations preceding its adoption. Indeed, in the resolution that has just been adopted, the Council expresses its concern about the security situation in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is dominated by the presence of both national and foreign armed groups. It should be noted in this regard that these armed groups have been weakened following the military offensive ordered in October 2019 by His Excellency Mr. Félix Antoine Tshilombo Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and following also the state of siege established since 3 May 2021 in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. All these efforts made by the Government and our army to eradicate the negative forces should not be in vain. We must all rally around stopping the vicious cycle of violence and break the chains of a spiral imposed on us by armed groups and their criminal henchmen, so that the peoples of the African Great Lakes region may live happily and peacefully in their homes. To that end, my delegation believes that, on the threshold of the new mandate for the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Group of Experts, it is important to assess the effectiveness and impact of our joint actions, as well as the actions applied to persons and entities designated by the Committee during the mandate that has just ended on restoring peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in accordance with resolution 1533 (2004). That will enable us to strengthen what has worked and to correct what has not. Furthermore, my country believes that the sanctions and measures referred to in paragraph 2 of the resolution adopted today should also apply to natural and legal persons designated by the Committee and involved in the direct or indirect sale, supply and transfer of explosive materials and processes and related equipment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are used in the manufacture of improvised explosive devices in total violation of the embargo in force. Barbaric and terrorist acts committed with homemade bombs are becoming increasingly frequent and worrying and require the attention of the entire international community. The latest cases are those of the explosion of a bomb at a Catholic church in Beni, on Sunday, 27 June 2021, and in the morning and evening of the same Sunday at the Malumalu roundabout, also in Beni. These terrorist acts bear the signature of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a terrorist group that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, as has been factually demonstrated and confirmed. My Government is therefore concerned that the Group of Experts continues to resist confirming the well-proven connection between the Islamic State and the ADF. As I have just mentioned, the latest case to date bearing the ADF signature was the terrorist attack committed on Sunday at the Malumalu roundabout in Beni. The suicide bomber who blew himself up was a Ugandan by the name of Ngudi Abdallah, who was very active alongside his leader, the sinister terrorist Amigo, and was identified as being in charge of training recruits and escorting new terrorists to Madina for indoctrination before their deployment to Mwalika. It is in this context of fighting terrorism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and throughout the world that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of my country has participated in the work of the Global Coalition against Da’esh in Rome, Italy. In the light of the foregoing, my Government again welcomes the United States Department of State’s designation of affiliates and leaders of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as terrorists and the imposition of sanctions against them. It also welcomes the fact that the Government of Canada has just designated the ADF, which is of Ugandan origin and responsible for several massacres in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, as a terrorist group affiliated with Da’esh. My country calls on the international community in general and the United Nations in particular to take this issue of the ADF connection to Islamic State entities very seriously and not to wait until it is too late to make useful recommendations to the 1533 Committee. We should not wait for the root cause to consolidate before acting, as that may make things more complicated. The Security Council has also expressed its concern about the continued illegal exploitation of and trade in natural resources, which has allowed armed groups operating in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to continue their activities. That having been said, my delegation would have liked resolution 2582 (2021) to strengthen forceful measures against criminal and mafioso actors and networks, which are implicitly incriminated in only one operational paragraph in the text of the resolution. Some countries were even mentioned in the report of the Group of Experts (S/2021/560), but there was no recommendation in the report targeting them. Rather, all recommendations were focused on the victim, namely, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and nothing was directed at the sponsors of terrorism and their accomplices. I take this opportunity to reiterate the appeal made on this point by the Head of State of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the international community when he spoke before the General Assembly (see A/75/ PV.5), for appropriate, targeted and effective sanctions to be applied to these armed groups and their networks and other accomplices who, through their harmful activities, are undermining all the Government’s efforts to bring about peace. With regard to improving the effectiveness of the management and security of stocks of arms and ammunition by the Government in order to reduce the risk of their being diverted to armed groups, it is important to stress that the Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo (FARDC) has strengthened the security of arms and ammunition depots with the support of such partners as the European Union, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany, by building depots that meet international standards for several of the country’s military entities. The FARDC has also engaged in marking and identifying weapons, worked to establish traceability in the use of the weapons of war and strengthened the control of weapons distribution. Furthermore, with respect to proven cases of rogue soldiers, as recently as Saturday, 26 June, the senior military prosecutor of the Ituri military court requested a five-year penal sentence for Colonel Jean Lambert and a three-year sentence for his administrative assistant for arms smuggling. My Government is currently in discussions with the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). Of the greatest importance to my Government is MONUSCO’s exit strategy from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, particularly in terms of the transfer of competencies and, in this context, the implementation of resolution 2556 (2020). MONUSCO has al-ready closed its offices in Kananga and Tshikapa. During this important transitional period, in which the country is preparing for the departure of MONUSCO in accordance with the agreed timetable, it is important for the security services to take over all the tasks that were previously carried out by MONUSCO. To that end, the Government is therefore called upon to assume its full responsibility for ensuring the security of the population and defence of the country’s territorial integrity. In order to fulfil to this major requirement, my Government would like to see the 1533 Committee begin to take the needed steps to lift the notification requirement imposed on my Government in relation to the importation of weapons. For my delegation, the measures requiring prior notification to the Committee under paragraph 5 of the resolution 1807 (2008) no longer effectively apply. The foregoing are the observations that my delegation wished to share with the Council, but I did not want to end without paying tribute to Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalán, the two United Nations experts who died while carrying out their mandate. In conclusion, we thank all the members of the Security Council for their support for and assistance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s efforts aimed at achieving stability in the country.

There are no more names inscribed on the list of speakers.