A Pacifist at War: An Unlikely Leader's Success in Congo

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-pacifist-leads-un-force-in-congo-a-933381.html



In the embattled region of eastern Congo, the United Nations is deploying a real combat brigade for the first time. It's being led by a German pacifist who believes peacekeeping sometimes requires the use of military force. His approach appears to be working.

A Pacifist at War: An Unlikely Leader's Success in Congo
By Juliane von Mittelstaedt
November 14, 2013 – 04:16 PM

On a Monday morning in late October, Martin Kobler is sitting in an armored personnel carrier, bumping along National Road No. 2 from Kiwanja to Rutshuru, which is more of a path than a main road. It leads through the eastern part of Congo, a country the size of Western Europe. In recent years, more people have been murdered, tortured and raped in Congo than anywhere else in the world. And now Kobler, a German, has come here to bring about peace by armed force.

He opens the vehicle's hatch and pushes his upper body through the opening to behold a breathtaking landscape of volcanoes, rain forest and fertile fields. "What a beautiful country this is," he says, "or rather, could be."

He waves to children by the roadside and gazes with satisfaction at the first refugees returning to their abandoned villages, carrying mattresses and water cans on their backs.

For the first time in one-and-a-half years, it is possible to walk along this road without the fear of being attacked, raped or killed. That's how long the M23, a militia consisting primarily of members of the Tutsi ethnic group and supported with arms and money from neighboring Rwanda, controlled the region. But now the Congolese army has managed to drive the M23 out of the region in less than a week. It's a success for Congo -- and for Kobler.