Speaker 1: Cause Media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome to the podcast. It's James Today
Speaker 2: and I'm joined again by Kevin McDonald. Kevin is a
Speaker 2: retired officer fine the Irish Defense Forces with some special
Speaker 2: forces and peacekeeping experience. Welcome to the show, Kevin.
Speaker 3: Thanks, thanks very much for having me. And just as
Speaker 3: a sort of disclaimer at the very start, any viewser
Speaker 3: opinions that I expressed, the opinions of a retired senior
Speaker 3: officers from the Irish Defense Forces can't be construed has
Speaker 3: been in any way the views of the Irish Defense Forces,
Speaker 3: not indeed that of the United Nations. So I just
Speaker 3: wanted to but that I was there before we get
Speaker 3: into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, not a UN or an Irish Defense Forces spokesperson.
Speaker 2: Not that we've had many of those suppose on our show, Kevin.
Speaker 2: We're here today to talk a little bit about the
Speaker 2: situation in Congo and and perhaps more specifically like how
Speaker 2: the peacekeeping mission there has evolved and changed and sort
Speaker 2: of morphed over the years. So maybe just to begin with,
Speaker 2: I can give an idea that like this city of Goma,
Speaker 2: which is the capital of North Kivu Province, has recently
Speaker 2: been captured by m twenty three rebels would explain who
Speaker 2: they are people who an't familiar in a minute. It's
Speaker 2: a city of about a million people. I believe that's
Speaker 2: saying around three thousand people have been killed in this operation,
Speaker 2: which is I mean, it's a massive.
Speaker 3: Death toll in a short space of time, very.
Speaker 2: Short space of time. Yeah, And some of the other
Speaker 2: stuff I've heard, like at one point there's a prison
Speaker 2: within the city which there was a jail break, and
Speaker 2: they think a hundred of the women who were incarcerated
Speaker 2: there were sexually assaulted and in some cases burned alive
Speaker 2: after the jail break happened. Thousands of Congolese military and
Speaker 2: police have surrendered a contingent of I believe Romanian private
Speaker 2: military contractors were captured.
Speaker 3: Yes, captured, surrendered either where they went into Rwanda. I
Speaker 3: think about three hundred of them, which is a significant
Speaker 3: amount of mercenaries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, especially when we're talking about Romania, which is
Speaker 2: not a vast country.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Understandably, a lot of things are happening in the US,
Speaker 2: so people may have missed it, and like I think
Speaker 2: people in the US, just due to the nature of
Speaker 2: news being quite naval gazing here may not be as
Speaker 2: familiar with the conflict in Congo, Like if they know
Speaker 2: about it, it's from Warren's Evon songs or maybe from
Speaker 2: maybe from a couple.
Speaker 3: Of films, Lyer's Gone and Money. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's the other one?
Speaker 3: Roland, the Thompson Ganna. That's the yeah, Lowland, the headless Thompson.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's the one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So let's
Speaker 2: talk then about the various United Nations peacekeeping missions in Congo.
Speaker 2: They've been there for since the nineteen sixties, is it
Speaker 2: on and off?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So the first mission in the Congo was or
Speaker 3: No in nineteen sixty, and a lot of people would
Speaker 3: say that that was the first UN mission, but as
Speaker 3: I think we discussed the last time, the first YU
Speaker 3: went mission was full scale war in nineteen fifty in Korea. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that mission is still in existence the UNC, the
Speaker 3: United Nations Command. But I suppose speaking about the Congo specifically.
Speaker 3: So in nineteen sixty there was seventeen newly independent states,
Speaker 3: of which fourteen were from Africa, agreed to a call
Speaker 3: from the U went to establish this mission in the Congo,
Speaker 3: and Ireland answered the call as well, so we deployed
Speaker 3: it was the first time that we deployed with the
Speaker 3: UN and we had a battalion there from nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: to I think nineteen sixty whenever the initial deployment ended,
Speaker 3: and it was a fairly tough, intense introduction to peacekeeping.
Speaker 3: In the early in nineteen sixty there was an engagement
Speaker 3: between an Irish platoon and a large group of Beluba
Speaker 3: tribesmen and there was nine Irish soldiers killed and twenty
Speaker 3: six Belubas killed, and that was the first time that
Speaker 3: Ireland kind of had to deal with that kind of
Speaker 3: death overseas, so it was pretty traumatic. And then in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty one, you've probably seen the film The Siege
Speaker 3: of Jariteville, but it recounts the true story of an
Speaker 3: Irish company under COMMONDA. Pack Quendlin. His company was one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty eight roughly strong, and they were attacked
Speaker 3: while they were at mass on a Sunday morning by
Speaker 3: a group of between three and four thousand Catanganese well
Speaker 3: armed soldiers backed up by French and Belgium and South
Speaker 3: African mercenaries. They also had an attack helicopter and they
Speaker 3: had an attack chest.
Speaker 2: I think he had some of the old Rhodesis in
Speaker 2: there as well at that time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, well yeah, unfortunately, anything for a fight,
Speaker 3: but the Irish held out for I think over a week,
Speaker 3: and they didn't give up when they ran out of water,
Speaker 3: they didn't give up when they ran out of food.
Speaker 3: It was when they had no bullets left they negotiated
Speaker 3: a surrender thanks to the skill of the officers and
Speaker 3: NCOs and men. Not one fatality on the Irish side. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: when they came home because they had surrendered, they were
Speaker 3: treated like praias. For years it was seen like a
Speaker 3: state on the nation. Now if God forbid, they had
Speaker 3: fifty percent casualties that have been treated like heroes. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's only in recent years that they're getting the
Speaker 3: recognition that they should have got back in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting. I know they've been treated that way.
Speaker 2: It's quite sad to hear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a strange one and a lot of
Speaker 3: the people that we will say shunning these officers and
Speaker 3: NCOs and men. It's happened to serve to overseas and
Speaker 3: like if the UN they tried once to resupply them
Speaker 3: with ammunition from the year, but it wasn't successful, So
Speaker 3: if the UN had fully supported that company, they would
Speaker 3: have held out even longer. But I suppose that's that's
Speaker 3: the way things things go. So that's the first mission
Speaker 3: to the Congo, and I could be corrected. I think
Speaker 3: sixty four or sixty five. It might have sort of
Speaker 3: started to draw down then in nineteen ninety nine, after
Speaker 3: it was the first the second war, or the UN
Speaker 3: established monarch monu See and that lasted from nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: nine until twenty ten when it was renamed and rechanged
Speaker 3: into MINUSCO. And the difference between the two is that
Speaker 3: MINUSCO is what we call an integrated mission, and the
Speaker 3: three pillars of an integrated mission are the restoration of
Speaker 3: the rule of law, the protection of civilians, and the
Speaker 3: provision for long term recovery and democratic governance. So it's
Speaker 3: combining we'll say, the force of a military presence, but
Speaker 3: also there's special advises on justice and policing, on governance,
Speaker 3: all that sort of stuff which you wouldn't have an
Speaker 3: emission like UNIFILM, which we discussed the last time, yeah,
Speaker 3: which is the earlier form of peacekeeping. So MINUSCO was
Speaker 3: supposed to have left the country in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: but they were given a I think a one year extension. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately now with the twenty three rebel advance, the
Speaker 3: mission is relocating most of its staff evacuating others. The
Speaker 3: difference between the two terms is very specific. You relocate
Speaker 3: within the country and you evacuate out of the country.
Speaker 3: And I also note that the some of the Hybrid
Speaker 3: African Union peacekeeping operations there was I think thirteen South
Speaker 3: Africans killed and in the initial stages of the of
Speaker 3: the onslaught towards towards going. So that that's kind of
Speaker 3: where we are with the with the I think at
Speaker 3: the at its height with in twenty one twenty two,
Speaker 3: there was probably a strength of twenty thousand. But if
Speaker 3: you think the DRC is the second largest country in Africa,
Speaker 3: vast and the eleventh largest country in the world, just
Speaker 3: the size of just phenomenal. So you can imagine what
Speaker 3: the Congo and this entire no more than Sudan, but
Speaker 3: what the Congo and its entirety was back in the day. Yeah,
Speaker 3: absolutely huge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's asked. It encompasses different climates, own different ethnic groups,
Speaker 2: as we're seeing.
Speaker 3: Right, two hundred main ethnic groups.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's it's a fascinating place. It's a place
Speaker 2: I've wanted to go for a long time. I spent
Speaker 2: some time on the Congo Rwanda border a few years ago.
Speaker 2: I'm not so far from going er actually like riding
Speaker 2: riding my bike around, and it's a very interesting place
Speaker 2: in terms of what Rwanda is a very interesting place
Speaker 2: in terms of its relation to its neighbors. I think
Speaker 2: people will probably struggle to conceptualize. I actually saw somebody
Speaker 2: had posted on Twitter, somebody who talks about Syria mostly
Speaker 2: like how on Earth is Rwanda invading Congo? And they
Speaker 2: had like a picture, you know, and the land mass
Speaker 2: of Rwanda. Ruanda is one of the smaller countries in Africa,
Speaker 2: and Congo is obviously a vast country. Are you comfortable
Speaker 2: explaining a little bit of like the Rwandan involvement.
Speaker 3: It's complicated and it goes back to the it is
Speaker 3: genocide back in ninety four ninety four, I think you yeah.
Speaker 3: And the the two Kivus, North and South Kivu, which
Speaker 3: is on the border with Rwanda, there's a large amount
Speaker 3: of ethnic Tutsis Congolese Tutsis there. I think what Rwanda
Speaker 3: has always projected force into the Two Kivus and Catanga
Speaker 3: because like literally that that's that's where the money is.
Speaker 3: Of course Rwanda would say they don't, but they are
Speaker 3: actively supporting and empty industry and have and most of
Speaker 3: the twenty three, certainly the leadership would be ethnic conglese Utsis.
Speaker 3: So ostensibly I think the raison deaths for Romanda's involvement
Speaker 3: was to protect the ethnic Tutsis from Hutus that had
Speaker 3: escaped from the from the the genocide. So it's complicated,
Speaker 3: but if you kind of part those complications and think
Speaker 3: of the money trail, it kind of leads to the
Speaker 3: Two Kivus because seventy percent of the world's bolt, I think,
Speaker 3: is kind of located between the Two Kivus, and then
Speaker 3: you have gold, diamonds, all the other sort of rich minerals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, incredible wealth in Congo.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but I was reading that the estimated deposits
Speaker 3: in eastern Congo is something like twenty three trillion, Like
Speaker 3: it's off the wall stuff. Yeah, So it's no wonder
Speaker 3: it's become the battleground that it has essentially since nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty because in nineteen sixty, after getting independence, the Kivu
Speaker 3: and Katanga wanted to secede back by belt and that's
Speaker 3: kind of what kicked off a lot of the conflict
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty and the reverberations from that are still
Speaker 3: are still kind of being felt and been exploited because
Speaker 3: everyone wants to get a piece of the action, like
Speaker 3: all the surrounding countries. So yeah, I see, I think
Speaker 3: it was yesterday that the they're planning a meeting. I
Speaker 3: think it's this week or this weekend to try and
Speaker 3: resolve the afflict. And this time they're going to try
Speaker 3: and include entry twenty three in the in the amazing
Speaker 3: rather than ex Google. I don't think that the choice.
Speaker 3: I mean they're heading down to Book of Auso.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean A twenty three have said that they're
Speaker 2: going for sort of the whole country now that they're
Speaker 2: not you know, it's not as not a regional or
Speaker 2: like you know, ethnic movement so much as a and
Speaker 2: that they will M twenty three would say that they're
Speaker 2: not like per se ethnic separatists, right, like I think
Speaker 2: they would claim that they're like a Liberation of Congo force.
Speaker 2: And then you've Burundi supporting the Congolese government. You know
Speaker 2: that there's all kinds of as you say, like regional
Speaker 2: and international actors because of the wealth in Congo, and
Speaker 2: like let's Congo emerge from the DC emerged from its
Speaker 2: colonial past. Right, it's always been destabilized by these actors,
Speaker 2: both regional and international, who who wanted a piece of
Speaker 2: that mineral wealth, and then they've created and sustained these
Speaker 2: differences which have become I think there's some evidence to
Speaker 2: suggest that, like certainly that they're like the ethnic differences
Speaker 2: have become more pronounced and more like intransigent, I suppose,
Speaker 2: or like you know, it's become more difficult for those
Speaker 2: ethnic groups to co exist over time due to decades
Speaker 2: of conflict, right and killing, and it's a very difficult
Speaker 2: situation and it leaves people like the civilians living in
Speaker 2: Goma today in a terrible situation where I think this
Speaker 2: is the fifth time that people have attacked Goma, Like
Speaker 2: it's certainly I think the last time was about twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: was it when the last time M twenty three took Goma?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's that's when the which we've probably just
Speaker 3: gossed later, the Force and Invention Brigade. Yeah, we took
Speaker 3: Goma in twenty thirteen in a relatively shar space of time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: compared to how long we took to more, they regained
Speaker 3: it very quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think we break for adverts now. I'd
Speaker 2: like to come back and discuss the Force Intervention Brigade
Speaker 2: because I think it's something that people ought to understand
Speaker 2: when we talk about peacekeeping. And we're back, okay, So, yeah,
Speaker 2: you mentioned the Force Internsian Brigade, which is something a
Speaker 2: bit unique within peacekeeping, and there's a lot of like
Speaker 2: when people talk about peacekeeping, they'll be like, oh, why
Speaker 2: aren't they fighting? Why aren't they like going and stopping
Speaker 2: the things? And I understand why people ask that, So
Speaker 2: can you explain a little bit about what the FIB
Speaker 2: was and what it did.
Speaker 3: The concept of the Force Interventional Brigade was I think,
Speaker 3: to my knowledge, it's the first UN mission that developed
Speaker 3: that concept, and they actually changed the mandate to include
Speaker 3: an offensive capability for U and troops as opposed to
Speaker 3: defensive or separation of war in factions. This was full
Speaker 3: on war fighting and what they had figured out because
Speaker 3: the DRC is so big, but the footprint even with
Speaker 3: twenty thousand troops the footprint on the ground was not
Speaker 3: sufficient to say, as I said, one of the three
Speaker 3: pillars of an integrated emissions protection of civilians, and they
Speaker 3: were finding that very difficult. So they decided to use
Speaker 3: a concept of protection by projection rather than protection by presence.
Speaker 3: So not alone did they have the force and digans
Speaker 3: from brigade, they had the joint protection teams and also
Speaker 3: an idea of a rapidly deployable battalion. So the idea
Speaker 3: was that the force and Divention Brigade would say, do
Speaker 3: the heavy lifting, and then when hotspots that flare up,
Speaker 3: they could choose either the rapidly deployed out the battalions
Speaker 3: or the joint protection teams. So the idea was that
Speaker 3: rather than having static positions trying to protect people, they
Speaker 3: would go where the action was. That was the idea,
Speaker 3: and in fairness, the FIB had artillery, martor snipers, attack helicopters, UAVs,
Speaker 3: special forces then retook Gum And I don't know the
Speaker 3: exact timeframe, but I think it was less than a
Speaker 3: month of the problems and I think we touched one
Speaker 3: at the last time we spoke, and I think this
Speaker 3: was a specific problem to the how the FIB didn't
Speaker 3: really keep going the way it should have is that
Speaker 3: two of the men TCCs were Tanza, Vegan and South Africa,
Speaker 3: and they would have had slightly different agendas in terms
Speaker 3: of who they should and they shouldn't attack based on
Speaker 3: the government's position. Sorry, true country from the countries. Excuse me,
Speaker 3: I should have said that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's a sea of acronyms here. I've tried
Speaker 2: to avoid all these faction acronyms, but yeah, yeah, explain
Speaker 2: that a bit, because when people think of the UN
Speaker 2: or in peacekeepers or troop contributing countries, the only time
Speaker 2: it comes on the news in sort of the global
Speaker 2: north is when people from say Northern Europe or North
Speaker 2: America are part of these UN peacekeeping missions. So they
Speaker 2: think of people British troops, America and Canadian what have you,
Speaker 2: yea in their blue helmets. Right that the vast bulk
Speaker 2: of TCCs don't come from from Northern Europe. Right in Africa,
Speaker 2: that the majority of TCC's or other African countries, I
Speaker 2: think I'm right saying it's a majority.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like like here here in in South Sudan, most
Speaker 3: of the big battalions are Wanda, Nepal, Mongolia, China. Generally speaking,
Speaker 3: in my experience in the Central African Republic and and
Speaker 3: here a lot of the battalions come from Africa, which
Speaker 3: which is fair enough. I mean it's it's their continent. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and they should have a they should have a stake
Speaker 3: in trying to faster piece and develop peace and and
Speaker 3: and help countries in less or more dire situations than
Speaker 3: they themselves perhaps are. So it's understandral point about about
Speaker 3: different countries being aware of what the UN does based
Speaker 3: on I take, for instance, everyone in Ireland knows about
Speaker 3: the UN when and then all about the Irish and Lebanon,
Speaker 3: and in Syria and in Africa. I'm sure in the
Speaker 3: Nha Kingdom, because you've got a very small UN footprint. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Cyprus been one, and there's a few of you guys here.
Speaker 3: Generally people in the UK, I'm sure you'll be able
Speaker 3: to enlighten me on this wouldn't have the exact same
Speaker 3: intimate knowledge or even interest in the UN, yeah, because
Speaker 3: basically they don't have a big footprint, deployable footprint.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And it's the same with the United States.
Speaker 2: I think it's not something that people think about for
Speaker 2: the most part, and so like that's this question of
Speaker 2: like why doesn't the un Certainly I think when people
Speaker 2: saw what happened recently in Lebanon, they were like, why
Speaker 2: are these peacekeepers? You know where you had these peacekeepers.
Speaker 2: And we spoke about this in our last episode, right
Speaker 2: being shelled being shot at. You know, the people were
Speaker 2: asking why they went out there fighting, and there are
Speaker 2: a lot of reasons for that, one being it that's
Speaker 2: not what they're there to do. But yeah, when we
Speaker 2: had this Force Intervention Brigade in Congo, they did some
Speaker 2: good things, right, they were able to retake Goma, and
Speaker 2: for the people who lived in Goma, I'm sure that
Speaker 2: was very important, like that meaningfully improved their lives. But
Speaker 2: like it also comes with these complications that you've addressed, right,
Speaker 2: Like each of those those troop contributing countries, you need
Speaker 2: everyone to be committed to like the same mission, I suppose,
Speaker 2: and like if if your government is giving your armed
Speaker 2: forces one mission that differs slightly from that which the
Speaker 2: whoever's in commanded the force into gentry brigade hats, then
Speaker 2: we get friction, right, or it's not as efficient as
Speaker 2: it could.
Speaker 3: Be Yeah, I think I'm sure I mentioned this when
Speaker 3: we last spoke. It's one thing developing a robust mandate,
Speaker 3: but if the if the TCCs don't have the skills,
Speaker 3: the experience, the training, the equipment, or the will to
Speaker 3: enforce the robust nature of that mandate, well then the
Speaker 3: mandate isn't really worth anything, you know. So it's it's
Speaker 3: kind of like, yes, the FIB was extremely effective for
Speaker 3: a while until it wasn't. Now whether that was a
Speaker 3: lack of will on the TCCs or on New York
Speaker 3: or mission leadership, I have no idea, but it was
Speaker 3: a great idea and it worked and then it didn't work.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Plus the fact that the DOC wanted the mission to
Speaker 3: downsize and eventually leave, that added to the should we
Speaker 3: really invest in something when we're going to pull out
Speaker 3: because the country doesn't want to see her anymore? Which is
Speaker 3: again it's a fair point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, No one wants foreign troops in their country, right,
Speaker 2: you know, walking around, especially you know, engaging their own citizens.
Speaker 2: But I mean it's interesting. I was watching a speaks
Speaker 2: the current president of the DC, Felix Tishi Sakedy. I've
Speaker 2: tried my best to pronounce it correctly. It's not that diffrespect.
Speaker 2: He was saying that the international community is bordering on
Speaker 2: complicit in M twenty three to advance because of the
Speaker 2: failure to do anything about it in a speech he
Speaker 2: gave this week, And it was interesting because it had
Speaker 2: previously been, like you said, for under very understandable reasons,
Speaker 2: especially in the DRC, which has this long and horrible
Speaker 2: history of colonialism, like the terrible things done in the
Speaker 2: Belgian Congo. We've covered. There's a lot on basketsweenw the
Speaker 2: show that we do. People can listen to that if
Speaker 2: they want to. But like now he's asking for more help,
Speaker 2: which is also understandable because you know, his military is
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty five thousand or so like and
Speaker 2: a large number of that it's not very combat effective
Speaker 2: forces maybe and they've just been overrun in Goma in
Speaker 2: a big city, a city of a million people. So like,
Speaker 2: where do you think we go from here? What's like,
Speaker 2: we're at a very unique time in world history in
Speaker 2: which the United States is it's doing some things with
Speaker 2: his foreign policy. Like I mean, I don't know, I
Speaker 2: won't really meant words about anything. It's terrible, but if
Speaker 2: we talk about like USAID, right I was speaking to
Speaker 2: people on the Thai Burmese border last week who were
Speaker 2: telling me that USAID has turned off life support machines
Speaker 2: as part of it to throwdown, and that people obviously
Speaker 2: directly died as a result of that. There So the
Speaker 2: US is not necessarily averse to having terrible consequences to
Speaker 2: its whatever it's trying to do right now, which I
Speaker 2: don't really have a good word for. So look, where
Speaker 2: do we go from here with the US becoming more isolationists.
Speaker 3: Well, let's discuss for a few minutes the alternatives to
Speaker 3: UN peacekeep yep, and there's a lot of them here
Speaker 3: in Africa. So you have the South African Development Community static,
Speaker 3: the East African community. There was an African Union stroke
Speaker 3: un Hybrid mission and therefore unimit which is closing. There
Speaker 3: was a NEO mission in Somalia. There is the Lake
Speaker 3: Chad based and Multinational Task Force. There's the Group of
Speaker 3: Five for the Sahel. Then you had EU four which
Speaker 3: was an EU force in Chad and in Mali and
Speaker 3: subsequently became miner Cat in Chad and Minusma and Mali.
Speaker 3: Then you have the EUTM mission in Mali, which I
Speaker 3: was part of at one stage and another one in scenario,
Speaker 3: And of course we have our mercenaries, you know, and
Speaker 3: when it emerged that there was over three hundred of
Speaker 3: them allowed into Rwanda, I was reading the report that
Speaker 3: they were getting something like three and a half thousand
Speaker 3: dollars a month, whereas the DRC soldiers were getting maybe
Speaker 3: three hundred dollars a month. Yeah, you know, and these
Speaker 3: guys were brought in to protect the minds because again
Speaker 3: it goes back to money.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, platal resources, not people. That's a different thing.
Speaker 2: So what if those like those African led peacekeeping missions
Speaker 2: look like like you talked about these various like international
Speaker 2: and regional groups.
Speaker 3: I think it's it's certainly worth a try, because dun
Speaker 3: hasn't the ability, need the money izume to keep doing
Speaker 3: these large, big missions. At one stage, the three largest
Speaker 3: missions were MENUSCO, which were discussing MINUSCA and the Central
Speaker 3: African Republic, and MINUSMA, which was in Mali. Mali's gone,
Speaker 3: DRC is on the drawdown. Central African Republic is still there,
Speaker 3: but I've noticed I spent four years there and obviously
Speaker 3: have a keen interest in the place. But there has
Speaker 3: been a big increase in anti anti French with a
Speaker 3: Francophone country. Yeah, anti French and linked with a kind
Speaker 3: of an anti UN sentiment. No, the special advisor to
Speaker 3: the President is from Russia. Wagner, you had a big
Speaker 3: part to play when I was there. There were key players.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Most likely they're inter linked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and they've done some things which are
Speaker 2: horrific in terms. We've covered that as well with the
Speaker 2: print Derma on the show. I did want to talk
Speaker 2: about this because the US is talking about withdrawing its
Speaker 2: sort of what we call soft power assets right around
Speaker 2: the world, and I saw, like I forget who it
Speaker 2: was saying, like, oh, let the chips fall where they may.
Speaker 2: It's very obvious where the chips will fall in this
Speaker 2: part of the world, right like when I was in Rwanda.
Speaker 2: Every fancy road in Rwanda they call them Chinese roads
Speaker 2: because they go from the mind to the airport beltion braces.
Speaker 2: It's as naked a resource extraction project as you'll see
Speaker 2: right now. China also does a soft power thing. They'll
Speaker 2: build hospitals and these. You know, I forget where the
Speaker 2: quote comes from, but like every time the US comes
Speaker 2: we get a lecture and every time China comes, we
Speaker 2: get a hospital. This will reorient the way these countries,
Speaker 2: specifically in Africa, associate with the world right with the
Speaker 2: US draw down and the United Nations not capable or
Speaker 2: willing of sort of doing these massive peacekeeping missions. And
Speaker 2: I think for very understandable reasons, groups like the EU.
Speaker 2: You know, it's best not to have large deployment to
Speaker 2: European and unmour what is in Africa for reasons that
Speaker 2: are probably quite obvious. So like, yeah, we were likely
Speaker 2: to see I mean, hasn't Wagner rebranded itself as the
Speaker 2: Africa Core now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure who who's running it now, but
Speaker 3: I'm sure the strings are being more closely pulled by
Speaker 3: by Putin as opposed to having very loose control when
Speaker 3: Pregosi was there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was given him like a standoff capability, was right,
Speaker 3: This is just a PMC, nothing to do with me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I would imagine after his drive to Moscow and
Speaker 3: a subsequent demise, I'm sure that whoever is running the
Speaker 3: Africa Core is much more tightly controlled by the criminal
Speaker 3: I would I would imagine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a British India Company kind of model,
Speaker 2: like a sort of proxy colonialism, but very tight. Like
Speaker 2: you say, it's just almost just like a different badge
Speaker 2: on the same thing there. I think this is one
Speaker 2: of the things that won't get talked about in the
Speaker 2: next four years because the US media will talk about
Speaker 2: the US a lot. Again, I mean they always do.
Speaker 2: But I think people should be concerned about this about
Speaker 2: the future for like multi national peacekeeping in Africa, and
Speaker 2: more importantly, I guess the future for or interlink without
Speaker 2: the future for human rights in Africa. What do you
Speaker 2: see as like meaningful ways that people can advocate for
Speaker 2: a future for Africa which is not just another set
Speaker 2: of countries extracting resources and leaving very little for the
Speaker 2: people there, which is something that has happened. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm a British person. This has happened by British people
Speaker 2: for a very long time and other European people for
Speaker 2: a very long time. But like that doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: we shouldn't try to stop it happening in the future.
Speaker 3: That's a difficult one to answer, because yeah, ideally African
Speaker 3: problems should, in my opinion, be solved by African nations,
Speaker 3: and that's the reason that the African Union and all
Speaker 3: these other ones that I mentioned I think are an
Speaker 3: attempt to do that. Yeah, And certainly Europe and the
Speaker 3: US shouldn't be dictating how Africans government themselves. They should
Speaker 3: be assisting in good governance, good policing, good judiciary. But
Speaker 3: it kind of goes back to money again, because there's
Speaker 3: so much of a vested interest. I heard a figure
Speaker 3: that twenty three were getting eight hundred thousand dollars a
Speaker 3: month from some of the mines in the Kivus. I believe, so, well,
Speaker 3: get that kind of money floating around, a lot of
Speaker 3: people maybe don't want to sort things out, and it
Speaker 3: may suit to leave the mayhem there and use all
Speaker 3: these artisanal miners who are getting paid a couple of
Speaker 3: cents a day. And Rwanda has just got a big
Speaker 3: contract with the EU in terms of diamonds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that is the thing, right, we can
Speaker 2: hell where this stuff comes from, Like there is a
Speaker 2: means to try and limit the amount of these resources
Speaker 2: which you can leave conflict zones in a way which
Speaker 2: benefits belligerent parties. It's where the markets for those resources
Speaker 2: are willing to do it, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And everyone has mistaken the plat whether it's the
Speaker 3: overseer of the mind, whether it's the company that owns
Speaker 3: the mind, whether it's the people that move the product
Speaker 3: from Kivu into someone's neighboring country, and then ultimately the
Speaker 3: people that bias commercially in Western Europe or around the
Speaker 3: rest of the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's it's not you know, people think
Speaker 2: of diamonds a lot, and I think people that there's
Speaker 2: been a kind of movement to purchase diamonds which you're
Speaker 2: ethically sourced, or to just not use diamonds, to sort
Speaker 2: of move away from them as like a store of value.
Speaker 2: But it's also the parts in your mobile phone, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's not you know, it's not just like fancy engagement
Speaker 2: rings because.
Speaker 3: This is it. Yeah, you wouldn't a bit double the
Speaker 3: price for more ethical mining methods most people probably earn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing, right, and especially when it's out
Speaker 2: of sight, out of mind for most people, even compared
Speaker 2: to you know, we obviously genocide Palestinian people or the
Speaker 2: you know, when we think about these other atrostees, right, like,
Speaker 2: those have not remained out of sight out of mind,
Speaker 2: because they're visible in people social media because you know,
Speaker 2: people in Palestine have phones and they can film, and
Speaker 2: that's I think meaningfully changed the way. Like I wouldn't
Speaker 2: have thought American people would care about Palestinian people. I
Speaker 2: moved here in two thousand and eight, and you wouldn't
Speaker 2: have found much interest in Palestine.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't have expected them to promote ethnic cleansing of
Speaker 3: guz Yeah.
Speaker 2: I know you well, you wouldn't have expected that either.
Speaker 2: But the movement like to support Palestinian people from the
Speaker 2: grassroots and then also the government doing the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: You know, It's come from the bottom up. It hasn't
Speaker 2: come from like government advocacy. But we don't see that
Speaker 2: as much with certainly this part of Africa, right like,
Speaker 2: and it's I expose it's contro it's goings of like
Speaker 2: people in Congo maybe aren't able to access those global
Speaker 2: networks of like social media and maybe to share their stories,
Speaker 2: you know. And I think it's also a consequence of
Speaker 2: us in the media not reporting at all, you know,
Speaker 2: Like I've for years tried to sell stories about Africa
Speaker 2: to American publications and at best they'll want a story
Speaker 2: about like the people who are starting like social enterprise
Speaker 2: European or North American people starting like social enterprises or
Speaker 2: like sort of beneficial companies. And I understand it's have
Speaker 2: a role, but like, you're not going to persuade me
Speaker 2: that there isn't a single African person of interest to you,
Speaker 2: and that like it's someone who came from North America
Speaker 2: that is the only relevant story to tell in Africa.
Speaker 2: And like I've had this falling out with so many
Speaker 2: editors over the years that like, no, I don't want
Speaker 2: to tell that story. I want to tell a story
Speaker 2: about people from Congo and Congo, about people from Rwanda
Speaker 2: and Rwanda.
Speaker 3: I live in the town towards the west coast of Iland,
Speaker 3: and there's a guy from there. What I'll do is
Speaker 3: I'll send you a link. Yeah, yeah, but he's passionate
Speaker 3: about getting free education in Africa, between online courses and
Speaker 3: online libraries. Obviously, the more education you get, the better
Speaker 3: chance you have of having a better life. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I think of some stuff and I'll send an Auntie
Speaker 3: and then you can figure out whether it'll be an
Speaker 3: interesting topic or whatever. But I just literally as we
Speaker 3: were talking, I was thinking of how one guy is
Speaker 3: trying to change conditions for younger people in Africa and
Speaker 3: trying to give it to them for free.
Speaker 2: That's it. Yeah, that's the key. It is like people
Speaker 2: doing it. One of the things that people did which
Speaker 2: I thought was really great as an example as a model,
Speaker 2: is from October about October the tenth of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: I suppose people weren't going to school or university in Gaza,
Speaker 2: and very quickly there weren't any universities in Gaza because
Speaker 2: they all got bombed. Right, the colleagues of mine in
Speaker 2: academic departments started putting on seminars and lectures that Palestinian people,
Speaker 2: be they displaced or still in Gaza, but with access
Speaker 2: to internet, you know it's still displaced but internally displaced,
Speaker 2: could attend and continue with their educations. And I thought
Speaker 2: that was a really great, like solidarity based way to
Speaker 2: facilitate access to something that people have had taken away
Speaker 2: from them through no fault. There weren't by state aggression.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, there's a model for that. I mean, colonialism
Speaker 2: has done many terrible things, but it's given us a
Speaker 2: common language with a lot of our African friends. You know,
Speaker 2: you speak French and English, you can do quite well,
Speaker 2: So like, yeah, there are things available, and I wish
Speaker 2: people would I don't think people should stop caring about Palestine,
Speaker 2: of course I don't, but I do wish they would
Speaker 2: care more about people in Africa too, because like, they
Speaker 2: don't deserve this any more than anyone else.
Speaker 3: I was born in nineteen sixty when the first mission
Speaker 3: went to to the Congo. Yeah, and it's been going on,
Speaker 3: like I'm sixty four, it's been around sixty four years. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so no more than the problem with the Palestiniots, I
Speaker 3: think some people, unless you have a specific interest in
Speaker 3: it or feel passionate about it, a lot of people
Speaker 3: just I think, chuwe out and to go to the
Speaker 3: next pronouncement from the White House, you know, clickbit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I think it's a sad fact, but it's the
Speaker 3: factor I.
Speaker 2: Think, Yeah, yeah, it's a shame. And like you know,
Speaker 2: if there's one thing I'd like to do with my career,
Speaker 2: I'd like to spend more time in that part of
Speaker 2: the world and do more reporting. And I think we
Speaker 2: could do a lot with as a media with just
Speaker 2: explaining how life is for everyday people, because people think
Speaker 2: about Congo in terms of yeah, the m twenty three
Speaker 2: in the Congolese government and who too, militias and this
Speaker 2: and that, But the vast majority of people are just
Speaker 2: trying to get on with their day. You know, they
Speaker 2: want a better future for their children. Yeah, and you
Speaker 2: know the fact that your mobile phone it's cheap, it's
Speaker 2: maybe making their children's future worse. And that's something that
Speaker 2: we need to reckon with. And e cares Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean this is the thing. People don't talk about
Speaker 2: electric cars. It's so as weird. It's all that stuff
Speaker 2: come and then even here in America right whether the
Speaker 2: US trying to mind lithium on reservations where you know
Speaker 2: the land there's little land it's left indigenous people to
Speaker 2: have sovereignty on it's where it's now trying to do
Speaker 2: this very invasive form of mining. Kevin, you've written a book,
Speaker 2: So would you like to as we wind down here,
Speaker 2: do you want to expend a little bit about about
Speaker 2: your books so that if people are interested in your
Speaker 2: life and your time as a peacekeeper and an archaeologist.
Speaker 3: Okay, so what starts on off as a lockdown Prodridge.
Speaker 3: When COVID hit back in the day, I decided I
Speaker 3: would write an account of my weird of wonderful life
Speaker 3: for my just from my family, and we'll just start
Speaker 3: writing as or no doubt where you start remembering. And
Speaker 3: suddenly I was at something like a hundred thousand words
Speaker 3: and I thought, right, there might be a book in this.
Speaker 3: And I know, obviously I'm opinionated about my own book naturally,
Speaker 3: but it's not just a book about some random military
Speaker 3: guy waffling on about his military career. I've a separate
Speaker 3: career in mountaineering and kind of nearly a separate career
Speaker 3: in archaeology, so it's it's a mixture of soldiering, mountaineering
Speaker 3: and archaeology. As someone said it to me, it's a
Speaker 3: bit like Chris Bonnington meets Bear Grills meets Indiana Jones,
Speaker 3: which is a weird and wonderful way to do. So
Speaker 3: the title of the book is a Lifeless Ordinary, which
Speaker 3: this was a recruiting slogo in the nineteen nineties for
Speaker 3: the Irish Defense Forces. I think I'll sent you the
Speaker 3: link yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If not, I'll do it yeah immediately, so all your
Speaker 3: viewers can can order the book. You can only get
Speaker 3: it online at the publishers. It's not on Amazon at first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well maybe maybe fore the best given the way
Speaker 2: tech people are playing the US economy. Yeah, you can.
Speaker 2: You can get it online. You can get it sent
Speaker 2: to the United States if you interest dated. I did.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time, Kevin. You're insights today.
Speaker 2: I know we really appreciate it. Is there anywhere else
Speaker 2: if people want to follow you online? Aside from the book?
Speaker 3: The book is probably the best one. What is probably
Speaker 3: the best way to get in comment? I'm on LinkedIn
Speaker 3: and yeah, the normal stuff. Just google Kevin McDonald and
Speaker 3: I should, I should come up. I was resisting for
Speaker 3: years and years, and eventually I googled Kevin McDonald and
Speaker 3: I was surprised at the amount of Kevin McDonald's There
Speaker 3: is a famous American actor I think called Kevin McDonald. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: but I just as a small parting shot when when
Speaker 3: I was in Mali, I was researching the archaeology of Mali,
Speaker 3: and the world expert on Malayane archaeology is a professor, naturally,
Speaker 3: Kevin mac donald. So I sent him an am here
Speaker 3: and I said, by the way, I'm also an archaeologist
Speaker 3: and my name is Kevin McDonald, and he goes my words.
Speaker 3: I'd be in Bungi are in Bamaco in two weeks time.
Speaker 3: Let's meet. So the two Kevin McDonald's two archaeologists met
Speaker 3: up in Bamaco to discuss archaeology.
Speaker 2: So that's nice when these things kept.
Speaker 3: Again another one of my word and wonderful stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, well, thanks so much for joining us to Kevin.
Speaker 2: So it's nice to hiss me.
Speaker 3: You're more than welcome, Jims.
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