1) UN Peacekeepers Day 2013: 149 blue helmets killed in the DRC since 1999; & 2) A Diplomatic Row erupts between Rwanda and Tanzania

1) UN Peacekeepers Day 2013: 149 blue helmets killed in the DRC since 1999

"MONUSCO peacekeepers on patrol.UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti." (MONUSCO photo legend)

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Today is the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. And Congo, plagued by wars for over two decades now, has the dubious privilege of hosting close to 20,000 blue helmets. 

Lt. Col. Felix Basse, MONUSCO's military spokesman, took that opportunity to remind Congolese and the world that since the initial deployment in 1999 of the much-maligned UN Congo Mission, "first through MONUC and thereafter through MONUSCO, a total of 149 blue helmets have given their lives for the advent of peace" in the Congo--the most recent casualty being the Pakistani peacekeeper killed earlier this month in an ambush  in South Kivu Province. 

With the new Intervention Brigade that is deploying in North-Kivu Province, the toll of casualties among blue helmets is expected to rise.

2) Tanzanian Prez Jakata Jakaya Kikwete triggers diplomatic row with Rwanda over FDLR comment

Tanzanian Prez Jakata Jakaya Kikwete

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It just transpired that at a closed-door meeting on Sunday of heads of state of the so-called Framework countries for peace in the DRC in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of the 50th anniversary of the African Union, Tanzanian President Jakata Jakaya Kikwete bluntly suggested to presidents Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni that Rwanda should consider negotiating with the FDLR and Uganda with the rebel group ADF-NALU for peace to see the light of day in the Great Lakes.  

Kikwete was cautioning the assembled heads of state that the Intervention Brigade, which is led by Tanzania, can't magically end conflict in the region without all the "concerned parties" negotiating.

Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, known for her undiplomatic mouth and mudslinging, reacted savagely to Kikwete's remarks in a radio interview with Radio France Internationale (RFI) on Monday, branding the Tanzanian president as a sympathizer of the genocidiares. 

"There are many spokespeople for the FDLR," Mushikiwabo said. "Some are ideologically aligned with the FDLR. We stopped the genocide but we didn't stop [its] ideology."

Mushikiwabo, who has the reputation in the DRC of a mudslinger extraordinaire,  is the only person in the region who doesn't see the logic in Kikwete's statement.