"Jason K. Stearns" is an American writer who worked for ten years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo/Congo, including three years during the Second Congo War. He first traveled to the Congo in 2001 to work for a local human rights organization, Héritiers de la Justice, in Bukavu. He went on to work for the United Nations peacekeeping mission (MONUC). In 2008 Stearns was named by the UN Secretary General to lead a special UN investigation into the violence in the country.

Stearns is the author of the book, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa, and the blog, [http://congosiasa.blogspot.com/ Congo Siasa]. He is currently getting a Ph.D. in political science at Yale University.

More Jason Stearns on Wikipedia.

The threats haven't worked and the U.N. and the Congolese army have failed to get rid of all these armed groups.

There's a need for a neutral force to calm the population. The Congolese army is a nascent, fledgling force. MONUC fulfills the task.

Katanga is not on the political map, which is why such a massive humanitarian crisis can go ignored.

The population has grown weary of a transitional government that is more concerned with personal enrichment than lifting them out of misery, and they are counting on the ballot box to improve their lot. If the elections go awry, they will turn once again to violence.

There are many weapons that have been distributed to civilians and there are factions who don't want to lose power and who'd do anything including inciting ethnic violence to stop the electoral process. The only way to ensure stability during the elections is to actually have troops on the ground.