Allow me to use a medical analogy to assess the relationship between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) and the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).
Picture the DR Congo as a critically ill patient and MONUSCO as the physician tasked with her recovery. If this were a medical drama, how would the patient's story have unfolded?
Applying this metaphor to the DR Congo-MONUSCO relationship reveals two outcomes: a diagnosis of an incurable patient, and a verdict that would place MONUSCO behind bars.
Writing for The Guardian in 2013, Christoph Vogel addressed MONUSCO's shortcomings in an article titled "Why UN Peacekeepers Have a Credibility Problem." He noted that after 14 years, with an annual budget of $1.5 billion and 20,000 uniformed staff, the force had become the UN's largest mission ever, yet still struggled for credibility, with critics branding it "MONUSELESS" online. With such resources, why has it failed its mission?
Let’s start with the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) in 1960. Emerging into independence, the DR Congo was a fragile new nation crippled by political trauma. ONUC served as the UN prescribed remedy, an international physician dispatched to stabilize and heal the fracturing state.
The UN identified two conditions behind the patient's illness. The primary diagnosis was Belgium, which directly caused a secondary condition: an administrative vacuum. From 1885 onward, Congolese people had endured severe exploitation under Belgian colonial rule. When the newly independent nation sought self-governance, Belgium resisted and sent troops to reoccupy the territory. Congolese leaders condemned this as a violation of sovereignty and appealed to the UN.
UN Security Council Resolution 143, passed on July 14, 1960, established ONUC to enforce a full Belgian withdrawal, help restore law and order, and provide technical assistance to a nation short on trained personnel. ONUC's mission was clear: force a full Belgian withdrawal, and help run and rebuild the state's administration.
Before enforcing that withdrawal, ONUC experts took over airport control towers and radio stations to keep transport links open, sent medical teams to prevent epidemics, and helped manage the central bank to keep the economy from collapsing.
The patient-doctor relationship rests on trust: the physician is expected to protect the patient and act in their best interest. Here, that trust was betrayed. Rather than curing the primary disease, the Belgian military presence that needed to withdraw, ONUC partnered with Belgium to worsen the administrative vacuum instead. In medical terms, ONUC administered an overdose resulting in a fatality.
On January 17, 1961, before completing a year in office, ONUC helped Belgian officers, and their puppet Mobutu Sese Seko eliminate the country's first prime minister. When Lumumba was placed under house arrest by Belgian forces and rival factions under Col. Joseph Mobutu, ONUC troops guarded his residence outwardly but refused to intervene, offering a safe passage to Lumumba’s killers. They guarded the airport that let his captors fly him to his sworn enemies in Katanga, where he was killed.
Instead of curing Congo of its dual diseases, ONUC delivered a fatal blow, sealing the country's fate. It left the colonial military apparatus intact and helped engineer the assassination of the one leader working toward true healing.
In part two, I will shift my focus to MONUSCO. Established under Security Council Resolution 1925, this mission succeeded MONUC, which had itself grown out of the original ONUC. Will this new doctor arrive with a fresh diagnosis, or merely inherit the old patient's chart?
The writer is a media specialist, historian, and playwright