ABSTRACT
After the United Nations had its first experience of robust peacekeeping in the Congo in the early 1960s (a baptism by fire – see Part I of this volume) the Security Council did not launch another peacekeeping operation in that region or anywhere else in Africa until the end of the Cold War (Namibia mission in 1989). A decade later, peacekeeping returned to the Congo. In 1999, the Security Council created a new mission in the country that by then had been renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the 1990s, that country had experienced the direct effects of genocide in neighbouring Rwanda and two ravaging civil wars, the second of which could be called a “continental” war, since many African countries sent troops to fight on opposing sides. To help end the second civil war, at the end of November 1999 the Council created the Mission de l’Organisation des Nations unies en République démocratique du Congo (MONUC). At its founding MONUC was designed as a small, non-kinetic mission tasked with assisting the implementation of a peace agreement and the liaising between conflict parties, as well as some basic planning and reporting functions; it was authorized to deploy 500 military observers. 2 However, within three months it was expanded by a factor of more than 10 and given a robust mandate to “take the necessary action” under a Chapter VII 3 mandate to engage in protection operations not only for UN personnel but also for “civilians under imminent threat of physical violence”. 4
