Welcome again to the tragicomic theater of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), where MONUSCO— “Mission Overstepping Norms Unduly Serving Criminals Openly”—takes centre stage. For over two decades, this supposed peacekeeping mission has drained the world’s coffers to the tune of a staggering $1.13 billion annually, roughly $3 million per day, all while overseeing the steady unraveling of human dignity. But the show must go on, says the UN Security Council resolution 2765 (2024), which has just extended MONUSCO’s mandate for another year. With this decision, they effectively greenlight another season of spectacular failure—a soap opera where the scripts are written in blood, and the actors wear blue helmets as props to mask their complicity. Under the stewardship of Bintou Keita, MONUSCO has become an expensive farce. Her public declarations—crafted with the finesse of a spin doctor—distract from the root causes of the DRC’s endless misery. Her pathological obsession with blaming Rwanda and M23 rebels for all the country’s ills would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. Meanwhile, her silence on the plight of Congolese Tutsi refugees—hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children—who languish in camps across Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya is deafening. These people, with nothing but their faces pressed against their upturned palms, are invisible to her reports, their suffering conveniently erased from the narrative she feeds to the UN Security Council. The mercenary makeover Ah, mercenaries—those dashing rogues of the battlefield! International law brands them as outlaws, but MONUSCO appears to see them as missionaries with better clothes. Through the DRC government, MONUSCO now dances hand-in-hand with European soldiers of fortune, ignoring the annoying little detail that mercenaries are, well, illegal. But who needs legality when you can rebrand these hired guns as “strategic partners”? Under MONUSCO’s watchful eye, these modern-day pirates operate with impunity, aiding the FARDC (Congolese army), the genocidal FDLR militia, and even newly minted “patriot” gangsters like the so-called Wazalendo. Perhaps MONUSCO has convinced itself that “mercenary” is just a typo for “merry-maker,” and they are merely hosting a militarized carnival. The talent of doing nothing MONUSCO’s greatest strength lies in its thoughtful commitment to inaction. When Congolese Tutsi communities are butchered, their homes torched, and their existence erased, MONUSCO’s Blue Helmets remain conspicuously absent. When hate speech spreads like wildfire, inciting atrocities that should shock the conscience of any moral being, MONUSCO simply shrugs. After all, history is not their teacher. The Genocide Against the Tutsi in neighboring Rwanda? Just a historical footnote to MONUSCO. Why learn from the past when ignoring it is so much easier? And then there are the reports from MONUSCO’s daring leader, Bintou Keita. Her updates to the UN Security Council are masterworks of selective indignation, showcasing a pathological obsession with blaming Rwanda and M23 for everything under the sun. Meanwhile, the root causes of the DRC conflict remain ignored, buried under her avalanche of deflection. Not once has Keita addressed the plight of hundreds of thousands of Congolese Tutsi who languish as refugees in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya. Instead, she fixates on bizarre claims, like the supposed $300,000 monthly revenues M23 would gain after capturing Rubaya—a stronghold of the genocidal FDLR for decades. How did she arrive at this figure? Could she or her team have been dealers themselves, or was this the amount of kickbacks involved? It's a mystery befitting a mafia drama, complete with the silence of omertà. Partners in crime If there’s one thing MONUSCO excels at, it’s logistics. Who needs to deliver aid to displaced civilians when you can provide ammunition, intelligence, and moral support to the most notorious alliances in the DRC? The FARDC-FDLR partnership, with its wonderful sprinkling of hundreds of armed groups, has MONUSCO’s tacit approval. Even more impressive is their ingenuity in legitimizing criminals. The Mai Mai/Wazalendo militia—a hodgepodge of brigands dressed up as patriots—is MONUSCO’s latest brainchild. By supporting such groups, MONUSCO has created a moral universe where “peacekeeping” involves arming warlords and turning a blind eye to crimes against humanity. The world has long been fascinated by MONUSCO’s ability to remain mute in the face of horror. Congolese Tutsi communities endure unimaginable suffering, targeted by hate-fueled rhetoric and gruesome acts of violence, but MONUSCO’s silence is deafening. Perhaps they believe their silence is a form of neutrality. In reality, it is complicity. By failing to condemn these atrocities, MONUSCO sends a clear message: some lives simply do not matter. Bintou Keita’s magnificent time in power Under the leadership of Bintou Keita, MONUSCO has reached new heights—or depths—of ineptitude. Her tenure has been marked by a steadfast rejection to confront the uncomfortable truths of the DRC conflict. Instead, she presides over a mission that has become a parody of itself, a bloated bureaucracy that excels only at self-preservation. Keita’s reports stand as the pièce de résistance of her legacy. In them, she seems less concerned with solving problems and more focused on misdiagnosing them. Like a quack doctor prescribing wrong treatments to wrong patients, she offers solutions that ignore the real disease plaguing the DRC. A legacy of disgrace And so, the show continues. The UN Security Council, armed with its noble intentions and utterly blind to reality, has extended MONUSCO’s mandate. At $3 million per day, they are funding not peace but the perpetuation of misery. With Bintou Keita at the controls, this mission has transformed into an accomplice of the DRC government—a spin doctor’s dream and a humanitarian’s nightmare. Meanwhile, the Congolese Tutsi refugees—forgotten by MONUSCO and the world—wait for rescue in congested camps. Their dreams of returning home fade with each passing day, replaced by the harsh reality of neglect. They are the invisible victims of a system designed to ignore them, their suffering a testament to MONUSCO’s failure. History will remember MONUSCO, not as peacekeepers but as enablers of anarchy, not as defenders of the defenseless but as quiet designers of despair. In the shadow of their immense indifference, countless lives have been reduced to statistics, forgotten by the very institution sworn to uphold their dignity. The tragedy of MONUSCO lies not only in its failure to act but in its measured complicity—an indifference so profound that it borders on wickedness. Under Bintou Keita’s watch, MONUSCO has transformed into a public relations firm for DRC government and FDLR, spinning narratives to deflect accountability. Her role has been less about finding solutions and more about crafting justifications for failure, each report to the UN Security Council a masterpiece of polished denial. While Congolese Tutsi refugees rot in camps, stripped of their homes, their humanity, and their hope, Keita’s focus remains on painting Rwanda and M23 as villains in a tired script that ignores the festering wounds of the DRC. The lives of the marginalized—of Tutsi communities hunted, displaced, and silenced—are erased from her reports as though they never existed. This is not mere negligence; it is a moral catastrophe. By prioritizing propaganda over protection, MONUSCO has forfeited its mandate and betrayed the very principles of the United Nations. It is a betrayal that reverberates far beyond the borders of the DRC, sending a terrifying message to the world: that genocide’s seeds can still be sown, nurtured by indifference, and harvested in silence. When the history of the DRC’s tragedy is written, MONUSCO’s name will be etched in shame. The world will recall their billion-dollar budgets spent not on saving lives but on enabling their destruction. They will be remembered as the shield that protected perpetrators of heinous crimes—the bystander that watched as hate consumed a nation. And Bintou Keita, with her sophisticated statements and selective outrage, will stand as the awful symbol of an institution that turned its back on humanity, choosing spin over truth, and propaganda over justice. In the end, MONUSCO’s legacy is not one of peacekeeping but of failure so profound, so tragic, that it becomes indistinguishable from complicity. And the people they left behind—the refugees, the displaced, the dead—will serve as silent witnesses to an era when the world looked away.
