Historical Security Council - World Model United Nations

Historical Security 

Council 

World Model United Nations 2013 

Study Guide

Contact Us 

World Model united Nations 2013 

info@worldmun.org 

www.worldmun.org 

Letters 

Letter from the Secretary General 04 

Letter from the Under-Secretary General 05 

Letter from the Chair 06 

Introduction 

History of the Committee 07 

Statement of the Problem: The Situation in the Congo 09 

CONteNtS 

09 

History of the Problem 

Basic Facts 

10 Before Colonialization 

10 King Leopold II and the Congo 

13 After Leopold: Much of the Same? 

16 World War II 

17 The Independence Struggle 

19 

Current Situation 

Prime Minister Lumumba Calls upon UNSC 

21 Past UN Actions 

21 Potential Solutions 

23 Key Actors: Class and Politics 

25 Bloc Positions 

27 Questions a Resolution Must Answer 

27 Suggestions for Further Research 

28 

Conclusion 

Position Papers 

28 Closing Remarks 

32 Bibliographic Essay 

Melbourne Host Directorate PTY LTD | Office of Media and Design

Letters 


Letter from the Secretary-General 

dear delegates, 

it is my pleasure and honor to welcome you to the 22nd session of World Model united 

Nations! My name is Charlene Wong, and i am the Secretary-General of WorldMuN 2013. 

Within this document you will find the study guide for your committee. The conference 

staff for WorldMUN 2013 has been working tirelessly over the past months to provide 

you with an unparalleled conference experience, beginning with this guide. Each Head 

Chair has researched extensively to provide you with a foundation for each committee’s 

topic areas. 

We encourage you to use this study guide as the starting point for your exploration of 

your committee’s topics, and your country or character’s policies. The WorldMUN Spirit 

invites you to step into the shoes of your country or character, and to immerse yourself in 

the committee by researching and developing a full understanding of the issues, perspectives, 

and possible solutions on the table. We offer several additional resources online, 

including our WorldMuN 101 Guide and Rules of Procedure, updated for this year. Both 

are available at www.worldmun.org. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to 

contact your Head Chair or Under-Secretary-General. 

Please enjoy reading this study guide, and I look forward to meeting you in Melbourne 

in March! 

Sincerely, 

Charlene S. Wong 

Secretary-General 


secretarygeneral@worldmun.org 

Melbourne Host Directorate PTY LTD | Office of Media and Design 

4

Letter from the Under-Secretary-General 


it is with the utmost honor and pleasure that i welcome you to the Specialized Agencies. 

the SA holds a special place in the heart of Model united Nations; it is here that 

crises are born and delegates rise to the challenge to address quickly evolving issues in 

real-time. With an average size of 20 delegates per committee, the SA promises to deliver 

an intimate and tight-knit environment where every delegate’s voice can be heard and 

appreciated. 

The SA has always made a firm commitment to substantive excellence and lifelike simulations. 

The first measure of that promise starts here with this study guide. Your chair has 

worked tirelessly over these past few months pouring over books in deep Harvard dungeons 

to breathe life into these topics. I am so proud of their work and hope you make 

the most of this initial resource to inspire and guide your preparation for WorldMuN. 

Come March, your chair and the junior staff will be working to deliver a MUN simulation 

that raises the bar of your delegate experience. 

All that being said, the SA would be nothing without you, her committed delegates, who 

challenge and dedicate themselves to addressing head-on the world’s greatest problems, 

both past, present, and future. With ample preparation, devotion, and creativity, 

you will find success in this SA home. 

As a former MUN delegate and SA staffer, I know what it means to live and breathe a 

thrilling and informative MUN experience. Along with our chairs and junior staff, I hope 

to deliver that same experience to you all. Take care, and I cannot wait to meet you in 

person in Melbourne! 

Sincerely, 

Michael Chilazi 

under-Secretary-General of the Specialized 

Agencies 


sa@worldmun.org 


5

Letter from the Chair 


Greetings and welcome to the Historical Security Council. My name is Graeme Crews, and 

I will be your chair for what will be an incredible World Model United Nations 2013 in Melbourne, 

Australia. As the most powerful body in the United Nations, you will face an issue 

that demands attention from the international community and promises to set a strong 

precedent for uN action in the newly decolonized African region. 

Briefly, here’s a little info about me. I am a senior at Harvard in Leverett House, concentrating 

in Social Studies, which is an interesting amalgamation of political science, 

political theory, sociology, economics, and all the other social sciences. MuN is one of 

my primary activities on campus. I chaired the International Criminal Court in Singapore 

at WorldMuN 2011 and chaired the Security Council in WorldMuN 2012. i directed the 

Security Council at HNMUN 2011 and HNMUN 2012. I am also a member of ICMUN, our 

traveling Model UN team. I am so involved with Model UN because, like you I am sure, I 

am interested in international affairs and the intellectual challenge of solving problems in 

the international community. Moreover, it offers participants the ability to meet people 

from around the world to learn about different cultures and shared values. 

Other than Model UN, I am a member of the Harvard Speech and Parliamentary Debate 

Society. I am super interested in American politics. I volunteer with the Elizabeth Warren 

for Senate campaign in Massachusetts and I help organize campus activities to aid in 

her campaign. Some of my less demanding extracurricular activities include watching the 

most recent blockbusters and trashy TV and spending time with friends. 

The Historical Security Council this year at WorldMUN will face the situation in the Congo 

in 1960. Using the study guide and your own research, you will develop comprehensive 

solutions to this situation. Independence has recently been declared for the country, but 

rival tribal politics along with the newly declared independence of a region within the 

country and the intervention by Belgian forces certainly bring this situation to crisis level. 

Embedded in the topics are discussions of geopolitical relations, the intersection of economics 

and politics, and nation-state formation and centralization. 

WorldMuN is truly the Olympics of the MuN world. For any newcomers, you will get the 

amazing opportunity of meeting passionate and intelligent students from around the 

world in a place bursting with culture and sights to see. For any lucky veterans like me, 

you get to experience this opportunity all over again. 

All the best, 

Graeme Crews 

Chair, Historical Security Council 

WorldMuN 2013 

hsc@worldmun.org 


6

Introduction 

The most important body of the United Nations has 

on its docket one issue to focus on for the duration on 

conference: the situation in the Congo in 1960. Before 

diving into the issues at stake, I want to lay out my 

vision for committee. I envision that committee will 

function as a blend of standing and crisis committee. 

Every session I hope that as a committee you will 

be able to produce a resolution advocating certain 

actions. using your recommendations, my assistant 

chairs and I will assemble a series of reports from the 

Congo presenting the facts on the ground after your 

recommendations have been implemented. The next 

session you will then react to those facts, and so on. 

This situation has been one the Security Council has 

dealt with periodically from 1960 onward (though we 

do not know that at this point…), so it will very much 

mimic reality. 

the Congo is one of the largest colonies in Africa, 

and the humanitarian conditions were among the 

most deplorable in the late 1800s and 1900s. King 

Leopold used forced labor within the colony to 

extract huge amounts of wealth for his benefit and for 

the benefit of Belgium. When the colony transferred 

ownership from Leopold to the Belgian government 

in 1908 after a sustained international humanitarian 

campaign, the Belgian government continued much 

of the most problematic practices of the Leopold 

regime, including forced labor, taxes, and poor 

social services. After World War II, the independence 

movement picked up force in the country and in the 

context of decolonization internationally, the Belgians 

agreed to independence in 1959. When 30 June 1960 

arrived, the historical particularities of the Congo did 

not prepare it for a self-governing, centralized polity 

that was typical in Europe and developed nations 

worldwide. Tribal alliances formed the basis for most 

political parties, and the military grew mutinous at 

the slow-moving changes in the Force Publique from 

Belgian to African leadership. 

When a mutiny broke out in July, the resourcerich 

region of Katanga declared independence, and 

Europeans and Africans alike feared for their safety, 

the new Prime Minister Lumumba requested help from 

the united Nations on 12 July 1960. the uNSC, with its 

current membership of the permanent five (Republic 

of China, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United 

States, France, and United Kingdom) and rotational 

six (ecuador, Argentina, Ceylon, Poland, tunisia, and 

Italy) has met to discuss these circumstances and 

craft the appropriate response. the purpose of this 

Demonstrating the international importance of the situation in the 

Congo, this front page story on the impending independence in the 

Congo comes from Cleveland, Ohio. 

study guide is to provide an initial grounding in both 

the history of the situations, the issues in play, and 

the potential solutions. The problems associated with 

these topics require innovative and comprehensive 

solutions; it’s up to you to find them, apply them, and 

ensure international peace and security. 

History of the Committee 

Inception 

Following World War II, the Holocaust, and the 

advent of the nuclear age 1 , the world community 


7

decided to improve upon the League of Nations 

and create the United Nations. However, even 

during World War II steps were taken to move to 

an international institution designed to protect 

and promote international peace and security. the 

inter-Allied declaration signed in June 1941, stating 

that the Allied Powers would “work together, with 

other free peoples, both in war and in peace,” was 

the first step in establishing the United Nations. 

The Atlantic Charter of August 1941 between the 

United States and Britain, the Declaration by United 

Nations in January 1942, and the Moscow and 

Tehran conferences of October 1943 and December 

1943, respectively, further developed plans for an 

The chamber of the Security Council as it appeared circa 1960. 

international organization, whose first blueprint 

was drawn up in the Dumbarton Oaks conference in 

October 1944. In April of 1945, the Charter of United 

Nations, with sections explicitly devoted to the 

powers and structure of the Security, was approved 

unanimously in San Francisco. 2 Unlike the League of 

Nations, the UN Charter gave the United Nations the 

authority to enforce the peace through diplomatic, 

economic, and even military means, making threats 

or use of forces illegal except in self-defense or when 

approved by the Security Council. 3 

Powers 

Unlike the General Assembly resolutions, 

resolutions from the Security are binding and 

countries, due to their ratification of the UN Charter 

(required before joining the UN), are legally required 

to respect and follow them. The five permanent 

members of the United States of America, The United 

Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the 

Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, 

and the French Republic each have veto power and 

no decision can be made on a nonprocedural question 

unless they abstain or agree and enforcement 

for resolutions can thus only be taken with their 

consensus. This institutional structure saved the 

organization from imploding when actions were 

taken against the most powerful members. 4 

the most important articles pertinent to Security 

Council powers are Articles 26, 39, 41, and 42. Article 

26 assigns the Security Council with the task of 

establishing “a regulation system for the regulation 

of armaments.” 5 As per Article 39, the Security Council 

has the ability to determine whether a situation is 

a threat to the peace, a breach of the peace, or an 

act of aggression. Article 41 outlines measures of 

responding that are non-military, such as sanctions, 

and Article 42 outlines the use of military measures. 6 

the powers and functions accorded to the united 

Nations, as per the uN Charter, include: 

to maintain international peace and security in 

accordance with the principles and purposes of the 

united Nations; 

• to investigate any dispute or situation which 

might lead to international friction; 

• to recommend methods of adjusting such 

disputes or the terms of settlement; 

• to formulate plans for the establishment of a 

system to regulate armaments; 

• to determine the existence of a threat to the 

peace or act of aggression and to recommend 

what action should be taken; 

• to call on Members to apply economic 

sanctions and other measures not involving 

the use of force to prevent or stop aggression; 

• to take military action against an aggressor; 

• to recommend the admission of new 

Members; 

• to exercise the trusteeship functions of the 

United Nations in “strategic areas”; 

• to recommend to the General Assembly the 

appointment of the Secretary-General and, 

together with the Assembly, to elect the 


8

Judges of the international Court of Justice. 7 

Past Major Actions 

Since its creation and establishment in 1945, the 

Security Council has consistently drafted and passed 

resolutions dealing with issues of international 

peace and security. Even with Article 2, paragraph 7 

of the Charter prohibiting the UN from intervening 

in the internal affairs and jurisdiction of a state, 

the uN Security Council has interpreted threats to 

international peace and security to include political 

instability and violence within states. 8 

Statement of the Problem: The Situation 

in the Congo 

Our committee will begin its deliberations in the 

midst of chaos in the Congo. the country was just 

newly independent, but a mutiny in the army has 

spread across the country, the resource-rich Katanga 

region has just declared independence, and the 

Belgian army has violated the Congo government’s 

wishes and sent its own troops into the region to 

protect europeans. in the context of escalating 

violence, uncertainty of the power of the new 

government, and economic downturn, the UNSC 

is meeting and attempting to devise a politically 

palatable solution to the widespread problems. 

Looking broadly, the situation in the Congo during 

the 1960s mixed the divisive politics of the Cold War 

with process and problems of decolonization in a 

highly contentious way. 9 the situation in the Congo is 

a very complicated one, with a land area that is eighty 

times the size of its colonial administrator Belgian and 

over 200 ethnic groups dotting its landscape. Because 

the construction of the area was based on political 

contingencies in the late 19 th century, the borders 

have no real meaning for collecting a singular group of 

Africans. 10 The Congo will not have an easy transition 

to a state in the Western construct—territorial 

integrity and sovereignty; the Belgian occupation 

and extraction ensured that a unified polity would be 

difficult to achieve. 11 Geopolitically, the major players 

in the Western world were not particularly concerned 

about the Congo’s strategic security importance, but 

rather with Western capitalism’s or communism’s 

ability to prosper in the Third World and the jockeying 

for expansion of a dominant economic system. 12 

Through this guide, it will become evident that 

Belgian control of the country in its colonial period 

has had huge impacts on the development of the 

Congo and its success. Inadvertently, Leopold and the 

Belgian government organized the Congo’s economic 

conditions in such a way to prevent economic viability 

for the future independent country. 13 Colonial 

economic exploitation transformed African societies, 

including the groups in the region now known as the 

Congo, by using the forced labor of the native peoples 

to meet export requirements for raw materials for 

enrichment by the ruling class and a country they 

would never see. 14 

Ultimately, the country is inherently divided and 

as a result does not have a unified message of selfgovernance, 

external actors are often able to speak 

for it and skew its interests in a way that may not be 

productive for the state. 15 Remember that while you 

have your own national interests to adhere to, the 

people of the Congo are the ones who will benefit or 

be harmed most by your actions in committee. 

History and Discussion of the 

Problem 

Basic Facts 

With a population in 1960 of 15 million, 16 the ethnic 

make-up of the Congo is extremely complicated, 

with over 200 ethnic groups occupying six different 

provinces, which are all at different stages of 

economic development. The Kongo (48% of the 

population), Sangha (20%), Teke (17%), and M’Bochi 

(12%) are the four largest defined ethnic groups and 

comprise more than 40 tribes within the boundaries 

of the country. 17 the ethnic groups do share many 

cultural traits, including speaking the same Bantuderived 

languages. 18 the Congolese until well into 

their colonialization period lived in traditional village 

settings, where traditional economic tasks were 

separated by gender, religious rituals and public 

ceremonies were the norm. 19 

The Congo is vast, occupying 2,345,400 square 

kilometers, a third the size of the United States. 20 

Approximately 77 per cent of the land is made of 

forests and woodlands, including a tropical rainforest 

along the Equator, which provides timber in world 


9

markets. 21 the products mined in Congo are essential 

for world markets—copper (8 percent of world 

production), cobalt (73 percent of world production), 

industrial diamonds (80 percent of world production), 

uranium, zinc, gold, and other precious minerals. 22 

Agriculturally, the Congo is a source of coffee, tea, 

and cotton plants. 23 

Before Colonialization 

Before colonialization, the political institutions 

within the region now known as the Congo were 

kingdoms. They were primarily social organizations 

based on agricultural production, and the central 

rulers facilitated long-distance trade. 24 

The Kingdom of the Congo was formed in the 

14th century with a political structure very similar to 

the european feudal one of the time. 25 through the 

15th century, it was able to consolidate its power 

due to the prosperous economy in the region 

from agriculture and long-distance trade that 

was emerging with European powers. The tribute 

system with local chiefs kept law and order. 26 At the 

end of the 15th century, diplomatic relations were 

established between Portugal and the Kingdom, 

but the expanding diplomatic relations with Europe 

led in the 16th century to alcoholism, extortion, and 

the growth of the slave trade. 27 As part of the trade 

paths that slaves took, ivory and other trade goods 

from the Congo region made their way to the coasts 

of Africa. 28 

There are roughly speaking two historical periods of 

Congo-European relationships: first, the Atlantic slave 

trade which was the primary means of accumulation 

in the global economy in the 16th century and second, 

the trade in raw materials needed for industrial 

production in Europe in the 18th and early 19th century. 

Neither of these historical processes exposed much 

of what is now known as the Congo to the outside 

world. 29 

Nevertheless, the Kingdom of the Congo did 

become a player in the rivalry between the Dutch and 

Portuguese and declined rapidly. 30 The kingdom’s fast 

integration into the overall capitalist system along 

with its participation in the Atlantic slave ultimately 

turned the kingdom against itself and contributed 

to its decline. 31 The end result was the Kingdom’s 

dissolution in 1885 between Portugal, France, and 

Belgium. 32 

The Luba empire in the southern part of the region 

was another major precolonial state that lost its 

power before the Europeans annexed this part of 

Africa. The Luba state solidified in the 16 th century, 

with its power extending across the Katanga-Kasai 

trade network and absorbing tributes from the 

local chieftains. The empire dissolved between 1860 

and 1891 from the cumulative effects of outside 

Early sketch of a Portuguese delegation at the court of the King of 

the Congo. 

interventions by Europeans and by ivory and slave 

traders who intruded on their central and peripheral 

territories. 33 

King Leopold II and the Congo 

While most of the interior of the Congo, far from 

the ocean and trade routes, was on the periphery of 

most European power’s concerns, the 1884-85 Berlin 

Conference, or “Scramble for Africa”, brought the 

land into focus. King Leopold II of Belgium declared 

sovereignty over the Congo River basin, creating the 

political construction of what became known as the 

“Congo.” 34 Leopold’s ventures in the region extended 

much before this date, it should be noted. He sent 

British-born American journalist Henry Morton 

Stanley into central Africa as part of the Association 

international africaine (AIA), where Stanley used 

manipulation and coercion to force clan and tribe 

chiefs to “sign” treaties with the King to cede their 

territories to control to the newly formed Association 

10 


international du Congo (AIC), which came out of 

the AIA. By obtaining these treaties, establishing 

administrative and trading stations along rivers 

within central Africa, Leopold was able to brandish an 

empire-building record that justified his claims to the 

resources and territories of the Congo at the Berlin 

Conference. 35 it did not hurt that the great powers 

did not want to see another obtain the central African 

region, and thus allowed Belgium’s Leopold to have 

it. 36 Moreover, Leopold’s neutral status ensured that 

A portrait of King Leopold II. 

the colony would be open to other nationals and their 

companies. He promised not to impose customs or 

import duties in the resource-rich region, and thus 

the other powers came to view the region as a free 

trade model. 37 This fit within the overall principles 

agreed upon at the conference, which also included 

neutrality in wars, suppression of slave traffic, 

and improvement of the condition of indigenous 

populations. 38 

The situation in the colony of Congo was different 

from African colonies around the continent for two 

specific reasons. First, its establishment as a colony in 

the late 19 th century came far after most other African 

colonies had been established. Second, the colony 

was viewed as the possession of an individual— 

King Leopold II. These two dynamics motivated King 

Leopold and administrations to colonize the area very 

quickly. The condensed process led concurrently to 

an expanded land control policy and coercive control 

mechanisms to maintain control. 39 King Leopold 

positioned himself initially as a benevolent leader, 

selfless and ready to make his African holdings 

civilized participants in the capitalist system. 40 the 

discourse of salvation proved to be the rationale for 

the forced and violent development that the colony 

administrators would impose on culturally backward 

Africans. 41 Despite the forced labor policies he 

implemented, Leopold publically upheld his colonial 

project as one that would save the natives from the 

Arab slave traders who peddled in “odious traffic, 

which is a disgrace to the age in which we live.” 42 this 

appeal to protecting the Africans from the Arab slave 

traders gained him moral support throughout europe 

and the united States. 43 

His actions were not always congruent with his 

rhetoric. immediately after Congo was organized as 

his own personal “Congo Free State”, he undertook 

campaigns of military pacification and economic 

exploitation. 44 King Leopold was primarily motivated 

by his desire to turn the region into a profit for his 

personal needs. He had spent vast amounts of 

money in order to explore the region and lobby for 

his ownership of it, and thus he needed money to 

pay down debts and invest in his native Belgium’s 

economic development. With this motivation, he 

sought simple resource accumulation and therefore 

sought to accomplish this through forced labor. 45 

the economic exploitation of the Congo was 

primarily around harvesting wild rubber for exportation 

to Belgium and use in tires. White settlers working 

for the state and commercial enterprises (many of 

11 


which controlled by King Leopold) forced native 

peoples to work through coercion and violence. 46 

Punishments for African natives included floggings, 

beatings, and executions were handed out for crimes 

from desertion to dropping a pack. 47 When labor 

taxes and quotas were not fulfilled in certain villages, 

these floggings and executions were the norm, often 

carried out by neighboring ethnic groups employed 

by Belgian administrators. Entire villages were often 

razed in response to failure to fulfill labor quotas. 48 

The king created a standard of declaring indigenous 

land ownership as “vacant land” and declared land 

his by eminent domain. The end result in the Congo 

was that huge swaths of the country were declared 

the “Crown domain” or the “private domain of the 

state.” 49 The end result in Belgium was a huge inflow 

of capital, which was used for public works projects 

and urban improvement. 50 the rationalization of this 

exploitation came from an ideology that asserted 

the “white man’s burden” to bring Christianity and 

capitalism to “inferior races.” Leopold paid vast sums 

of money to public relations agencies to depict the 

venture in the Congo as essentially a humanitarian 

campaign seeking to bring an end to poverty and 

ignorance in native populations. 51 

The political impacts of King Leopold’s regime 

were interrelated with the economic policies he 

purported. As administrative stations were built 

throughout the region, the integration of the country 

into a capitalist and exploitive system occurred. This 

led to all the major African political systems in the 

area being brought under the control of the colonial 

administrative state, which implemented new taxes 

in labor and money. 52 

The End to Leopold’s Congo 

An international reform movement, led by E.D. 

Morel, sought to drastically change Leopold’s 

stranglehold on the Congo. in a letter in 1905, Morel 

wrote that: “A system has been introduced…imitated 

in some respect by others, which is turning its servants 

into brute beasts, disgracing European prestige, 

befouling civilization, and jeopardizing the whole 

future of European effort in the Dark Continent.” 53 

Drawing from reports about atrocities that came 

from foreign missionaries, Morel focused Western 

attention on Leopold’s rule. 54 Leopold attempted 

to stop the turning of public opinion against him 

and his colony by hiring spies and double agent to 

infiltrate foreign government and tried to flood the 

newspapers with positive coverage and depress 

negative coverage by bribing editors. 55 Leopold 

was further able to stem the outrage by portraying 

Morel’s campaign success as a British and American 

plot to take away the king’s prized possession. 56 

However, Morel was able to cast Leopold and Belgium 

in an extremely negative light, given the discursive 

tendencies of the time; his campaign promoted the 

view of Leopold and his actions as “barbaric” and 

“uncivilized.” 57 Morel’s claims about the brutality 

in the Congo were confirmed by outside sources, 

including an international Commission of Enquiry of 

lawyers that, after a five-month tour, confirmed all 

the claims of brutality and coercion that had been 

circulating in the media. 58 The ability to appeal to the 

humanitarian impulses of elites in Western europe 

and the United States, along with the inability of 

foreign powers to access and penetrate the Congo’s 

vast wealth at the time, proved to be an extremely 

potent mix of forces that had the ultimate impact of 

forcing Leopold out of the region. 59 

Thus, the movement overcame Leopold’s 

stronghold on the Congo and forced him to transfer 

the colony to the Belgian state in 1908 60 by selling 

his personal estate to the government of Belgium. 61 

The Belgian parliament voted to annex the region in 

August 1908 after a divisive debate and in a hardly 

resounding vote of 88 in favor and 54 opposed. 62 

the result of the colonial project was tragic: an 

official Belgian inquiry from 1919 reported that the 

population of the Congo had diminished by half, 

which equals about 10 million deaths from murder, 

disease, starvation, and exposure. 63 

Resistance 

Through the beginning of Belgian colonial history, 

there were certainly pockets of resistance, which had 

the potential of snowballing into a larger movement. 

the root reason why resistance generally failed is that 

by the time of the Berlin Conference and the annexation 

by European powers, there was no centralized Congo 

kingdom. The tribes in Congo were much too weak 

12 


and disorganized to be effective against an armed 

European imperial conquest. 64 Resistance against 

the europeans was ultimately most successful from 

within colony-established institutions—the colonial 

army, forced labor camps, and agricultural workers. 

Discontent over taxes, conscription, and forced labor 

was able to spread and 

strengthen in these 

contexts. 65 the 1900 

to 1916 Shi rebellion 

and 1907-1917 Luba- 

Katanga of Kasongo 

Nyembo rebellion 

were longstanding 

affairs against the 

Leopold empire and 

the Belgian colonial 

government. 66 the 

former leaders of the 

Luba empire used 

their former power 

to rise up against 

Leopold’s empire in 

1895, and it put up 

effective resistance 

against forced labor 

policies. 67 However, as 

the colony centralized 

and consolidated 

its powers as will 

be described in the 

next section, it was 

able to quash these 

insurrections. 68 

The revolts in the 

internal colonial army illustrate much of the underlying 

dynamics of the colony. White officers steeped in racist 

ideology were brutal in their disciplinary measures of 

soldiers, military workers, who maintained, supplied, 

and grew food, and porters, who transported 

equipment and supplies. 69 cities of the country. 

Revolts during Leopold’s 

reign arose in these garrisons—the Kananga mutiny 

in 1895, the Ndirfi mutiny in 1897 and the Shinkakasa 

mutiny in 1900. These revolts were called upon later 

as memories of resistance against the Belgian. it is 

generally agreed that what motivated rebels was the 

oppression of the colonial administrators, and they 

were able to succeed in their resistance in pockets of 

the region for years because they recruited volunteers 

from surrounding areas to replenish their ranks. The 

multi-ethnic make-up of the mutinies fostered and 

developed a national 

identity—one at odds 

with the ruling Belgian 

class. 70 

After Leopold: 

More of the 

Same? 

As the transition 

of the Congo from 

Leopold’s to Belgium’s 

control occurred and 

completed in 1908, 

there was hope that 

all the excessive force 

of the past would be 

eliminated. the general 

scheme of governance 

worked such that while 

the Belgian parliament 

and colonial affairs 

ministers in Brussels 

supervised the colony, 

the actual governance 

of the colony was done 

on the ground by the 

colonial bureaucracy 

in alliance with 

representatives of the 

Belgian bourgeoisie, 

business leaders, and the hierarchy of the Catholic 

Church. 71 The new governance scheme did not 

radically alter from the previous one and utilized the 

pre-existing economic and administrative institutions 

to operate the colony. the inherited colony had a 

particular structure: a huge region of land with a sparse 

population under a system of economic exploitation 

with no tradition of positive policy aimed at 

benefiting the general population. 72 This colonial map shows the regional break-up of the colony and the major 

the longstanding 

institutions did not merely dissolve to be developed 

13 


anew; instead there was refinement at the margins of 

the overall structure. 73 it is unsurprising that there was 

major reform; Belgium had little history as a colonial 

power and had to learn quickly to administer an area 

80 times its size thousands of miles away. 74 in part to 

assuage public anger in Europe, the Belgians adopted 

a colonial constitution, crafted by major shareholders 

in Belgian and the Catholic Church, which had an 

interest in proselytizing. 75 The first Belgian minister 

of the colony reduced compulsory labor and stopped 

the most significant government-led atrocities. 76 His 

appointments of local administrators were typically 

young men with little formal education who utilized 

the colonial army of white Belgian officers and African 

infantry to enforce forced labor and collect taxes. 77 

The colonial administrators were, like during 

Leopold’s time, focused on economic exploitation 

and providing corporations with adequate land to 

mine. 78 Belgian domestic politics were not organized 

in a way to drastically change colonial affairs, and thus 

allowed the minority in the home country with vested 

interests in the region to gain disproportionate say 

in the governance of the region. 79 The new king 

of Belgium could rule by decree after consulting 

a purely advisory colonial council of conservative, 

business-oriented appointees, but this decree was 

constrained by the Belgian minister of colonies. 80 

The Belgian minister of colonial affairs wrote in 1921 

that the major goal of colonialism was to develop 

“the economic action of Belgium,” which means that 

the law and order control of the colony is at most as 

important as the labor recruitment for companies. 81 

In the initial ownership of the Congo by Belgium, the 

state’s authority in the countryside was literally a 

function of company’s administration and extraction 

of a particular region. Companies would use African 

chiefs as supplementary workers on behalf of the 

company to recruit labor for them. Although the 

state eventually established control over most of the 

region at local level displacing the rule by companies, 

the new requirements for the people were 

sometimes more onerous as they needed to provide 

extra labor and taxes for public works projects and 

adhere to certain regulations governing most parts 

of people’s lives. 82 ultimately, companies continued 

to have monopolistic powers over vast swaths of 

the region, resulting in either no pay or very low pay 

for the local workers and their production. 83 Often, 

though forced labor was technically frowned upon, 

companies and administrators would recruit and hold 

locals as workers through the imposition of fines and 

imprisonment for breach of contract. 84 

However, as time progressed, leaders in the 

colonial regime began to understand that in order 

This 1922 map illustrates the holdings of African countries by various 

European colonial powers. 

to have effective control over a population, the 

Europeans needed effective local allies. A series 

of decrees on colonial administration in 1906, 

1910, and 1933 transformed chiefs from outside 

powers to intermediary powers with the colonial 

administration. 85 if chiefs helped meet export 

expectations, signed up tribes for conscription, 

provided forced labor, and paid taxes, they were given 

14 


economic and political rewards, which effectively set 

them against their own people. 86 Chiefs were also 

brought on as sponsors to ensure that peasants 

did not sell the food products they grew, as per the 

directions of the Belgian government. Thus, rather 

than economically developing the rural society where 

most of the native peoples lived, the Belgians left 

them at the same level of economic and cultural life 

as the time of conquest, but in a devastated and 

chaotic state. 87 

World War i interrupted this consolidation of the 

colony. Most of Belgium was occupied by German 

soldiers and therefore the Congo was left on its 

own. the colonial army sent poorly trained men 

and even women to fight Germans in Cameroon, 

Ruanda-Burundi, and Tanganyika and the Italians in 

ethiopia. 88 Economically, raw materials like copper, 

rubber, and agricultural products were shipped to the 

Allies. 89 Socially, the colony witnessed huge changes, 

as Congolese were appointed to recently vacant 

positions that were previously reserved for whites 

that were now fighting or working for the government 

in europe. 90 Africans established new businesses, and 

African workers were involved in housing, utilities, 

transportation, and the central bank. 91 

After the war, the colonial government, no 

longer withheld funds from a Belgian government 

preoccupied with a war within its borders, started 

a large public works project, developing the most 

impoverished region of Katanga and setting up 

refineries, factories, repair shops, hospitals, schools, 

and housing in urban areas there and around the 

country. In urban neighborhoods, houses and 

apartments were built with brick, and blocks were 

given access to water supply and sanitation facilities. 92 

Development extended into the 1920s, with diamond 

mines in Kasai and diamond and gold mines in Kivu 

built. 93 The diamond output increased by eightfold, 

and, combined with modern scientific advances 

(though heavily concentrated to the benefit of 

whites over blacks in segregated hospitals), brought 

to the area, led to increases in standard of living 

and average ages around the country. 94 the 1929 

Wall Street collapse affected the Congo, with prices 

falling, businesses closing, and mining decreasing. 95 

Many wage-earners were laid off by companies, and 

the massive lay offs of mining workers led Belgian 

leaders to focus more of their attention to agriculture 

to diversify the economy of the Congo. 96 

Political changes need to be addressed to provide a 

larger picture of the times. the aforementioned 1933 

reform also established a federal structure for the 

Congo that would extend through the current times, 

with division and subdivision of the country into 

provinces, districts, and territories (or subdistricts), 

with administrative heads appointed by the central 

colonial government. Provincial governors dealt 

with policy questions of the provinces, district 

commissioners acted as inspectors of the work of 

territorial administrators and chieftains under their 

control. The territorial administrators themselves 

had vast control over areas comprising many 

chieftains and looked after records, kept law and 

order, collected taxes, recruited labor, conscripted 

native peoples, and administrated public services. 

Moreover, they were responsible for comprising and 

presenting information about their territory to higher 

powers. 97 It should not be assumed that the colonial 

administration had complete control over all levels 

of government in all parts of the region. The Congo 

was a fragmented region with land overseen by 

administrative government, church zones, substate 

figures, business interests, monopolistic concessions, 

and local forces, 98 but when the administrators had 

control, they had vast amounts of power and leverage 

in the communities where they were located. When 

they were overworked or had to manage too large 

an area, they would rely more heavily on local chiefs 

to carry out their orders and the orders of the Belgian 

colonial government. 99 

While the governance and economic systems 

sought to subjugate the native population for profit 

of the metropolitan government, the legal statutes 

implemented further diminished the life chances of 

the native populations. Racism was institutionalized 

in many ways—formal, with explicitly differential 

treatment in the justice system based on race, and 

informal, with de facto racial segregation. the Belgians 

legalized restrictions on liquors, established a curfew 

in european areas, allowed corporal punishment, 

15 


set up segregated housing and segregated people 

in public accommodations like trains, hotels, and 

restaurants. 100 

Culturally, the colony was a blank slate; the 

administrators and church missionaries interpreted 

the absence of a written language and literature 

as absence of an overall cultural experience of the 

people. Their music and art were viewed as barbaric 

and childish, and artifacts were taken to European 

museums for display. 101 From the beginning of 

colonialization onward, the diverse histories, local 

economies, languages, and indigenous identity 

constructs were cast aside in favor of a monolithic 

colonial system that was supported by the an ideology 

of economic development and cultural advancement 

through coercive force. 102 The religious beliefs 

of native Africans were change by missionaries, 

which often drove a wedge between 

communities adhering to traditional 

beliefs and those adhering to new Christian 

beliefs. 103 The ethnic identities of native 

peoples were hardened by the distribution 

and requirement to carry around 

identification cards with ethnic groups 

listed, which proved to make political 

parties’ organization around ethnic ties 

easier later in the colony’s history. When 

one ethnic group was perceived to have 

benefited from the colonial government, 

this often engendered hatred in other 

ethnic groups. 104 

World War ii 

became more tied to the market demands because of 

the need for more agricultural production to help the 

war effort, which further diminished the local ties in 

rural communities. 107 

The Congo also proved essential for the global war 

effort by supplying the uranium for nuclear bombs 

that the US was building as part of the Manhattan 

Project. 108 Later in the century, control of uranium 

proved as essential as it did during the war as the 

US tried to prevent the Soviet Union from accessing 

these markets for uranium. 109 

The Belgian government and its allies ended 

up succeeding, but the toll on the people of the 

Congo was more of the same. Normally, Congo 

men were required to work with no wages for 60 

days per year to build public projects, including road 

maintenance and construction of hotels for colonial 

During World War II, the Congo served 

as an essential source of funds for the 

Belgian government in its conflict with the 

Axis Powers. Because of the accumulation of wealth 

from mineral resources in the Congo, the Belgian 

government was able to finance its actions in London, 

including the diplomatic corps service, and the cost of 

armed forces in europe and Africa. 105 during the war, 

the plethora of industries that had emerged through 

the past half-century also proved to attract vast 

numbers of Africans who up until that point generally 

lived in rural villages. 106 administrators. during the war, the period was 

extended to 120 days, with consequent devastating 

impacts on the population like hunger, starvation and 

death destroying whole families. 

the economic structure of the 

Congo changed as the fate of poor native peoples 

110 This funeral of the governor Felix Eboue in Brazzaville in May 1944 shows that the 

Belgian colony still retained traditions that existed throughout colonial times. 

Armed resistance 

and mutinies occurred during the war in reaction 

to these demands and in reaction to the overall 

oppressive colonial system as viewed by the people. 

The three most important rebellions were the 1941 

mineworkers’ strike in Katanga, the 1944 insurrection 

in Kasai and Katanga, and the 1945 dockworkers’ 

16 


strike in Matadi. These mutinies had implications later 

as they organized multiple ethnic populations along 

nationalism ideologies. 111 

After the war, the racist policies of the colonial 

regime were slightly loosened, as a way of keeping the 

public subservient to colonial interests. 112 the Belgians 

attempted to assimilate the African petty bourgeoisie 

into the colonial structure by exempting them from 

the most onerous racist restrictions. Moreover, in 

1948, the colonial administration introduced a “social 

merit card” which quickly morphed into the new 

social designation “matriculation” in 1952, which 

meant that an African had sufficiently “evolved” 

culturally to be regarded as like Europeans. 113 this was 

not a widespread assimilation policy; only 217 people 

accepted these designations over the next decade. 114 

the post-war period also witnessed huge 

urbanization with Leopoldville, the seat of the 

colonial government, growing by hundreds of 

thousands of people. With this urbanization, Africans 

set up their own businesses and shops, and others 

worked as low-skilled laborers. 115 the Belgian colonial 

government devoted much of their budgetary surplus 

to the improvement of medical care with the building 

of clinics and hospitals. 116 

the independence Struggle 

The petty bourgeoisie in the Congo was the only 

class that was able to organize and synthesize the 

revolutionary notions and hopes of people across the 

Congo into a mass movement. Until 1956, however, its 

focus was on full integration into the colonial, white 

society, not on independence. the post-war actions 

of the Congo colonial powers to assimilate certain 

elite segments of the African populations postponed 

the bourgeoisie’s desires for independence. 117 the 

Belgian policies of limited education, emphasis on 

economic development, and limited possibilities for 

native peoples to participate in the governance of 

the colony ensured that the independence struggle 

would be hampered from its infancy and have limited 

ability to develop a nationalist ideology that could 

appeal nation-wide. 118 

the year 1956 was a monumental turning point 

in the independence struggle by a convergence of 

factors. internationally, the Franco-British-israeli 

Suez expedition and its failure, the independence of 

Morocco, Sudan, and tunisia, and the decolonialization 

movements in West Africa, Equatorial Africa, 

Madagascar, Angola, and the Belgian Congo were 

in their infant states. All of these events inspired the 

domestic elite in the Congo, which was itself in the 

midst of debating the best course of action for the 

future of the country. 119 This debate was sparked in 

part due to the publishing of a pamphlet by Belgian 

professor A.A.J. Van Bilsen who advocated for a 

“thirty-year plan for the political emancipation of 

Belgian Africa.” 120 The pamphlet ignited debate, and 

the radical response from the ABAKO group, led 

by Joseph Kasavubu, stipulated that 30 years was 

too long a timeline and called for the immediate 

transition from colonial to self-governance in a 

federal structure. 121 

Political reforms in 1957 liberalized the colony, 

allowing for municipal elections, and led to the 

emergence of numerous political parities in 1958, one 

of which was ABAKO. Because of the short amount 

of time available, ABAKO and most political parties 

had to mobilize rapidly, requiring a focus not on 

ideology but on ethnic ties for organizers. 122 the MNC 

(Mouvement National Congolais) party, led by Patrice 

Lumumba, was another party that formed as a result 

of the liberalization and could be considered the first 

national political party in the Congo. As will be seen, 

the party and off-shoots from it were instrumental in 

resistance to the colonial government and ultimately 

independence. 123 Lumumba organized a mass rally in 

December 1958 with immediate independence as the 

ultimate national goal. 124 

Not a month later in early January, a local ABAKO 

section attempted to hold another rally near the 

place where Lumumba held his in Kinshasa. When the 

Belgian government canceled the event, 125 a crowd 

refused to go home peacefully and proceeded to 

attack and harm symbols of white authority, including 

shops and white motorists. 126 Almost the entire African 

population of Kinshasa joined in on the rebellion, 

which lasted three days. 127 Both independence 

leaders Lumumba and Kasavubu were imprisoned on 

sketchy evidence for inciting what was very clearly 

a spontaneous riot. 128 The revolt marked a new and 

17 


evolutionary phase of the national independence 

movement, and the Belgians reevaluated the entire 

independence claim by the Congo. 129 

The Belgians were jolted by the violence in the 

Congo. Prompted by the clear demands of the 

population, the lack of political will in Belgium to 

engage in an Algerian-like civil war, and the norm 

of decolonialization 

internationally, two 

separate policy 

statements released 

by the Belgian king 

and government on 13 

January 1959 explicitly 

supported the idea of 

independence, 130 the 

most rapid and radical 

decolonization plan 

seen on the African 

continent up to this 

point. 131 the Belgian 

government was 

also coming to the 

realization that much 

of the country was 

simply ungovernable; 

the Lower Congo and 

Bandundu regions 

at this point refused 

to recognize the 

authority of the 

colonial government 

and were only 

willing to recognize 

domestic political 

parties as their rightful 

rulers. 132 Combine 

these circumstances 

with a series of 

wars and revolts in 

Kasai and Kisangani, 

and the Belgian 

military resources were severely strained and 

unable to maintain order, thus promoting the view 

that independence should be granted. 133 While 

independence was certainly the focus of the Belgian 

government’s actions, they also specified that it 

would still be under their prerogative to transfer the 

responsibilities to “maintain a sound administration” 

when “new Congolese institutions” have proven 

they “are capable of maintaining order and respect 

for public and private obligations, and the protection 

of persons and 

property.” 134 

The December 1959 

preliminary elections 

for local government 

councils were not 

a positive event for 

country unity. the 

some 120 political 

parties also proved to 

destabilize the country. 

Organized by tribal 

unity most of the time 

and openly hostile with 

other parties, there 

was not a universal 

agreement over the 

path that the Congo 

should take. 135 these 

elections also faced 

widespread distrust, 

given the Belgian 

government’s aid to the 

PNP party (an off-shoot 

of the Lumumba’s 

MNC party). 136 the 

Belgians, even though 

sensing that immediate 

independence would 

lead to a deteriorating 

situation in terms of 

law and order, agreed 

to the popular demand 

for “immediate 

independence,” and 

made a decision 20 February 1960 for total and 

unconditional independence on 30 June 1960. 137 

The independence struggle in Congo was in large part a reaction to the 

historical mistreatment of the Congolese people. Here several people, 

from children to the elderly, are photographed without hands which was 

punishment in early colonial Belgium for misbehavior. 

18 


Current Situation: Where We 

Stand Now 

The working classes and peasant population 

formed the crux of the resistance and independence 

movement that organized the rebellion of 4 January 

1959 in Kinshasa, which ultimately resulted in 

Belgium’s decision to grant independence to the 

Congo. 138 The first few days of independence were 

calm, with heavily-armed, well-disciplined white 

officers of the colonial army keeping the peace in 

the cities and countryside. 139 However, even though 

independence was achieved, the national and 

democratic movements responsible for it are deeply 

unstable. 140 The danger of a quick independence was 

the prospect of state fragmentation, and this concern 

is quite justified given the situation in Katanga. 141 May 

elections led to hundreds of petty bourgeois leaders 

traveling to Kinshasa and provincial capitals to be 

representatives of the people. After in-fighting, they 

agreed to extend themselves the privileges that had 

been given to the Europeans before them and to 

set their pay level to 40 times the annual per capita 

income. 142 The masses that had been subjugated by 

the Belgians felt that they were not receiving their 

fair share or getting a fair shot in the infant state. 143 

The economic issues at stake in independence 

favor the Belgians by a wide margin. The Belgians 

have already planned and begun transferring the 

colonial state portfolios and ownership of industry 

to Belgium through privatization. Meanwhile, they 

left virtually all the public debt to the infant state. 144 

While most of the discussion in the guide has been on 

the economic benefits that the Congo has provided 

to Belgium, it should not be forgotten that Congo’s 

economic impact extended globally and the great 

powers all have vested interests in maintaining the 

economic prosperity of the region. For mining in 

particular, the Belgians, Germans, Austrians, French, 

British, and Americans all had common financial 

interests in the region. 145 

Specifically, there are a series of specific concerns 

in the immediate past that should be noted. The 

decrease in raw material prices in 1957 resulted 

in a decrease in the reserves of the central Congo 

bank and although 1959 witnessed an increase, 

there was a deficit of 5.6 billion because of direct 

capital transfers and invisible outgoings. This loss of 

business confidence and capital flight from the region 

was in part a result of Belgium’s tendency to weaken 

economic ties with the soon-to-be independent 

Congo. By spring of 1960, six hundred million francs 

transferred from Congo back to Belgium in a single 

week in March. To stem the tide, Belgium placed 

caps on households in the colony. 146 the Belgium 

government tried to help the colony in this regard, 

but it was happy to saddle the new country with 

significant debt that had been outstanding since the 

days of King Léopold. 147 economically, the new state 

will be a mess. 

Why Prime Minister Lumumba Has Called 

On the UNSC for Help 

the soldiers in the Congo army demanded 

immediate Africanization of officer appointments 

and promotions after independence was formally 

declared. 148 Lumumba and other leaders asked for 

patience and showed their preference for the elites 

in the country by promising promotions but only 

after additional training was provided for soldiers. 149 

This upset troops greatly, and when Lumumba put 

together a viable coalition in the government and was 

elected Prime Minister of the new government, his 

enemies were not pleased. 150 They began by initiating 

a mutiny in the armed forces less than one week after 

independence was formalized. General Janssens, 

commander of the colonial army who was brought on 

after independence to look after the new state army, 

gave a condescending speech to troops that stipulated 

that their role and rank before independence would 

be the same after independence, and thus major 

swaths of the army felt they were being denied 

the benefits of independence. 151 the mutineers 

demanded salary increases, promotions of rank, and 

the dismissal of Belgian officers. Lumumba’s reaction 

was to appoint an inexperienced doctor as chief of 

the armed forces, and Mobutu, with ties to Belgian 

and American intelligence services, as chief of staff 

of the army. 152 the mutiny continued to spread across 

the country, and Prime Minister Lumumba began to 

consider foreign military assistance. 153 the mutineers 

tried to force their way into parliament on 5 July and 

19 


pressed Prime Minister Lumumba to accede to their 

demands, but he refused their desires and promised 

to keep Belgian officers and appoint Belgians to 

important defense posts. 154 On 7 July, more armed 

soldiers threatened to force their way into parliament 

and surrounded Lumumba’s residence. Lumumba 

tried to diffuse the situation by agreement to demote 

General Janssens, promote African noncommissioned 

officers, and fire most Belgian advisors. 155 Even with 

the new changes and new Congolese officers, the 

troops could still not be disciplined and continued 

their mutiny. 156 

A photograph of Patrice Lumumba after an election victory. 

Soldiers perpetrated abuses against their former 

officers, harassed European civilians, in particular 

religious leaders, and there were scores of reports 

of torture and rape. 157 Europeans began leaving the 

Congo in droves, taking ferryboats to Brazzaville, 

rushing to the two international airports in the 

country, and driving to bordering countries. Of 29,000 

Europeans that had lived in the Congo’s three largest 

cities on 1 July 1960, only 3000 remained by 10 July. 158 

Riots broke out all over the country—in Leopoldville, 

Matadi, Kasai, and Katanga. 159 European officers are 

being sometimes civilly treated but others have been 

beaten, spat upon, and even shot and killed. 160 Only 

some two dozen Europeans have been confirmed to 

have been killed at this point. 161 

The Belgium military intervened in the country 

on 11 July by sending in additional paracommandos 

to the Congo against the wishes of the newly 

independent government. 162 They began by securing 

the international airports to transport europeans 

out of the country, 163 but their methods are at times 

presumptuous. There have been reports of soldiers 

shooting first and asking questions later, which is 

inflaming rebels’ passions. 164 they are attempting 

to quell the violence in hotspots across the country, 

and have been successful in some areas but incited 

violence in others. Their decision to use naval 

forces to bombard and shell Matadi unleashed 

anger, resentment, and more violence across the 

Congo when it was reported via radio broadcast. 165 

Compounding the situation, Moise Tshombe, a son 

of a wealthy trading and transport family, proclaimed 

the independence of the Katanga province on 11 

July. 166 

In Katanga, when the Belgians began their 

intervention a few days ago, they disarmed all 

non-Katangese soldiers and expelled them from 

the Katanga province. It should be noted that the 

Katanga province retained economic importance 

as a mineral-rich province. 167 As much as 80 percent 

of the Congo’s export wealth lies in this mineralrich 

area. 168 It should also be noted that the Belgian 

perception of the colony was framed within the 

language of paternalism. it was not that they thought 

they were violating independence but that the Congo 

had proven that it was not stable enough for the 

“gift” of sovereignty and self-rule, so the gift could 

be returned. 169 The Congo government had proven 

incapable, Belgian government officials asserted, of 

being able to control the “brutal savagery” of the 

Congolese. 170 Belgium also justified its intervention on 

the protection of “white inhabitants” who had to be 

protected by military forces by virtue of the “supreme 

laws of humanity.” 171 

On 12 July, Lumumba and Kasavubu (profiled in the 

Key Actors section) appealed to the United Nations 

and Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld for help, 

requesting UN soldiers to protect the country from 

external powers and to help restore its territorial 

integrity. 172 it is now July 13, and the Security Council 

must decide what to do in the region. 

20 


Past uN Actions 

The course of action requested by Lumumba and 

Kasavubu are wholly unprecedented in the UNSC’s 

history thus far and should be treated as a distinct 

break from the typical actions of the body. First, the 

interpretation of the situation in the Congo must be 

squared appropriately with the UNSC’s mandate to 

address situations that breach “international peace 

and security.” That an internal threat to territorial 

integrity harms international peace and security is 

NOT a doctrine that has been ingrained in the practices 

of UNSC. Second, the dispatching of peacekeepers 

to actively support a nascent nation in its struggle 

for territorial integrity has never been done, and 

the kind of peacekeeping force for this task has 

never been dispatched anywhere. Since the Korean 

War, UN peacekeepers have been stationed at the 

demilitarized zone to maintain peace between the 

North and the South. In Israel in 1948, peacekeepers 

were dispatched to maintain peaceful relations 

between the Palestinians in the region and newly 

arrived Jewish settlers. After the Suez crisis of 1956, 

peacekeepers from around the world arrived at the 

Suez Canal to ensure that the agreement between the 

former colonial powers of Britain and France and their 

ally Israel and Egypt and its Arab allies was carried out. 

Ultimately, the request from the Congo government 

reconceptualizes what a UN peacekeeper is and what 

UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold visits with Suez Crisis peacekeepers. 

his or her duties are, envisioning them as robust 

entities with mandates that require them to perform 

duties typically associated with military. 173 

Potential Solutions 

The situation in the Congo has not been evaluated 

by the United Nations, and this could prove to be a 

benefit or challenge. Although there are no previous 

actions to evaluate and build upon, there is freedom 

to develop and create innovative solutions that utilize 

the full power of the United Nations. Embedded 

in the conflict, as detailed, are weak institutional 

structures, ethnic parties and divisions, and an 

economy that benefits corporations at the expense of 

the population. the following is a listing of potential 

areas solutions could be applied to; it is by no means 

comprehensive in number of potential areas nor in 

description of the listed areas. 

Independence, Wait? 

the Belgian Minister of the Congo and Ruanda- 

Urundi, Auguste de Schrivjer, favored at the outset 

of the independence a substantial and open debate 

on whether a new Congolese government could 

maintain internal autonomy. He had significant 

doubts that the Congolese institutions had a capacity 

for self-government, and he urged that independence 

be postponed in order to . 174 With this argument in 

mind, the UNSC may recommend that a caretaker 

government be established by Belgium and other 

21 


Western powers that has the authority to maintain 

the internal integrity of the fledgling nation as well as 

maintain and administer the police force, the military, 

the social services, and the basic functions of the 

state from mail to sanitation. 

Economic Issues 

The economic system in the Congo is very 

precarious. the repatriation of capital from the 

Congo back to Belgium needs to be replaced with 

an economic system that helps Africans benefit 

from the rewards earned by European businesses. 

Individual settlers and corporate sponsors enjoy onesided 

benefits in the colonial system that needs to 

be fixed. 175 in the past few years, the decrease in raw 

material prices combined with Belgium’s decision to 

withdraw capital from the country as well as saddle 

it with longstanding debts to international banks and 

foreign governments has left the new Congo in a very 

difficult position economically. 

With mining making up a significant portion of the Congo’s 

economic activity, will the UNSC address this industry? 

UN Control 

Replacing or augmenting the Belgium forces that 

were sent into the country after independence, the 

Security Council could decide to send in troops with 

the goal to protect the country from devolving into 

chaos, and UN troops could operate as stabilizers 

of the uneasy peace and serve to enforce cease-fire 

agreements. 176 As stated previously, this avenue is 

one not taken previously in the UNSC’s history. If 

chosen, the UNSC will need to establish this force 

as quickly as possible. The UNSC will need to recruit 

a force of varying nationalities that is able to satisfy 

actors and stakeholders in the UNSC itself and on 

the ground in the Congo. A specific mandate for the 

troops and a leadership structure will need to be 

determined. Weapons and equipment will need to be 

budgeted for and purchased by the UN or donated 

by UN governments. While it appears as if this is 

the preferred avenue for the central government of 

the Congo and the US and Soviet governments, the 

Tshombe and his CONAKAT party in Katanga, who 

seceded from the central government, has had been 

bankrolled and supported by European governments 

in the past including France, Britain, and Belgium. 177 

Belgian Withdrawal 

Any infusion of uN troops or recommendation for 

the situation in Congo must address the stationing 

of Belgian troops that are currently in the country. 

Ostensibly there to protect white settlers, this is 

somewhat difficult given the isolated residence of 

many europeans across the country (though the chaos 

in the region has prompted many to head for the few 

airports in the new nation). 178 the recommendation 

for withdrawal from the Congo will help to provide 

legitimacy to the new Congo government and provide 

its central government with the opportunity to break 

away from its past status as a colonial power. On the 

other hand, the rapid withdrawal of Belgian troops 

experienced in the region might be a vacuum of 

power and move into greater chaos as ethnic groups 

and political party leaders attempt to fill the void and 

gain control over the region. Also, Europeans seeking 

to leave the new country may find themselves 

unprotected and left without a ride home if Belgians 

leave and face the wrath of a restless population. 

Reparations 

Because Belgium benefited significantly from the 

inflow of capital from the Congo during colonial times, 

some have argued that Belgium should be required 

to pay reparations for the crimes and slave labor. 179 

the recommendation that Belgian pay reparations 

for its past abuses and injustices is a solution that 

is unlikely to gain support by the Western powers 

who had or still have colonial powers that in the 

immediate past or long ago were abused to provide 

power and prestige to the colonial power. if framed 

22 


in different terms, as a package to promote economic 

development and raise the Congo’s standard of living, 

this solution might gain more support in the wider 

UNSC. However, there is the problem of ensuring 

Belgium or other colonial powers with interests in the 

Congo follow through with the recommendation of 

the uNSC. 

Public Control of Economic Resources 

From the time of Leopold, the Congo people 

have not had access to profits generated from 

the economic activities in their backyard. Instead 

the profits generally have been sent to Belgium, 

Belgian and world businesses, and their political 

allies. Perhaps stripping these businesses from 

their previous control and recommending that the 

new national government obtain public control 

of the country’s resources will promote economic 

development. If the central government has control 

over the vast amounts of wealth within the borders 

of the country, this would provide incentives for 

stakeholders in all regions to work together 

in the central government to effectively 

mine and distribute the raw materials and 

resources. However, this solution presumes 

that resource-rich areas like Katanga are still 

considered as regions within Congo, not 

independent states. 180 

Foreign Military and Technical Aid 

Lumumba is planning on traveling abroad 

to request technical aid and military support 

in his attempts to control the rebellious 

portions of his country. the uNSC may 

decide to request members states lend 

support to the original central government 

of the Congo. 181 this solution means that 

perhaps UN peacekeepers do not necessarily 

need to be part of the solution for the 

solution still to retain a military component. 

Requesting that UN countries supply military 

and technical aid to the central government (or to the 

other relevant regions that have seceded in what the 

UNSC views as a legitimate way) can help shore up 

territorial integrity without sending in peacekeepers. 

Supporting New Countries 

the Congo was originally a political construction 

not intended to be made of a unified group of tribes 

and people, so perhaps it is a natural outcome of 

independence of the Congo that it split into multiple 

different countries. The UNSC could decide to 

recognize the legitimacy of the seceded Katanga 

regions (and any others that might arise) in hopes 

that the establishment of multiple states quells the 

violence embroiling the region now. It is not clear 

that this is a position tenable for countries like the 

US and USSR. Moreover, the danger is that this sets 

a precedent for dealing with separatist movements 

around the world. the uNSC may not wish to enter 

into determining the legitimacy of every separatist 

movement in every country. 

Key Actors: Class and Politics 

this section lays out two major categories of 

division within the Congo: class divisions and political 

party divisions. Hopefully this section will provide 

clarity for how to approach various groups and crosscutting 

cleavages in the society. 

Farmers in the Congo work in 1959. 

Class Divisions in Colonial Congo 

Imperialist bourgeoisie: This group does not live 

in the region but is economically and politically 

dominant. Top corporate managers, members of 

the Belgian government, and the hierarchy of the 

Catholic Church make up most of this colony. With 

ties to major European governments and businesses, 

23 


their interests will be ones that are paid attention to 

in any settlement. 182 

Middle bourgeoisie: Belgian and european 

settlers who owned production capabilities and 

employed workers in agriculture, commerce, and 

manufacturing. 183 This group did not have significant 

political power in colonial governance and thus was 

not able to retain much of the surplus profit from 

industrial work in the Congo. Currently, they will 

likely fall back on the imperialist bourgeoisie class to 

discuss terms of agreement for their businesses in 

the new country. 184 

Petty bourgeoisie: this group was made of 

Europeans and Africans alike but was split along 

racial lines and other strata. There were: the liberal 

professions, comprised of europeans; european and 

American missionaries; European state officials and 

company managers; European and Asian shopkeepers 

and artisans; African white-collar employees; and 

African traders and artisans. This diverse group is 

likely just looking for a solution in which they can 

begin to return to a state of affairs in which they 

continue their professions without being disrupted 

by the formation of new states and rules for trade. 185 

traditional ruling class: this class is made up of 

the kings, nobles, chiefs and native religious leaders. 

As mentioned previously, the Belgian government 

actively played these leaders against one another 

for prized goods and money, so there is likely to be 

animosity between many of these leaders. 186 

Peasantry: this largest class was made up of the 

rural, African producers of food and cash crops. this 

group makes up the largest portion of the Congo 

population, formed the basis for many of the protests 

and found themselves in the military rebellions. 187 

Working class: the european part of this class were 

skilled white workers, who acted as supervisors in 

mines and large industries, and skilled and unskilled 

black workers who worked in urban, industrial jobs 

and rural, agricultural ones. 188 

Lumpenproletariat: these were the Africans 

without stable wage employment and were rural 

migrants trying to earn a living through legal and 

extralegal means. 189 

Parties 

At the time of independence, there was a 

disorganized array of personalities, leaders, and 

parties that were attempting to get control of the 

social and political circumstances of the Congo. 190 A 

listing of the most important follows. 

ABAKO: The ABAKO party was primarily a tribal 

party with significant ties and membership in the lower 

Congo River Bakongo peoples. It was founded in part 

by Joseph Kasavubu who was educated by Catholic 

missionaries at the beginning of the Great Depression. 

He became a teacher after attending seminary, 

where he helped to organize the Bakongo people for 

independence. With founder Joseph Kasavubu at the 

helm, this party was a tribal political grouping whose 

rallying cry for immediate independence began after 

Joseph Kasavubu, dressed in a white military-style outfit, is carried 

around in a procession of the ABAKO party officials. 

a Belgian professor published a “30 year plan for 

independence” in 1956. 191 the early history of the party 

was tied with attempting to integrate its members 

into the elite classes of the cities. 192 Later, the party, 

weak because its internal solidarity was through 

tribal ties, threatened to secede from the larger 

Congo and establish a country in Bas-Congo south 

of Leopoldville province. It objected to the idea of a 

central government from 1959 when Belgium initially 

agreed to future independence. 193 Nevertheless, 

after the May 1960 elections, the ABAKO party was 

able to gain enough seats and power in the political 

system that its leader Kasavubu became the first 

President (with less power than the Prime Minister 

24 


in the government structure) when Congo gained 

independence. The ethnic political motivations of 

the party did not provide it with enough support to 

dominate the central government but it did provide 

enough support to become an active role in the 

newly formed government. His tribal, conservative 

tendencies clashed with the President Lumumba’s 

pragmatic predispositions to governance of the new 

country. 

CONAKAt (Confédération des Associations tribales 

du Katanga): Under leader Moïse Tshombe, this 

organization formed in 1959 when independence 

was perceived as inevitable and advocated an 

independent Katangan state. 194 Tshombe was the son 

of a businessman in the Congo and was educated in 

an American missionary school. Later he worked as 

an accountant and in the 1950s, he owned a group 

of stores in the Katanga Province. Working with 

Godefroid Munongo, he founded the CONAKAT 

party, which advocated an independent, federal 

Congo. In the May 1960 elections, the CONAKAT 

gained a majority of seats in the Katanga provincial 

legislature. Maintaining political and economic ties 

with the Belgium government who was invested in 

the resources within this naturally wealthy province, 

Tshombe and CONAKAT declared independence from 

the Congo central government in July 1960. 

Moise Tshombe answers questions from press in 1960. 

MNC (Mouvement National Congolais): this party 

attempted to build national support through the 

processes that parties take in typical Western multiparty 

states, but it split in two branches: the PNP 

(Parti National du Progres) which was a coalition of 

traditional chiefs which was damaged by the general 

population in the country by its ties with white 

Belgian administrators, 195 which helped it in the 1959 

December elections for local government councils, 196 

and the PSA (Parti Solidaire Africain) which was a 

group of locally based organizations that dominated 

the Kwilu district in Eastern Léopoldville. 197 the PNP 

section of the party, which would become the more 

powerful segment of the party nation-wide, was led by 

Patrice Lumumba, who was a postal clerk in Kisangani 

for most of his adult life and learned about organizing 

from civic associations. 198 Helping to found the MNC 

in 1958, Lumumba represented the MNC at the 

international All-African Peoples’ Conference in Accra, 

Ghana, later that year where his Pan-Africanist beliefs 

were further cemented and reflected his approach to 

political organizing in the Congo that was above tribal 

allegiances. in 1959, he was sentenced in 6 months in 

prison for allegedly inciting an anti-colonial protest, 

and even with this set-back, the MNC was able to win 

local 1959 December election and national elections in 

May 1960. Lumumba was released in January of 1960 

to attend the Brussels conference that eventually set 

the date of independence for 30 June 1960. Because 

of his party’s success in the national elections in May 

1960, he was elected Prime Minister and designated 

Kasavubu as the President of the new nation. More 

than any other national politician, Lumumba viewed 

Congolese identity as bound not through ethnicity or 

tribal identity but by inhabiting the spatial area known 

as the Congo. Thus, he subscribed in many ways to the 

dominant Western view of political communities. 199 

Bloc Positions 

US policy 

The overarching view of the US foreign policy is 

to prevent the spread of communism in the “Third 

World.” The US was not all that worried about 

communism taking root in Western Europe where 

defensive military measures were considered to 

be enough, but the “Third World” was not viewed 

in the same way. The US felt the instability by the 

mish-mash of parties and personalities around the 

country would lead to instability and increase the 

influence of communism in the region, even though 

25 


communism in the region was generally regarded as 

weak. 200 For the uS, centralized control of the state 

was positive, and chaos favored the Soviet control of 

the country. 201 This was the view explicitly espoused 

in the George Kennan “long Telegram” that asserted 

“Soviet policy…will be directed toward weakening 

of power and influence and contacts of advanced 

Western nations, on theory that insofar as this 

policy is successful, there will be created a vacuum 

which will favor Communist-Soviet penetration.” 202 

However, they were not supportive of Prime 

Minister Lumumba; they believed he was focused on 

expanding Soviet expansion in the heart of Africa. 

thus, from the time of independence onward, the uS 

government attempted to undermine the Lumumba 

government. 203 

Specifically, America wanted a strong, though not 

necessarily democratic, government in Leopoldville 

and were adamant that the colonial european powers 

should no longer have control over the country of the 

Congo.. the administration does not want resourcerich 

Katanga to secede and Tshombe to secede, who 

represented to the Americans a “voodoo version of 

communism.” 204 Not only was the uS concerned that 

internal chaos favored Soviet influence in the area, 

but the specific actors and leaders of potential states 

within Congo were classified by the US as sympathetic 

to the worst aspects of communism. Moreover, in the 

immediate aftermath of independence of the Congo, 

This map shows Cold War divisions in the early 1960s (Disregard Congo’s color). 

the US was also concerned by the law and order in 

the country falling apart and leading to the abuse, 

looting, and rape of white residents, so they felt a 

need to respond from humanitarian principles. 205 

Europe 

european countries, with long histories of colonial 

administration in the region, have articulated that 

they have experience and expertise on the situation 

in the Congo. 206 Britain and France (as well as South 

Africa) have been active in their support on the 

ground for secession by Katanga. Their ruling classes 

and politically powerful domestic groups were 

fearful of Prime Minister Lumumba’s commitment 

to authentic independence from Belgium and radical 

social change. 207 

european powers Belgium, France, and Britain 

opposed firm action on part of the UN against the 

secessionist Tshombe. France views the Congo issue 

through colonial lens, and publically pointed out 

during the independence movement in Congo that 

Belgium has a preferential right to the Congolese 

territory that dates back from the 1884 Berlin 

Conference. the Belgians and Congolese ultimately 

rejected this claim when the Congo was granted 

independence but illuminates a wider understanding 

of African issues by France. 208 

Britain’s view of the issue was primarily focused 

on economic self-interest. they were concerned with 

the loss to investors of an unstable Congo. There was 

26 


political pressure by British settlers in Central African 

Federation who were sympathetic to Katangan 

independence. The Foreign Office informed the US 

State department during the time of independence 

that provincial autonomy should be respected and 

would promote Western interests in the areas, and 

thus they did not want an intervention by the Congo 

government or UN in Katanga. 209 

USSR 

When Belgium invaded the newly independent 

Congo, the uSSR called for their immediate 

withdrawal. 210 The Soviets were highly attentive 

to Afro-Asian solidarity, and thus supported a uN 

peacekeeping force to the Congo in order to protect 

Lumumba and the territorial integrity of the nation. 211 

It may appear that Cold War influences were not at 

play in this calculation, but that would be mistaken. 

The Soviets hoped to shore up the internal integrity of 

the nation ultimately to gain a wealthy and populous 

partner in the third World to aid with its campaign 

against the uS and Western capitalist expansion. 

Throughout the beginning of the Cold War and 

the decolonialization movement, the USSR often 

referenced the US’s own internal racial divisions in 

the South of the country against it in the international 

arena to mobilize African and non-white countries 

against the uS. 212 

Afro-Asian Bloc 

The Afro-Asian bloc, developing countries who 

themselves had gone through or were going 

through decolonization, had very different historical 

circumstances that defined them individually. From 

the 1940s through 1960 three dozen new states 

achieved independence from colonial powers— 

through peaceful and orderly processes or through 

long, drawn out revolutions and independence 

movements. The beginning governments in these 

countries varied from dictatorships to military juntas 

to democratic coalitions to nonexistent as civil wars. 

These countries did largely converge in their 

ideological predisposition to the situation in the 

Congo. They have almost uniformly called for 

immediate Belgian withdrawal as the starting point 

for discussions. the military struggles of indonesia 

against the Netherlands, Vietnam against France, and 

other served as the comparison point for the bloc, 

and they did not wish to see protracted occupations 

of the Congo. 213 

Questions a Resolution Must Answer 

(QARMAs) 

1. does this decision warrant Security Council 

action? Does it rise to the level of threat to 

international peace and security? 

2. How should the UNSC respond to Belgium’s 

violation of the Congo’s newly established 

independence and sovereignty by sending in 

troops? 

3. Should peacekeepers be sent in to replace 

or augment the Belgian troops? if so, what 

should their mandates be, what should 

constrain them, and how should they go about 

maintaining peace and security? 

4. What should the role of UN Secretariat be in 

managing this issue? 

5. How should the economic situation in the 

country be handled? Should the UNSC make 

any recommendations on the debt of the 

country or corporate actions within the area? 

6. What should the role of the member states of 

the UN be in this situation? Should they be able 

to send technical or military support to the 

central government or rebel groups? 

7. Should the Katanga province be allowed to 

split off from the Congo or should every effort 

be made to prevent secession? 

8. What is the precedent, if any, that your 

chosen course of action should have for other 

decolonialization projects? 

Suggestions for Further Research 

In order to effectively prepare for committee, you 

should try to find archival research from respected 

periodicals like the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, 

Foreign Affairs, etc. that covered the crisis in Congo 

immediately prior to our convening and immediately 

after. you should also familiarize yourself the history 

of the Congo that occurred after the time of the 

committee. I can guarantee, however, that history 

will not repeat itself. Always remember that your 

arguments in committee must align with the facts on 

27 


the ground up to and through committee. Be sure to 

be familiar with the style, diction, and wording of the 

UN Security Council Resolutions so that you can be 

prepared in committee to write the best resolution 

possible. The UN website http://www.un.org/en/sc/ 

documents/resolutions/index.shtml has a listing of all 

the resolutions. you should focus on years up to and 

including 1960, the year the simulation will begin. 

your research should also concern how your nation 

would approach a solution in committee. this means 

researching its position previously in the Security 

Council in similar matters, what it has and has not 

advocated and agreed to, and how its own national 

interests align with a solution to the Congo crisis. 

Reading press statements from UN representatives 

and heads of state, news reports on the nature of its 

interactions with Congo, and reports on trade with the 

Congo will give you a better idea on how to approach 

the problem from your country’s perspective. 

Position Papers 

Position papers are an essential part of the MuN 

experience. they help to frame your argumentation 

and coalition-building before you step into the 

committee room. I think therefore they are an 

essential component in any assessment of the quality 

of a delegate. 

you should focus on three things in your 3-4 page 

position paper (double spaced, 12-point font): your 

plan for solving the issue, why your nation would 

be arguing for this plan, and how this will solve the 

problems in the status quo. Be very explicit in your 

papers regarding these three elements. Also, be as 

creative as you want with solutions—within reason, 

of course. You should cite specific news articles, 

academic reports, books, UN documents, and 

government websites, and you should have a works 

cited page. Be advised, however, that you will not 

be held strictly to the positions you articulate in your 

position paper; I recognize that the events, as they 

unfold in committee, will require you to shift slightly 

or dramatically your responses to the situation. One 

last comment: I cannot give awards to anyone who 

does not submit a position paper, so please do it! 

Closing Remarks 

You’re almost done with the guide! It was a 

great experience preparing this guide, and i hope 

it has given you solid grounding to build upon for 

conference. I know that I will see in March creative 

approaches to highly contentious issues and brilliant 

solutions. There are a lot of moving parts inherent 

in the topic; economics, geopolitics, international 

relations, and philosophical problems all play a role in 

the topics and likely the solutions that will emerge. I 

really look forward to what you come up with! 

Please do not hesitate to contact me at hsc@ 

worldmun.org if you have any questions regarding 

the study guide, position papers, Rules of Procedure, 

updates, or any other matter you wish to discuss. i 

will attempt to respond as quickly as possible and 

as comprehensively as possible. Best of luck with 

research and until March… 

Endnotes 

1 Weiss, Forsythe, & Coate 3 

2 “Milestones in United Nations History.” 

3 Weiss et al. 5. 

4 Weiss et al. 35. 

5 Regehr 32 

6 Gareis & Varwick 29. 

7 “Under the Charter, the functions and powers of the Security 

Council are.” 

8 Weiss et al. 30 

9 Kent 1 

10 Kent 9 

11 Dunn 39 

12 Kent 1 

13 Kent 6 

14 Nzongola-Ntalaja 33 

15 Dunn 9 

16 Chatterjee 48 

17 Kent 6 


28 


19 edgerton 164 









28 Dunn 23 






34 Dunn 8 

35 Nzongola-Ntalaja 15-16 


37 dunn 47 

38 Roth 29 

39 Dunn 8 

40 Dunn 21 

41 dunn 49 

42 Dunn 48 

43 Dunn 48 

44 Dunn 22 


46 Dunn 22 

47 Dunn 43 

48 Roth 31 





53 dunn 50 

54 dunn 50 

55 dunn 56 


57 dunn 52 

58 Edgerton 153 

59 dunn 52 

60 Dunn 22, 25 

61 Dunn 58 


63 Dunn 45 
















79 Roth 32 

80 Roth 33 



83 Roth 33 

29 


84 Roth 35 










94 edgerton 170-171 


96 Roth 36 


98 Dunn 81 

99 Roth 35 



102 dunn 49 

103 Roth 37 

104 Roth 39 



107 Roth 38 











118 Roth 40 




122 Roth 41 












134 Dunn 81-82 







141 Kent 7 





146 Kent 10 

147 Kent 11 


30 















162 dunn 63 

163 Edgerton 185-186 






169 dunn 79 

170 Dunn 83 

171 Dunn 80 


173 Weiss et al. 39-42 

174 Kent 7 

175 Kent 11 

176 Kent 20 


178 Kent 20-21 












190 Kent 9 


192 Roth 40 

193 Kent 7 

194 Kent 8 

195 Kent 8 


197 Kent 8 


199 dunn 75-76 

200 Kent 9 

201 Kent 15 

202 Dunn 87 

203 Nzongola-Ntalaja 117f 


205 Kent 13 




209 Kent 20 

210 Kent 21 



213 Kent 21 

31 


Bibliographic Essay 

Chatterjee, D.N. Storm Over the Congo. New York, NY: Vikas Publishing House, 1982. 

Dunn, Kevin C. Imagining the Congo: The International Relations of Identity. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 

2003. 

Edgerton, Robert B. The Troubled Heart of Africa. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. 

Gareis, Sven Bernhard, & Johannes Varwick. The United Nations: An Introduction. New York, New York: 

Palgrave MacMillan, 2005. 

Gondola, Ch. Didier. The History of Congo. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003. 

Kent, John. America, the UN and Decolonisation: Cold War conflict in the Congo. New York, NY: Routledge, 

2010. 

“Milestones in United Nations History.” Milestones. About the United Nations/History. Web, n.d. 1 Sep 2010 

. 

Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History. New York, NY: Zed Books, 

2002. 

Regehr, Ernie. “The Security Council and nuclear disarmament.” Jane Boulden, Ramesh Thakur, and Thomas 

G. Weiss, eds. The United Nations and Nuclear Orders. Shibuya-ku, Japan: United Nations University 

Press, 2009. 

Roth, H.M. Zaïre: A country study. Washington, DC: The American University, 1979. 

“Under the Charter, the functions and powers of the Security Council are.” Functions and Powers. UN Security 

Council. Web, n.d. 1 Sep 2010 . 

Weiss, Thomas, David Forsythe, & Roger Coate. The United Nations and Changing World Politics. Boulder, CO: 

Westview Press, 2008. 

32

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