The U.N.'s Complicity in a Congo Murder

"The Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, has endured a remarkably cruel history... The military has contributed its share of atrocities, and the current president, Joseph Kabila, has compounded the chaos by refusing to step down or hold elections since his term ended last December.

So when a pair of United Nations contract investigators were kidnapped and murdered in March, it was fair to ask how they came to ride into a remote and violence-torn area on motorbike taxis with only an interpreter at their side and without much training, safety equipment or even health insurance... an astoundingly irresponsible approach by the United Nations to an obviously dangerous and hugely important task...

Neither of the investigators appears to have been prepared for the dangerous world they were assigned to investigate... Whether the United Nations really has the tools to intervene usefully in a country as chaotic as Congo is debatable. A peacekeeping force has been in Congo since 1999, but it has little to show for the billions it has cost..."