DRC peackeepers struggle on
2004-12-28 14:02
Rutshuru - Throwing up cordons, garrisoning towns, raiding militia camps - United Nations peacekeepers are becoming increasingly aggressive in their efforts to quell fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The central African country's five-year war ended in 2002, but persistent ethnic fighting and revolts in the east by soldiers who once fought as rebels have pushed the 11 000-strong UN force into the unfamiliar role of peacemakers.
There have been modest successes.
Last week, UN soldiers rushed to the muddy backwater of Kanyabayonga, forcefully separating loyalist troops and former rebels and ending clashes that sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing.
But the relatively small and lightly equipped UN force is spread thin.
Complicating matters are allegations that UN peacekeepers have sexually assaulted civilians - and many Congolese see the force as little more than window-dressing to a conflict that has killed an estimated 3.8 million people since 1998.
Situation still 'fragile'
This week's efforts by UN troops in Kanyabayonga won high praise from officials at their headquarters in New York.
But, undersecretary-general for peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno cautioned that the situation remained "very fragile", and a UN commander in Congo, Brigadier-General Jan Isberg, warned: "We are not equipped, we don't have the manpower."
The DRC army was cobbled together by 2002 peace deals and included former rebels who fought in the 1998-2002 war, including a sizable insurgent force backed by neighbouring Rwanda in the conflict.
It's those Rwandan-backed rebels that have forcefully resisted efforts by the Kinshasa-based government to impose control on the east.
Frustrated Congolese authorities have blamed the revolts on Rwanda, which sparked the last war by invading in 1998 to root out Rwandan Hutu insurgents sheltering in Congo.
Those insurgents, Rwanda said, were remnants of the regime that orchestrated the 1994 slaughter of more than 500 000 people in Rwanda, most of them minority Tutsis.
Rwanda said the Hutu insurgents were still operating in eastern DRC and recently threatened to again invade, before backing down last week.
Still, UN officials said troops from Rwanda crossed into the DRC to help renegade soldiers, providing men and material - and there's only so much the UN force can do to counter such a threat.
Military muscle
"The mandate here is stronger than anything we have ever seen" at the United Nations, said Isberg.
But a lack of resources has hampered the effort, he said.
"So, the only thing we can do," explained Isberg, "is to try, of course, to mediate, to try to make them work together and to intervene" militarily, when all else fails.
Mediation seems to have given way to military muscle in recent weeks.
Now, nearly 6 000 fresh UN troops have been dispatched to reinforce the eastern borderlands with Rwanda - the epicentre of the 1998-2002 conflict.
- AP