Global Policy Forum

By Barbara Crossette

United Nations - The Security Council voted unanimously today to send a heavily fortified peace monitoring mission to Congo, but delayed deploying it until the United Nations can be assured that the force will be safe and can operate effectively.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the American representative, and André Kapanga, the delegate from Congo, welcomed the move as a milestone in international efforts to end a widening war. Other diplomats were more cautious. Mr. Holbrooke, who has spent two months forcing the Congo war and other African crises to the top of the Security Council's agenda, said today, "The time has now come to act." "The council has taken a critical step to help Congo come to a peace it so desperately needs," Mr. Holbrooke said in a speech.

No Americans are likely to be involved in the Congo operation, except perhaps to help with communications and transportation. Troops are being recruited mainly in Africa and Asia. United Nations officials expect deployment to take months. Secretary General Kofi Annan has been assigned the job of deciding when the conditions are acceptable.

Mr. Kapanga pledged Congo's support for a July 1999 peace agreement that has never taken hold. He drew attention to steps that Congo has recently taken to introduce amnesty for rebels who surrender and to open a constituent assembly. But Mr. Kapanga, describing the fighting as a "brutal occupation" by Rwanda and Uganda, indicated that the government of President Laurent Kabila continued to share that view. He said war could can end only with "the withdrawal of hostile foreign armies from our land." Mr. Kapanga did not mention that one of the largest foreign forces in Congo is from Zimbabwe, which diplomats say is propping up Mr. Kabila's government.

The Russian representative, Sergey Lavrov, who had held up the vote for 24 hours while fine points in the wording of the resolution were discussed, reflected the prevailing sense of caution in a speech today. "The situation is so complicated that it would be not only naí¯ve but dangerous to rely on its settlement by external forces, even if these are United Nations forces," he said.

The resolution adopted today expands a corps of 80 liaison officers for the region to a peace monitoring force as large as 500 people, backed by about 1,000 soldiers. A 4,000-person support staff will help offset the lack of roads and almost every service industry be needed to sustain a deployment of this size. Congo is nearly as large as Europe. The peacekeeping troops will have no military powers to disarm combatants or involve themselves in large-scale efforts to protect residents. They will only intervene as necessary if violence erupts in areas where they are deployed. Troops will share headquarters and administrative staffs with the joint military commission of Rwanda, Namibia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola and Congo, all signatories of the peace agreement in Lusaka, Zambia, last July.

The mission will include civilian specialists in child protection and human rights, reflectingchanges in the composition of peacekeeping operations. The resolution asks all personnel to be mindful of the dangers of AIDS and other diseases. There is a clear call for the capture and trial of suspects who may have been involved in genocide or crimes against humanity in recent years. Several groups have been accused of grievous rights abuses, but the most serious charges rest on the remnants of the Hutu interahamwe militias and former Hutu-led army of Rwanda, which were involved in the 1994 genocidal campaigns against Tutsi and their supporters. In addition to demands that the combatants lay down their arms and prepare to be resettled, the resolution calls for civilian aid workers to be protected. Another provision requires the protection of Congo's natural resources, which by most accounts are being pillaged by all sides.

On Wednesday in Lusaka, the presidents of Congo, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, along with Angola's defense minister, pledged again to try to uphold the cease-fire, although fighting continues.

Britain's deputy representative, Stewart Eldon, said in a speech here today, "The situation on the ground does not look promising." He added that in the area of north and south Kivu, in eastern Congo, ethnic tensions could engender more fighting, even as a peacekeeping force is being created. "This is a stark reminder of why the Lusaka agreement has to be made to work," he said.