Global Policy Forum

By Donald G. McNeil Jr.

Kampala, Uganda - All sides in the slow-burning war in Congo appealed today for the United Nations to deploy peacekeepers swiftly in the vast Central African country after another cease-fire in the 18-month-old conflict was signed in the Ugandan capital this weekend.

Meeting today with President Laurent Kabila in Kinshasa, Congo's capital, his allies in the war - the presidents of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe - urged the deployment of a planned 5,500 peacekeepers "as rapidly as possible," state radio in Congo reported. Congolese rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda, all of whom have been fighting Mr. Kabila, also said they supported swift deployment.

The elements of the arrangement signed on Saturday in Kampala were that all combatants would stop fighting as of Friday, then hold their positions for three months while the United Nations peacekeepers deploy in a buffer zone between the warring parties. If all goes well, the warring countries can begin to withdraw after three months.

The Associated Press, reporting from Kigali, the Rwandan capital, quoted a spokesman for the Congolese rebels, Kin-Kiey Mulumba, as saying that his forces would respect the latest agreement. "By April 14, I think we'll do everything possible to be ready to pull back," Mr. Mulumba was quoted as saying. "But we don't know what Kabila will do. So we would like to have the United Nations deploy as quickly as possible."

Moí¯se Nyarugabo, a leader of the Rally for Congolese Democracy, one of the rebel factions opposing Mr. Kabila, said no fighting was taking place in sectors his men controlled. "We've never opposed a cease-fire," he said in a radio interview from Goma in eastern Congo. "But when you're attacked, you have to defend yourselves."

The first cease-fire was signed last summer in Lusaka. None of the provisions of that cease-fire was met in full: The fighting did not really end, nor were independent militias disarmed. Critics of the latest arrangements have argued that the number of United Nations peacekeepers envisioned is much too small. Congo, the former Zaire, has 400 times the land mass of Kosovo, with worse roads and thick forests, and Kosovo has proved a big task for nearly 40,000 NATO troops, who are generally better trained and equipped than United Nations peacekeepers. However, both pro - and anti-Kabila factions in Congo now appear militarily weary and financially pressed.

Most of the drama took place during the opening weeks in fall 1998, when the rebels, backed by Ugandan and Rwandan regulars, managed a startling airborne assault on Kinshasa. They hijacked planes and used them to ferry troops across the country from the east to the mouth of the Congo River. But their advance was repulsed in the capital's suburbs, largely by Zimbabwean troops.

After that defeat, the rebels spread out from the east, gradually capturing about one-third of the country. But no major battles have been reported, and the rebels have failed so far in one important objective: Taking the diamond-mining areas around the southern city of Mbuji-Mayi. Profits from those mines are allegedly being used to pay the Zimbabwean government to keep fighting, despite widespread anger in Zimbabwe over the war's human and economic toll.

Uganda and Rwanda had a falling out last August near the central city of Kisangani, and their troops fought for two days, leaving 200 dead. The Ugandan newspaper the Sunday Monitor published an account today based on interviews with senior Rwandan army officers who described the August clash as a misunderstanding between friends that turned violent, not a premeditated attack.

One officer was quoted as saying that some officers from both armies were playing cards together when the fighting broke out, that the Rwandans had no doctor with them and would never have attacked without medical support and that the wounded were all treated together. "How could that have happened if we were enemies?" Col. James Kadareepe was quoted as asking.

Rwanda supported Mr. Kabila in his own revolt against Congo's longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, but turned against him once he was in power because he sought alliances with Hutu militias that Rwanda's Tutsi-led government holds reponsible for 1994 mass killings in Rwanda. Uganda, too, backed Mr. Kabila against Mr. Mobutu but has since turned against him.