Global Policy Forum

By Nicole Winfield

The Security Council has welcomed peace promises made by Congo's new president by moving to deploy a 5,500-strong U.N. force to monitor a cease-fire in the central African nation.

At a public meeting Friday capping President Joseph Kabila's whirlwind U.S. visit, ambassadors welcomed Kabila's inaugural promises last week to implement a 1999 cease-fire, cooperate with the United Nations and open talks with the opposition to end a 2½-year war that has engulfed the heart of Africa.

They strongly backed his demand that Rwandan and Ugandan troops, who have been fighting alongside Congolese rebels, leave the country.

Security Council members indicated they are willing to give the go-ahead to send a full observer force to the Congo an indication of the optimism that has accompanied the installation of Kabila as president following the Jan. 16 slaying of his father, former President Laurent Kabila.

''Out of the recent tragedy has come, we believe, a widely perceived opportunity to reach a peaceful settlement to this conflict,'' said Irish Ambassador Richard Ryan.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan is preparing a new blueprint on how the force would fan out across the vast Congolese territory. The plan is expected to be released ahead of a U.N. summit on Feb. 21-22 of the half-dozen countries involved in the war.

''This is surely a moment of opportunity which must be seized by the people of the (Congo) and all who wish them well,'' Annan told the ambassadors. His special representative, Kamel Morjane, said observers were ready to go provided Rwanda, Uganda and other combatants abide by their pledges to withdraw. Those promises were made at a December summit in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Congo's civil war began in August 1998, when Laurent Kabila's main sponsors, Uganda and Rwanda, turned against him and began supporting an anti-government rebellion. Kabila kept the rebels at bay with the help of new allies Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia. A cease-fire agreement was signed in 1999 in Lusaka, Zambia by Kabila and his allies, as well as Rwanda and Uganda and the rebels.

But continued fighting, security concerns and obstacles set up by the Congolese government have delayed full deployment of a 5,537-strong U.N. force authorized last February to monitor the cease-fire and oversee the withdrawal of all foreign forces. Only a few hundred monitors are currently in the field.

On Friday, Kabila insisted that the ''stumbling blocks'' to deployment that his father's regime had installed were removed, and that the U.N. force could move into government-held positions.

In a speech to the Security Council, he said presidential elections would be held once peace is restored and after Rwandan and Ugandan troops leave the country.