Global Policy Forum

By Robin Denselow

Covering the walls of the UN mission headquarters in Kinshasa are maps that show the Congo divided in two. Cutting across the Congo river and down through the centre of the country, there is the wiggly Kampala line that marks the division between the "government" and "rebel" troops, and there are markers showing the new positions to which the different forces have withdrawn.

The UN special representative in the Congo agrees there is the potential problem that the country could end up divided like Sierra Leone or, worse still, Cyprus, with the UN patrolling the dividing line. "I can assure you we are thinking very much about it," said Kamel Morjane. "We have to be careful."

Right now, a mere 62 four-man teams of UN military observers are deployed across the third largest country on the continent, checking that all sides are where they are supposed to be. Those being monitored are not just the Congolese army and two main rebel armies, but the forces of six African nations that have been fighting in the Congo on different sides.

Not included are the so-called "armed groups" or "negative forces" (depending on which side you support) who were not party to the Lusaka agreement that led to this first stage of what will hopefully end Africa's "world war". These groups have simply stepped up the fighting, in the east of the country.

It is a messy, confused situation, but the UN can claim "cautious optimism" about what has been achieved thus far. All sides have pulled back from the dividing line, and if the Ugandan-backed rebels of Jean-Pierre Bemba's FLC group have been slow to comply in the north, then the Rwandans and their allies in the RCD in the east have pulled back not just nine miles but 125.

There is, of course, a catch. It is claimed that the Rwandans have withdrawn but actually increased the number of their troops in the Congo.

So for the moment, at least, there is a line in the forest, and on each side a rival president, each professing to desire a united Congo, a get-together of all the different parties in an "inter-Congolese dialogue", and then free and fair elections in the country for the first time ever.

That is certainly what ordinary Congolese people are asking for, but with 100,000 armed foreigners still on Congolese soil, many of them making a hefty profit from the vast mineral resources, the problems are immense. And each president is predictably critical of the other.

Over on the western side, in Kinshasa, in a complex built by the then President Mobutu Sese Seko on a hill overlooking the rapids on the Congo river, there is the surprise new entry into Congolese politics, and the unexpected new young darling of the west, President Joseph Kabila.

He took over in January after the assassination of his father Laurent Kabila, and has done everything that western governments demand of African presidents, at quite extraordinary speed. He has lifted the ban on political parties, floated the Congolese franc (causing hardship in the process as petrol prices rose four times overnight) and, of course, promised free and fair elections.

Most important of all, he agreed to go ahead with the Lusaka plan and allowed in the UN. Unlike his father, he is a man of few words, all of them quietly spoken, but he made it clear that he now expects the international community to act on his behalf. He says he wants the UN mandate extended to keeping the peace rather than merely observing, and their numbers increased to "at least 15,000".

If the Ugandan and Rwandan armies do not leave, he demands "not just pressure but sanctions". And as for the Rwandan claim that they are in the Congo for their own security, that is dismissed.

"Even if there really was a problem, it's not the way to deal with a problem". So why are the Rwandans here? According to the UN report, the main reason as of now is the looting of the natural resources of the Congo. However, the UN report has been sharply criticised for inaccuracy on the Rwandan case, and for its failure to detail the undoubted leaching out of resources by Zimbabwe.

A thousand miles to the east, in the lakeside town of Goma, just a few miles from the Rwandan border, the rival Congolese president is holding a parade for a group of child soldiers whom he says he has rescued from the militias he has been fighting.

If there is to be a Congolese dialogue, then the RCD, the Rally for Congolese Democracy, will also have to be part of the equation, even if they are dismissed in Kinshasa as stooges of the Rwandans, and the RCD is furious at what it claims are Mr Kabila's tactics.

The Rwandans may be making money from the Congo, but they first crossed into the east to fight the interahamwe, the Hutu militias responsible for the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and then given sanctuary by Mobutu.

The Rwandan army supported Laurent Kabila's campaign against Mobutu because they expected Mr Kabila to turn on the interahamwe, but when he did the opposite they launched their "second war" against their former ally. Now the Rwandans and the RCD accuse Joseph Kabila of sending the interahamwe into the east from government-held areas. According to the RCD president, Adolph Onusumba, the aim is to "destabilise our security. They've been moving in large numbers".

And the UN, concentrating on the ceasefire down the Kampala line, is accused of ignoring what is happening in the east "because that's not part of their mandate". Unsurprisingly, the killers in the interahamwe were not a party to the Lusaka agreement.

So can the UN bring these two sides together and end the fighting and division of the Congo? Kamel Morjane, is sanguine. "I don't think any foreign forces could continue to be here if there is a dialogue going on and if the Congolese themselves decide they can solve their problems and guarantee the security of their neighbours." It won't be easy.