Global Policy Forum

By Colum Lynch

As Britain's United Nations ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock, prepared to lead a Security Council delegation to West Africa earlier this month to help end civil strife in the region, word came from London and Washington that Africa's troubles would have to wait. Greenstock was needed here to help usher a U.S.-backed resolution lifting sanctions on Iraq through the 15-nation council. The postponement of the seven-nation tour underscored the degree to which the Security Council's focus on Iraq over the last several months has overshadowed other looming crises. But it also demonstrates how powerful nations including the United States and Britain can monopolize the council's attention on problems they want solved while leaving others to fester.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the council's priorities have shifted to combating global terrorism and helping to rebuild countries -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- invaded by the United States. But the agenda has been pursued at the expense of other trouble spots, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where several nations, including Liberia, Ivory Coast and Congo, are facing some of their worst crises in years, according to some diplomats and U.N. observers.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has pleaded with the Security Council in recent weeks to support greater foreign intervention in Congo and West Africa. The United States and other council members have proceeded with caution, backing the U.N. chief's calls for action but engaging in drawn-out negotiations on the nature, cost and scope of U.N. intervention. With senior U.N. officials warning of a possible genocide in Congo, U.S. officials say they are now seriously considering support for further U.N. intervention there. The Bush administration, which has been skeptical about U.N. peacekeeping and is nursing a grudge against France for leading opposition to the Iraq war, has been reluctant to back a significant expansion of U.N. operations in Africa, particularly places where the French hold sway.

Last month, the United States stalled a French-backed U.N. proposal to send more than 250 U.N. peacekeepers to the former French colony Ivory Coast. Once a bastion of stability in West Africa, Ivory Coast has descended into civil war, drawing in more than 4,000 French peacekeepers and 1,200 West African troops. U.S. officials agreed this month to establish a U.N. mission with a total of 75 U.N. civil servants to coordinate humanitarian relief efforts and facilitate the transition to a new government. But it will be far too small to assume France's political responsibilities in Ivory Coast.

Annan and other senior U.N. officials warn that the Security Council is moving too slowly to confront a surge in ethnic fighting between ethnic Hema and Lendu militia in Congo's Ituri province. The ethnic fighting represents a major escalation of a conflict over political power and control of the country's natural resources that has involved the armies of seven African nations. More than 5,000 U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in Congo to monitor a cease-fire and the withdrawal of the foreign forces.

On May 7, the departure of the last Ugandan forces from the mineral-rich region created a power vacuum that long-feuding Hema and Lendu fighters have sought to fill. U.N. officials maintain that the Congolese government, regional powers including Uganda and Rwanda, and their local allies have fueled the violence to protect their commercial interests in the region.

Fearing a bloodbath, more than 10,000 civilians have sought refuge at the U.N. headquarters at Bunia airport. But U.N. officials maintain that a contingent of more than 700 Uruguayan peacekeepers in Bunia lacks the firepower and the mandate to halt the violence.

Annan asked the Security Council in a letter on May 16 to "urgently consider" the deployment of a "highly-trained and well-equipped" foreign force to Bunia to secure the airport and other vital installations and to "protect the civilian population." France has expressed an interest in leading such a mission and sent a team to the area to prepare for a possible deployment. But it has set a number of conditions, including broad participation by other foreign forces and an exit strategy that would permit a swift transition to a U.N. peacekeeping force. South Africa, Britain, Canada, Pakistan and several other countries are considering participating in such a mission.

The United States has previously opposed any expansion of the U.N. mandate in Congo. But the prospect of a new wave of mass ethnic killings has prompted a reconsideration of U.S. policy. U.S. diplomats say the administration favors the deployment of the French-led force in Bunia and that it will provide political and financial backing to a follow-on U.N. peacekeeping mission that would permit a French withdrawal.

The Security Council's delayed visit to West Africa was intended to shore up support "for a number of agreements for restoring peace" throughout the region and to apply pressure on Liberian President Charles Taylor, the chief instigator of West Africa's recent turmoil, Greenstock said. Since he seized power in 1990, Taylor has promoted armed groups vying for control of the region's lucrative diamond, timber and gold trade. He faces international pressure to reach a power-sharing agreement with two rebel groups, the Liberians for Reconciliation and Democracy and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia, whose forces have been advancing on the capital, Monrovia. The council voted this month to add a timber export embargo to a ban on travel and diamond sales unless he cooperates.

The conflict has driven more than 200,000 Liberians from their homes and forced more than 300,000 to flee the country, according to U.N. estimates. Ruud Lubbers, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, who completed his own five-nation tour of Liberia last week, voiced frustration that the United States and other major powers have failed to bring enough pressure to change Taylor's ways or, if necessary, to drive him from power. "If you're serious about democracy in the rest of the world, then you should be serious about democracy in West Africa, as well," Lubbers said at the end of his trip, the Associated Press reported.

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