Global Policy Forum

By Marc Young

The European Union has once again postponed deciding whether to send peacekeeping troops to Congo during elections this June. Germany is reluctantly being pushed into a leading role. But any mission to the strife-torn African country threatens to become a farce.

Unable to come up with the political resolve to back a peacekeeping mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo, European defense ministers this week delayed making any commitment to help stabilize the country ahead of upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections this summer.

The United Nations put in a request for European troops in December in the hope they would give the vast UN peacekeeping operations in Congo enough added weight to demonstrate that the international community had not written off the troubled land. The European Union -- having announced a "strategic partnership" with Africa last year and keen to develop its joint military capability -- initially signaled its willingness to help out.

But two months of dithering and obviations in Brussels and other European capitals ended in two days of meetings in the Austrian city of Innsbruck, where EU defense ministers on Tuesday could only decide to send EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to Congo to discuss with the country's leadership what, if any, sort of operation is both required and wanted.

"I think in a few days we will be in a position to convey again the situation to the different governments and probably take a decision soon," Solana told a press conference. "There is a lot of work to be done." But whatever eventually emerges from all that work now appears certain to amount to nothing more than a classic European Union-style fudge.

Diving into chaos

The presence of European troops in Congo was originally intended to help the resource-rich country -- long plagued by war, corruption and starvation -- to continue its tentative steps toward recovery and reconciliation. However, daunted by the prospect of diving into the chaos that consumes Congo, the EU now seems prepared only to undertake a mission that would essentially be there to ensure the safety of foreigners -- Western election observers, diplomats and aid workers -- should the June poll spark new violence.

At most, some 1,500 European soldiers would be stationed outside of Kinshasa with just a few hundred posted in the capital city itself. Their prospective base? The only way out of Congo -- the airport. And Germany, which has reluctantly been pushed into taking the lead of any eventual EU mission, apparently can't even find enough other European countries willing to contribute troops. Poland on Tuesday pledged 30 troops and Austria promised to send 10. "We need a reasonably sized force," said German Defense Minister Franz-Josef Jung on Tuesday in Innsbruck. "There is an overall responsibility for Europe. There must be a fair distribution."

Leading the Congo mission has fallen to Berlin since the EU's two most important military powers -- Britain and France -- are currently unwilling and unable to mount a big international deployment due to their respective involvement in Iraq and the Ivory Coast. Germany also presently has the rotating responsibility for EU's rapid-reaction forces known as "battlegroups" that are meant to undertake missions outside Europe.

With smaller EU nations such as Belgium, Spain, Poland, Sweden, and Portugal not even able to make a firm commitment for a few dozen troops each, Germany and France are expected to make up the bulk of the 1,200 soldiers being considered for the mission. If Germany takes overall command from its military facilities in Potsdam near Berlin, France would likely have the operational say on the ground in Congo.

Violent warlords in the countryside

But that, of course, is if the Europe manages to go ahead with the deployment at all. Jung has set four conditions for the mission including clear goals set by the EU, a UN mandate, limiting deployment to Kinshasa and a mission limited to four months centered around the June 18 elections. And behind the scenes, many officials in Berlin, Paris and Brussels still hope they can avoid getting involved in Congo -- Africa's third largest nation by area.

Congo has been plagued by conflict since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960. Neighboring Rwanda and Uganda invaded to help topple the notoriously corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko ten years ago, but that merely plunged the sprawling country deeper into bloody chaos. After the murder of Mobutu's successor Laurent Kabila, the country has been ruled by his son Joseph. But his government only has a firm grip on Kinshasa and parts of Congo.

Broad swathes of the north are controlled by a warlord backed by Uganda, whose forces are suspected of cannibalism by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In the east, Rwanda-backed Tutsi troops have the say and marauding bands terrorize the local population. Living in the dense tropical forests are also Hutus that took part in the genocide against Rwanda's Tutsis in the 1990s. Elsewhere, thousands of child soldiers -- often made to believe by witchdoctors they are invincible -- are used to rape, plunder and pillage the countryside.

The merciless battle is largely one for control of Congo's precious natural resources -- gold, copper, coltan used in mobile phones, and diamonds. But the almost 17,000 UN peacekeepers already in the country haven't been able to stop an estimated 1,200 people from dying daily due to violence, corruption and misrule. Coming from mostly poorer nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, the blue helmets are hopelessly overwhelmed in a large land with dismal infrastructure.

Wishy-washy deployment

Whether even a determined mission by the EU could help turn things around is questionable. But some observers fear a wishy-washy deployment that only appears to be ensuring Westerners have a safe getaway when things fall apart could even do more harm than good.

Still, members of the German government seem convinced Europe cannot afford to stand by and do nothing. "Europeans have a special responsibility for Africa," said German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, explaining Europe must finally follow words with deeds. "Anything else would be an admission of failure."

With reporting by Der Spiegel staff

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.