December 17, 1999
United Nations - With all parties accused of violating a cease-fire in Congo's civil war, African nations are urging quick deployment of U.N. peacekeepers, a move the United States says is premature.
A day after the Security Council held an open meeting on how to build ''a real partnership'' between the United Nations and Africa, it returned Thursday to the continent's major challenge - bringing peace to Congo where a 16-month conflict has drawn in five other countries.
Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Bernard Miyet told the council that the military and security situation in Congo has ''seriously deteriorated'' in the past month and U.N. efforts to deploy officers to survey the security situation and plan for a peacekeeping operation are being stymied. Only 62 of 90 liaison officers are in the field because the Congo government and rebel forces have not guaranteed full security and freedom of movement for them, he said. Until their survey is finished, he said, the United Nations cannot go ahead with the deployment of 500 military observers. About 25,000 peacekeepers are expected to join those observers.
African members of the Security Council expressed frustration and anger that the United Nations has moved so slowly in the five months since a cease-fire agreement was signed in Lusaka, Zambia. The deal has been signed by Congolese President Laurent Kabila and his allies - Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia - and the rebels and their allies, Rwanda and Uganda. ''The horrors of Rwanda must not be allowed to repeat themselves'' in Congo, warned Gambia's U.N. Ambassador Baboucarr-Blaise Jagne. ''The longer we wait the more the agreement is likely to unravel and fighting resumed.''
Namibia's U.N. Ambassador Martin Andjaba said Africans felt the council should act as urgently in Congo as it had in other parts of the world, like East Timor and Kosovo - and many Africans wondered if the delay was because Congo is in Africa. If the council decides to ''wait for perfection,'' he warned, ''we will lose everything that has been achieved in the Lusaka peace process.''
But U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said the United States could not afford a peacekeeping operation that wasn't right, and council members still don't know the size, mandate and cost of a Congo peacekeeping operation. ''We are dragging our feet right now - but not because we are opposed to peacekeeping in Congo,'' he said. ''We're dragging our feet because we want a peacekeeping operation, and we want to get it right.''
The Netherlands' U.N. Ambassador Peter van Walsum backed Holbrooke, saying there was a ''myth that it was the 'dilly-dallying of the Security Council that had killed the Lusaka agreement.'' The main reason for its fragile state is the failure of the parties to observe it, he said.
