GERMANY: The German Bundestag has voted overwhelmingly in favour of sending 780 soldiers and support staff to supervise elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo later this month.
After a fiery parliamentary debate, 440 MPs from the ruling Christian Democrat-Social Democrat coalition voted to lead the 2,000-strong, 16-nation EU force.
The opposition Green Party supported the deployment, while 135 MPs from the Free Democrats (FDP) and the Left Party voted against.
Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier said the deployment, expected to cost Germany €57 million, was about "not leaving these people in the lurch".
"We should help guarantee that these elections are as fair as possible, as free as possible and as peaceful as possible," he told the Bundestag.
Around 300 German soldiers will be deployed for seven months in the area around the Congolese capital Kinshasa during the first elections there in four decades, intended to end five years of conflict in the region that has claimed an estimated four million lives.
These troops will be responsible for the protection and rescue of election observers while the rest of the German soldiers will be stationed in neighbouring Gabon.
Yesterday's vote came after weeks of debate in Germany's ruling coalition revealing reservations and confusion over the aims and duration of the mission.
Politicians from the FDP seized on those reservations yesterday, criticising the government's lack of a long-term strategy for the central African region. The party suggested the international community was motivated by the country's natural resources and not the furthering of democracy and warned that the deployment will lead to confusion with the 17,000 UN peacekeepers already on the ground.
"A land cannot be stabilised through secured elections alone," said Werner Hoyer, FDP foreign policy spokesman. "Mrs Chancellor, I'm afraid you are about to make your first foreign policy mistake." Morale is said to be low among Bundeswehr forces ahead of the mission, which one soldier lobby group has called "political showbusiness". The group has expressed concern that the Bundeswehr soldiers have not been trained for their first African deployment in 12 years.