Spring praises WEU role in military mission to Zaire area

THE Western European Union will contribute logistical and planning support on behalf of the EU to the UN Zairean military mission, European foreign and defence ministers agreed here yesterday.

The Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, said a formal EU request is expected to be made to the WEU, the organisation of NATO EU members, either from today's Brussels meeting of ambassadors or next Monday's foreign ministers' meeting.

EU member-states' soldiers will not come under WEU command in Zaire, but the organisation could provide what one Irish diplomat called "added value" to the mission because of its logistic and planning capabilities.

Mr Spring, attending the WEU ministerial meeting as an observer, welcomed the decision, which he said foreshadowed the sort of role envisaged for the WEU in the talks at the treaty-changing Inter-Governmental Conference. EU members will effectively subcontract the WEU to carry out humanitarian and peacekeeping missions with assets borrowed by the WEU from NATO.

The Tanaiste said the Zairean mission was a response to "a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions", and represented an "important practical test for the EU in terms of humanitarian tasks." He said the scale of the operation and the nature of the military mandate were still evolving in the light of the changing situation on the ground. But, he said, there was unanimity at the meeting on the need for a military mission.

Mr Spring, as president of the EU ministers, reported to the meeting on the Union's preparations for the humanitarian aspects of the mission, which will be discussed at a meeting of development ministers in Brussels on Friday.

Countries contributing troops, Ireland included, will also be meeting over the next two days in Stuttgart to discuss operational requirements with the Canadians, who will command the mission under UN mandate.

WEU ministers agreed the organisation could provide logistical support to the transport and demining operations and humanitarian aid distribution, as well as assistance in co-ordinating contributions from Europe to the Organisation of African Unity's training requirements. The WEU's planning cell and situation centre in Brussels would also contribute to monitoring the situation.

The French Defence Minister, Mr Charles Millon, told journalists that best French estimates for the flow of refugees suggested that of the 700,000 Rwandans believed to have been sheltering in northern Kivu province, some 500,000 had returned home. The balance, in addition to some 100,000 displaced Zaireans, appeared to be heading west.

Mr Millon warned the situation in southern Kivu was much more worrying with, he said, up to half a million Rwandan and Burundian refugees and 200,000 displaced Zaireans either in camps or hidden in forests. He put the number of armed Hutu militiamen still in Zaire at 50,000.

The Belgian Foreign Minister, Mr Eric Derycke, said the WEU decision to contribute to the Zairean force was an important step - from being largely a paper organisation it had moved to being one with an operational capacity. Even a week ago, he said, it would have been difficult to propose such involvement as France, Germany and Britain would have opposed it.

Although the meeting did not discuss the future institutional links between the WEU and the EU, the incoming EU presidency, in the form of the Dutch Defence Minister Mr Joris Voorhoeve, suggested there was a need for a discussion of a number of key issues: how the WEU could provide military advice to the EU on potential humanitarian missions; how the two organisations would divide political control of missions; and to what extent, if planning was done within NATO, the EU would have access to briefings.

He suggested there might be a need for "cross-representation" between the EU and NATO.

Meeting on Monday as the Western European Armaments Group, the WEU ministers also agreed to establish the Western European Armaments Organisation. Seen as the precursor to a common armaments agency for Europe, the new organisation will co-ordinate defence research among the member-states. Ireland is not even an observer at the meetings and no representative was present.