At long last, more international attention is being paid to the horrendously violent war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). In response to vicious fighting involving summary executions, rape and reports of cannibalism in the north-eastern Ituri province there have been calls for a United Nations force to separate the antagonists and enforce and verify a ceasefire.
Between three and four million people have been killed in the fighting since 1998, when Rwandan Tutsi troops invaded the country in pursuit of Hutu forces responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Their intervention sparked other surrounding states, including Uganda and Burundi, to become involved, while Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia fought on the side of the Congolese government. As central authority collapsed each of these armies created proxy forces among Congolese tribes and peoples.
The conflict has been deepened by the country's wealth, with gold, diamonds, oil and copper in plentiful supply. In Ituri province the fighting has been precipitated by the withdrawal of Ugandan troops last year. This left a vacuum in which youthful militias from the majority Lendu and minority Hema people have fought over the provincial capital, Bunia. Their antagonism is intimately connected with the original Hutu-Tutsi one in Rwanda, and has been just as devastating and horrific, though it has not yet reached the same scale of genocide.
One dire scenario is that, left to itself, the present fighting could indeed deteriorate into another genocide. The United Nations Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, has called on France to see whether it could contribute to an intervention force to prevent that happening. Last week the British government indicated it might be prepared to do so. Mr Annan has also asked the European Union to contribute troops as well, with Sweden and Denmark responding positively so far.
The existing UN force has looked on helplessly at much of the latest fighting. It has neither the mandate, troops nor capacity to enforce peace or protect civilians. A UN request for extra troops made last December has virtually collapsed for lack of international response,fully reflecting central Africa's geopolitical irrelevance for the world's most powerful states embroiled in the Iraq war. More attention can and must be paid to this conflict. Ireland should be willing to look sympathetically at this latest request for troops, mindful of our involvement there after the country became independent from Belgium in 1960 and of Roger Casement's exposé of Belgian colonial exploitation 40 years earlier.