The Democratic Republic of Congo is a vast country - nearly the size of Europe - in the heart of Africa. It has borders with nine neighbouring states, all of which have been drawn into its conflicts, when an estimated 5.5 million people died between 1998 and 2004.
There is now a real danger that these regional wars will resume following the collapse of an agreement reached earlier this year and the renewed outbreak of fighting around the eastern town of Goma which the large United Nations force has been unable to prevent. A quarter of a million people have been displaced from their homes in recent weeks.
Many of these conflicts are bound up with control over the country's equally vast mineral wealth, including coal, iron ore, bauxite, diamonds, gold and timber. They are directly involved, too, with the fallout from the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda when 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu extremists. Many of those responsible fled to the eastern Congolese province of Kivu, where their presence has been contested by Gen Laurent Nkunda, a regional Tutsi leader whose military power is at the centre of these latest events. He is suspected of collusion with Rwanda's Tutsi leadership, but has also attracted support from groups disaffected with the Congolese president Joseph Kabila who won the national elections two years ago.
Gen Nkunda is now demanding direct negotiations with Mr Kabila, amid intense diplomatic activity on the issue. The British and French foreign ministers, who visited the region at the weekend, are putting pressure on the African Union to mediate the conflict and want to strengthen the existing 17,000 UN force in Congo. So far they are not willing to recommend supplementing it with a European Union force with a temporary mandate to restore security which would allow people return to their homes. That may well become necessary if conditions deteriorate further, possibly leading to another regional conflict and a recurrence of mass inter-communal violence.
Measured by the numbers of casualties and the blatant self-interest of contending parties and interests the Democratic Republic of Congo has been the worst example of a failed state in recent history. It is also the least well reported internationally, and has suffered from prolonged political neglect from world power centres. Neither internationally sponsored elections nor UN interventions have succeeded in resolving these problems, which must now be tackled once again.