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| Africa: Subsaharan |
| Congo Peacekeepers Adopt Warriors' Tactics. Really. |
| 2004-12-27 |
| Villagers crowd around a new U.N. base to stare at a white helicopter lifting off over eastern Congo's mountainous terrain, where U.N. troops sent to secure peace are increasingly playing the role of infantrymen in Central Africa's latest fighting. Since renegade soldiers began battling government loyalists on Dec. 12, the 11,000-strong U.N. peace force has stepped up its own military actions — rushing thousands of troops to front lines and warning that peace troops will act forcefully to protect Congo's people. The schism in Congo's postwar army, pitting ex-rebels against loyalists to the Kinshasa government, threatens to draw in neighboring countries that supported the factions during the 1998-2002 war. "We are not equipped. We don't have the manpower to deal with an army cracking," says Brig. Gen. Jan Isberg, the commander of peacekeepers in the North and South Kivu states where fighting has centered. "So, the only thing we can do is to try of course to mediate, to try to make them work together and to intervene" militarily, when all else fails, Isberg said. The U.N. mission is flexing its muscles after being given a strengthened mandate while building up to 16,000 soldiers. But many Congolese accuse it of doing too little to stop the suffering of civilians still under attack by armed factions. Some 3.8 million people have died since Congo's war broke out, most through hunger and disease, according to a recent survey by the International Rescue Committee, a U.S.-based aid agency. In an attempt to stop a repeat — the latest fighting has sent over 100,000 fleeing already — U.N. peacekeepers have positioned themselves between the warring army factions in a 6-mile-wide no-go cordon. "Any unapproved attempt by one side or the other to cross this buffer zone ... will be immediately pushed back," the U.N. Congo mission warned last week in an unusually strongly worded statement. |
| Posted by:Fred |