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'Stop the Murder'

German President Wants More Western Help for Congo

With violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo continuing unabated, German President Horst Köhler says it is time for Western countries to help the UN bring the conflict to an end. France, too, would like to see a robust UN mandate for more peacekeepers.

With violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo showing no signs of relenting, the West is getting restless. And on Monday night, German President Horst Köhler, speaking before 1,000 students at a SPIEGEL-organized event at the University of Mainz, became the latest to demand action.

"I am really not a war monger," Köhler said. "But if we mean it seriously when we talk about values that we believe in, then Europe needs to provide soldiers to stop the murder." Köhler said it was time for the United Nations to come up with a robust mandate that would allow the effective protection of civilians. Furthermore, he said, it is difficult to understand why, when Germany and other European countries are engaged in so many hotspots around the world, they mostly stand passively by when it comes to Congo.

"Either we say that, because of our humanitarian convictions we do not want to tolerate the development of such situations anymore, or we just let things continue because we can't find a solution."

Köhler's comments came on the heels of a proposal released on Monday by the French delegation to the United Nations, calling for an additional 3,000 peacekeeping troops and 300 police to be sent to Congo. The proposal was made in consultation with the United States, Great Britain and Belgium and follows Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's call for more monitors in the region.

The existing UN mission in Congo, MONUC, has been unable to stem recent spasms of violence in the eastern part of the country. During the past weekend, Tutsi rebels under the command of General Laurent Nkunda managed to take control of the town of Rwindi, about 75 miles north of the city of Goma.

On Tuesday, though, there was a flicker of hope that perhaps the violence may soon be lessening. Rebel leader Nkunda said that he was pulling his forces back from the front in two places in eastern Congo, according to Reuters, saying that the "separation zones" thus created should be filled by UN peacekeepers.

The Congolese army, meanwhile, is battling demoralization after Democratic Republic of the Congo President Joseph Kabila sacked his military chief of staff, General Dieudonne Kayembe, late on Monday. According to wire reports, the army skirmished on Tuesday with allies from local militias as it retreated from the rebels. The militias said they were trying to force the army to stand and fight.

Still, the renewed violence in eastern Congo has plunged the region into chaos in recent weeks. UN envoy Olusegun Obasanjo has had little success in his efforts to broker a renewed cease-fire, but Kabila has rejected calls for negotiation. Over a hundred people have been killed since September as a result of the fighting and more than 250,000 have been made homeless. The UN reported on Tuesday that as many as 28,000 refugees in the region have no access to aid due to violence and bad roads.

MONUC is the UN's largest current peacekeeping operation, deploying a total of 17,000 troops at a cost of $1.1 billion per year. The mission was started eight years ago in order to monitor the cease-fire that brought some measure of peace to the country after the incessant fighting of the 1990s, referred to as the Second Congo War. Despite the presence of UN troops, disputes between rebels and government forces in the mineral rich eastern part of the country have largely continued unabated. Peacekeepers have faced criticism for their lack of engagement.

The French proposal calls for the additional peacekeepers to be sent in haste. But a number of hurdles stand in the way of an immediate deployment. The Security Council must still consider and approve the troop increase before the process of recruiting additional peacekeepers from UN member states begins. The backers of the resolution, though, are hoping that the urgency of the situation will speed the process along.

csa -- with wire reports