U.N. force deployment in Congo put off

By M.S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, JUNE 16. The deployment of a U.N. peace keeping force to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, expected to begin with the arrival of a South African contingent in Kisangani this weekend, has been deferred.

According to a report from the U.N., the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, had deferred the deployment of the planned force of 5,537 observers and troops because of the persistence of fighting between `warring factions'.

The fighting in and around Kisangani, a major city deep inside the DRC, is not so much as between `warring factions' but between the regular armies of Rwanda and Uganda. The two countries, ostensibly in the DRC with the common objective of helping rival rebel factions opposed to the DRC government, have been at war with each other on the DRC territory for months now - an astonishing state of affairs with which the `international community', so keen to ensure peace there, has acquiesced for over nearly a year.

Cabinet approval or contributing to the U.N. peace keeping force came over four months after the Security Council authorised deployment of 5,537 troops to monitor the ceasefire agreement in the DRC. South Africa has from the beginning been expected to contribute substantially to the exercise. Other countries whose troops are expected to be part of the peace keeping forces are Pakistan, Morocco and Senegal.

However, influential opinion in South Africa continues to be wary, if not critical, of its involvement in such activities. Indeed, the debate in South Africa on whether the country should take part in the U.N. peace keeping operations in the DRC, or indeed anywhere else on the continent, that has been going on well before the U.N. Security Council's decision, arises not out of any legitimate concerns about South Africa's lack of experience in taking part in such operations but out of the persistence of the `old' mindset in influential sections of the establishment, especially those engaged in `strategic defence thinking' that the country should not really get involved in 'the mess that is Africa'.

The sentiment is not openly expressed, since after all it flies in the face of South Africa's commitment to an `African renaissance' over which there is an eloquent verbal consensus among those who shape policy. However, at the `popular' level on the part of the white minority, it finds even more eloquent expression in interventions in radio talk shows and in letters to newspapers.

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Section  : International
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