Problems With Current U.S. Policy.

The U.S. bears significant responsibility for the conflict in the Congo and therefore has an obligation to participate in its resolution. But other outsiders--both African and non-African--have also contributed to this tragic morass. There is blame enough to go around and thus a collective responsibility to put things right.

Belgium, the former colonial power, failed to prepare its Congolese subjects to assume power. In neighboring Rwanda and Burundi, Belgian rule favored Tutsi domination of the Hutu majorities, setting the stage for successive waves of ethnic killings that have spilled over into the Congo.

The U.S. played a major role in converting the newly independent Congo into a cold war battleground. In 1961, the Eisenhower administration authorized the murder of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who had been voted into office just months earlier in the territory's first-ever democratic election. Washington, which then installed Mobutu in power and kept him there for more than 30 years, bears heavy responsibility for the disastrous economic conditions, massive corruption, and suppression of human rights in Zaire. The U.S. prolonged Mobutu's rule by providing more than $300 million in weapons and $100 million in military training.

With the end of the cold war, the U.S., France, and Belgium formed a "troika" designed to pressure Mobutu to move toward democracy. This effort might have produced more positive results had not France defected to support Mobutu and the Hutu military dictator in Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana, in defense of French language and culture, supposedly threatened by "Anglophone" Uganda and its Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) proteges.

All of the Western powers contributed to the Rwandan genocide of 1994 by ignoring warning signs and reducing the United Nations presence at a time when it should have been reinforced. France compounded the problem by intervening, ostensibly to protect Hutus from the vengeance of the Tutsi-dominated RPF, but also to permit the authors of the genocide to escape. The creation of refugee camps in the Congo near Rwanda was a virtual invitation to the 1997 attacks on the camps. The Clinton administration stalled international intervention, which might have saved refugee lives but which also would have thwarted the effort by Rwanda and Uganda to replace Mobutu with Kabila.

Despite the end of the cold war, Washington decision-makers have continued to impose simplistic dichotomies on a complex, ambiguous reality. In Africa, Clinton posited a single solution to the problems of "rogue states"--notably Islamist Sudan and "dinosaurs" such as Mobutu--namely the "new leaders" of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, and Rwanda. Presumably these pragmatists would cooperate with Washington in establishing the new order in Africa.

Two other stereotypes reinforced the idea of new leaders: the Tutsi as "serious" in contrast to the Hutu and Congolese, and the Tutsi as genocide victims. On the basis of these stereotypes, the U.S. began secret military cooperation with Rwanda and Uganda. In all, the U.S. has supplied weapons and training to eight of the governments directly involved in the war that has ravaged the DRC since Kabila's 1997 coup, according to a recent World Policy Institute study.

The 1998 rescue of Kabila by Angola and Zimbabwe led to a stalemate. American efforts shifted to the promotion of a cease-fire, in cooperation with South Africa and Zambia. Such an agreement was signed in Lusaka, Zambia, in July 1999, but the African signers have shown little will or capacity to implement the cease-fire.

In January 2000, when the U.S. was chair of the UN Security Council, seven African presidents met in New York for a special session in an attempt to make the Lusaka cease-fire stick. They did little beyond reasserting the goals of the agreement. Kabila, however, who addressed the Security Council and conferred privately with American officials, reportedly left New York reassured that his government's views had been understood. For him and for Washington, this was a small victory.

In February, the Security Council unanimously approved an American-backed 5,500-strong monitoring mission to observe the Congo cease-fire, but the deployment of the force is scheduled to take four to six months. That time frame assumes that the troops are ready to go, that the fighting doesn't worsen, and that the warring states guarantee the mission's security. This bevy of assumptions raises the prospect of further delays. It is also unlikely that a peace can be policed by the belligerents, as the Lusaka Agreement requires, without strong input by neutral forces.

In addition, because of transport limitations, the UN plans to rely almost entirely on airlifts to get the troop monitors on the ground. That will cost an estimated $500 million in the first year, one-third of the annual UN peacekeeping budget. The United States has said it won't contribute ground troops but may provide logistics Support, which in past peacekeeping operations has included aircraft and communications equipment.

The UN plans to deploy the force in four key cities: Kindu and Kisangani in rebel-held territory and MbujiMayi and Mbandaka in government-held areas. Adoption of the UN plan represents another minor diplomatic victory for the Clinton administration, but it is far from dear that the conditions necessary to deploy the UN observer force will be met.

Key Problems

* Given its involvement in the Belgian Congo and Zaire, including its 30-year support for Mobutu, Washington is partly responsible for the conflict in the Congo and thus has an obligation to participate in its resolution.

* American backing for Rwandan and Ugandan intervention in the Congo reflects uncritical acceptance of three stereotypical notions: the leaders of Uganda and Rwanda as "new leaders," Rwanda's Tutsi leadership as "serious," and the Tutsi as deserving of support because they are genocide victims.

* The U.S. has supplied weapons and training to eight of the governments involved in the Congo conflict.