POLITICS: Support Grows for UN Missions in Sierra Leone, DRC

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 1999 (IPS) - Support was growing Thursday among UN members, including many key Western powers, for a plan to deploy UN missions in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and other African conflict zones.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, speaking at an earlier Security Council discussion on crises in Africa, led the call for a 6,000 strong peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone, as well as consideration of further efforts in the Congo and elsewhere.

“Sierra Leone and the DRC need more than humanitarian palliatives,” Annan said.

He urged greater international commitment to peace efforts and other partnerships in Africa, arguing that “nations making good- faith efforts and adopting enlightened policies deserve much greater support than they are now getting.”

Last week, Annan proposed that the United Nations deploy a 6,000-member mission in Sierra Leone to monitor the Lome peace agreement brokered between the government and rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

The mission would replace, but possibly include, members of the 12,000-soldier ECOMOG regional force, whose large contingent of Nigerian troops was being withdrawn gradually. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who visited the United Nations last week, said that the replacement of ECOMOG soldiers by UN troops could help relieve Nigeria’s costly peace-keeping burden.

Salim Ahmed Salim, secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), said a UN force also would help to “stabilise the situation.”

In recent years, however, the United Nations was unable to mount large-scale operations in Africa – mainly due to US indifference.

The United States maintained a restrictive policy toward UN peacekeeping after the ill-fated 1993 effort by UN and US soldiers in Somalia to capture a Somali faction leader.

During the Security Council debate Wednesday, US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke supported sending military observers to Sierra Leone and that the United Nations should be “ready to introduce a full peacekeeping operation in December, when the Nigerians plan to leave.”

Holbrooke did not offer any details about how many soldiers the United States might be willing to authorise for either the Sierra Leone conflict or for the fragile situation in the Congo- Kinshasha.

Other diplomats, however, were more supportive of missions in Africa. Peter Hain, Britain’s Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, said the Security Council should be ready to accept Annan’s proposals on Sierra Leone “as soon as possible.”

Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy said the “risks and the costs for these operations must be assumed by us all.,

“Making this solely, or even primarily, a local responsibility, and simply passing around a hat to see what might be dropped into it, is shameful and inadequate.”

Axworthy said that the ECOMOG force, deployed by the Economic Community of West African States, “has shouldered the burden long enough” in Sierra Leone. Similarly, he said, “we may be faced with the need for robust, comprehensive peace operations in the DRC and possibly in Ethiopia-Eritrea.”

The reason so many forces would be needed followed hopeful reports that several African conflicts appeared to be losing steam – including the brutal RUF rebellion in Sierra Leone, the multi- national conflict in the eastern Congo and the year-long Ethiopia- Eritrea border war.

Annan said that, although the Lome agreement which granted RUF leaders amnesty was “far from perfect,” it responded to the “real desire for peace in that country and gives it a new lease on life.”

Last week, Zambian President Frederick Chiluba also urged the Security Council to support the Congo peace process, signed in Lusaka, that has committed the DRC government, several rebel entities and neighbouring governments to a cease-fire.

UN officials estimated that a minimum of 15,000 soldiers may be needed to patrol the DRC effectively and ensure peace among the various factions but the United States signalled it was unwilling to authorise more than 5,000 troops for the mission.

Holbrooke said that Washington supported Chiluba’s peace efforts, and would consider recommendations for future action by UN military liaison officers.