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Congo mission tests Europe's military policy

If all goes well, the French soldiers now pouring into a bloodstained corner of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will save more than lives: they will rescue the concept of international cooperation from the debacle of Iraq and give muscle to Europe's fledgling military foreign policy.

Operationally, the deployment, codenamed Artemis, is very much a French show, the result of a French initiative, with headquarters in Paris and with combat troops and commanders almost exclusively from France.

Its mission is to secure the town and airport of Bunia, in northeastern DRC's Ituri region, where hundreds of people have been killed in ethnic clashes over recent weeks; to improve humanitarian conditions there and protect civilians, UN personnel and humanitarian workers.

Politically, Artemis bears the imprint of the UN and the EU, both of which emerged badly bruised from the fierce rows surrounding the US-British led action in Iraq.

Unlike Iraq, there will never be any arguments about the legality of Artemis in terms of the UN Charter or other instruments.

UN Security Council Resolution 1484, unanimously passed on May 30, authorized the deployment of an "interim emergency multilateral force in Bunia" with authority to use deadly force if necessary.

Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Ethiopia, Pakistan, South Africa and Sweden have also said they would contribute to the mission.

In another nod to multilateralism, France insisted on approval from Rwanda and Uganda, who had troops involved in DRC's wider and still smouldering civil war.

Acting on the UN resolution, on June 5 the EU council adopted a "Joint Action" -- a collective decision -- to send troops to DRC under its own name, and to foot the bill.

The EU had never done this outside Europe. Unlike the only close precedent, a peacekeeping mission in Macedonia, Artemis is taking place without the logistical backing of NATO.

According to a Nairobi-based analyst of Africa's Great Lakes region, Artemis reflects France's desire "to show it is capable of doing things anywhere in the world and to make the point that, unlike other countries, it can do so under a UN mandate."

"The political motivation behind this is to show unity after the European foreign policy debacle of Iraq," he added.

Both EU missions could also lend weight and credibility to the Union's military and crisis management ambitions in the wake of the impotence it showed during the numerous conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s.

All these rewards are balanced by considerable risks and limitations.

"They are going into a military and political minefield," warned the Nairobi-based analyst.

Artemis' mandate expires at the end of August and the force will not deploy outside Bunia, even though the rest of Ituri is awash with homicidal and hate-filled fighters.

The operation will be little more than a high-profile quick-fix if the existing UN mission in DRC, called MONUC, is not beefed up considerably by the time the force leaves in September.

Mindful of this imperative, the Security Council included in Resolution 1484 an instruction to Kofi Annan to come with a plan to give the undermandated and undermanned MONUC more teeth.

The EU's own envoy to the Great Lakes, Aldo Ajello, is well aware of the dangers lurking in Bunia.

"We fear that militias will try to test the peacekeeping force," he said in Kinshasa this week.

Meanwhile, the guns have begun blazing again further south, in the Kivu provinces, where Rwandan-backed rebels have overrun several towns previously controlled by groups allied to Kinshasa.

Nearby Uganda, which only completed a massive withdrawal from DRC last month, has hinted it would rush back if its security was threatened.

That could easily provoke renewed fighting on Congolese soil between Rwandan and Ugandan troops and deal a crushing blow to the country's peace process.
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