In this story: Kabila's widening civil war Annan proposes 5,000-strong U.N. force RELATED STORIES, SITES

January 24, 2000
Web posted at: 11:49 a.m. EST (1649 GMT)

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council and African leaders are meeting Monday in an effort to put the peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo back on track.

The session, chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, has drawn African presidents and foreign ministers from 10 countries, including Congo President Laurent Kabila. It ends a month of public debates on Africa organized by U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, this month's president of the 15-member Security Council.

The cease-fire mediated last year by Zambian President Frederick Chiluba to end the country's civil war is quickly deteriorating, with both sides accusing the other of breaking the accord.

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The Security Council is considering sending a peacekeeping force to the central African country.

Albright held private talks on Sunday with some of the leaders in an effort to wind down the continued fighting before any decision was made on sending in U.N. peacekeepers, said U.S. officials.

The United States, which would have to pay a third of the cost of a peacekeeping force, has been reluctant to send a force as long as fighting persists. Meanwhile, France has said that a complete cease-fire could not be achieved without international troops.

Chiluba said earlier he would demand a large-scale troop deployment, similar to those by the international community in Kosovo and in East Timor.

"The United Nations, and particularly Western governments, have a moral responsibility to help Africa, to help the Congo find peace," Chiluba said.

Widening civil war

The Congo's civil war involves 10,000 troops from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia supporting Kabila against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda.

In 1997, Kabila overthrew the late dictator Mobuto Sese Seko, promising reform in what was then Zaire. Kabila later renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Congo.

His undoing lay in promises never kept and the expulsion of ethnic Tutsis who he feared. The Tutsis ultimately rebelled, eventually gaining control of a large portion of the country. Kabila widened the war, seeking help from neighboring Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

Kabila wants the council first to condemn Rwandan and Ugandan troops in the country and their backing for the rebels. "Mr. Holbrooke should demand the departure of the Rwandans and Ugandans from Congolese territory," he said in Kinshasa.

Annan proposes 5,000-strong U.N. force

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed last week the deployment of more than 5,000 troops to protect 500 unarmed U.N. military observers, of which only 79 have been deployed. He indicated, in a report to the council, that the initial intervention could set the stage for a much larger, more costly operation.

The proposed force would return U.N. troops to a country that brought the world body close to political collapse four decades ago and cost the life of Dag Hammarskjold, its second secretary-general, in a plane crash on his way to peace talks. Some 20,000 international troops intervened in the early 1960s, with 250 fatalities.

Memories of that venture has made some members of the U.S. Congress wary of sending in troops.

"We have to get it right but not find an excuse to act at all," said Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Sen. John Warner (R-Virginia), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the United Nations first had to consolidate its operations in the Balkans and elsewhere "before we move on to take on any additional responsibilities."

Johannesburg Bureau Chief Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Reuters contributed to this report.