Zaire: A tragedy for good consciences

Intervention must be done immediately or not at all. If early-warning signals are dismissed, late intervention only exacerbates conflict, as it has in Zaire.

The conflict between Hutus and Tutsis has been resurrected in Zairean camps where Hutus found refuge from mass slaughter two years ago. At this very moment in Zaire, Hutus, who fear death if they return to Rwanda, fight Banyamulenege Tutsi rebels, who have lived in Zaire for 50 to 200 years, and Zaire's army, whose insurrection has cut the flow of aid into refugee camps. To escape from their blades, women and men of all ages have disappeared into the jungles and mountains of Zaire, crossed the river to Congo or the lake to Tanzania, or collapsed with exhaustion on the slope of a hill, waiting for death. Because the area is purposefully cut off from the rest of the world, very little information gets out. In fact, most aid workers have left; one doctor saves lives performing amputations with a Swiss army knife.

What is the international community to do? Ought it return to the region and continue to support an artificial lifeline in camps as it has for the past two years at a cost of $1 million a day, and provide security but not incentives or leverage for negotiation? Should it remove all aid and politically avoid the conflict?

On Nov. 5, leaders of countries in the Organization of African Unity held a summit in Nairobi to discuss the situation in eastern Zaire. There was no breakthrough, but they did support a U.N. military force to secure a cease-fire. Zaire's Prime Minister Kengo skipped the talks to secure his political ambitions and because Rwanda's army roams through Zaire. Burundi could not participate because nations at the summit did not wave sanctions imposed on the Tutsi military regime after the recent coup d'etat there. How can an effective regional solution to this problem be created when two of the three primary actors are absent? This only perpetuates violent and long-lasting conflicts.

On Nov. 8, Zairean President Mobutu, in his pink marble villa on the French Riviera, received Raymond Chretien of Canada, the U.N. special envoy to the African region. The dictator supported the idea of a U.N.-military mission to establish a cease-fire and secure a corridor for refugees.

The international community has expressed its own concern. Peter Kessler of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees explained that "we need to go in there" because "you can't repatriate dead refugees." The Security Council convened behind closed doors. France and Spain are pressing for creation of a U.N.-led neutral military intervention - promptly replaced by an African military force - to secure a safe corridor so that refugees may return to Rwanda and Burundi. The British and the Americans are reluctant to intervene on the premise that it is "premature."

But a temporary "neutral" force to be replaced by an African force with U.S. and European backing is unrealistic. There is no structure to create such an African force, particularly not in this climate of chaos and tension. Furthermore, "neutrality" cannot exist when countries supply ethnic groups with weapons. In particular, Rwanda's Tutsi army does not trust the French, who they believe helped the Hutu genocidal leadership in 1994. *

Intervention must be done immediately or not at all. If early-warning signals are dismissed, late intervention only exacerbates conflict, as it has in Zaire. There, Hutu rebels have had two years to use the camps as secure headquarters. They travel into Rwanda to fight at night, and return to food and protection in the morning. Such "aid" provides no incentive to negotiate. Worse, men have taken control of the aid supplies, limiting access to women who distribute aid more fairly, giving particular priority to children.

A better form of intervention is to build institution capacity, such as "peace guards" who, in times of calm, ensure national security and devalue the power of a gun, the most stable currency, which buys everything from sex to food, passing by shelter and security. Humanitarian intervention has very much been treated as an end, when instead it should only be temporary to ensure survival. Long-term intervention is in fact non-intervention, or rather intervention in order to no longer intervene.

The United States, France and other countries can provide the capacity to build secure institutions from within rather than infiltrate temporary external solutions. Humanitarian intervention is impossible amid the violence of the current situation. Temporary "neutral" U.N. military intervention as intended by France and Spain seems unlikely and would occur too late. Finally, political intervention such as the cease fire and direct talks Chretien is trying to set up are only possible if all the parties involved sit down at the same table to discuss eliminating the power of terror. If it wants to intervene, the international community clearly must rethink how it can truly aid.

* caption = French troops in Rwanda

Gilonne d'Origny of Paris, France, is a senior majoring in international relations at Brown.