Deploy EU troops 'to prevent DR Congo genocide'
EU leaders told additional peacekeeping force needed in DR Congo to prevent current crisis spiralling into genocide
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Thursday, 27, Nov 2008 08:24
A temporary EU peacekeeping force must be deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) immediately in order to prevent the current crisis spiralling into genocide, it has been claimed.
An influential group of former presidents, prime ministers, diplomats and military commanders has written to European Union leaders to call on the bloc to support the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the country's east.
The UN has already approved 3,000 extra troops to swell its 17,000-strong peacekeeping operation in DRC but it could take months for the reinforcements to arrive.
Existing EU battle groups, created to respond to crises such as the fighting in DRC, could help fill the gap, the open letter says.
In their letter to EU leaders, signatories, which include Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jan Egeland, the former UN emergency relief coordinator, compare the current conflict in eastern DRC's North Kivu province to Srebrenica and Rwanda.
Since 1998 around 5.4 million people have died in the DRC's complex ethnic-based conflicts.
Recent fighting has seen rebel general Laurent Nkunda take on government forces in the east of the country, forcing the internal displacement of around 250,000 people.
Reports of killings, rape and the recruitment of child soldiers by both sides have alarmed human rights groups.
"It is clear to all of us that only a political solution can bring an end to this crisis," the letter's signatories write.
"But it is also clear that the political track will take time to yield results and would suffer badly from any sudden destabilisation that could take place at any moment.
"The Congolese people cannot wait."
Other notable signatories to the open letter include Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic; Frederik Willem de Klerk, former president of South Africa and Nobel peace laureate; Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor for UN international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda; and Mike Moore, World Trade Organisation director general and New Zealand prime minister.