Peacekeeping and humanitarian aid, like war, are the continuation of politics by other means. This, needs to be borne in mind as the crisis in Zaire and Rwanda unfolds. The United Nations Security Council is preparing a mandate that will determine what precise powers an intervention force will have. Its members have to deal with the paradox that most of those states willing to send troops are unwilling to allow them to be used in combat mode, even though UN people on the ground are convinced that only a peace enforcement operation will be able to separate the Hutu extremists from the refugees they have been using as a human shield.
It is, perhaps, not surprising in these circumstances that the Banyamulenge rebels in Zaire may have decided to fight it out with the extremists before the UN force arrives. Otherwise, they fear, it will act as a further shield, freezing the situation on the ground and perpetuating the circumstances that have provoked the conflict in the first place. Much will depend not only on the fine print of the Security Council mandate but on how it is implemented on the ground by the Canadian commander who has now been appointed.
There are good and bad precedents from recent international experience. In Somalia a strong mandate was enforced with ill judged and inappropriate methods by a US commander whose failures led to a complete rethink in the Clinton administration about such involvements. Unfairly, the UN was blamed. In Bosnia, by contrast, a much larger US led NATO force has been successful in implementing its mandate. Here there is a much more robust arming of the troops involved and a readiness by them to use force that has communicated itself to all concerned.
It remains to be seen whether the scale of the operation agreed in Rwanda/Zaire and the mandate it is given are sufficient to achieve what is required. The Canadian initiative in taking the leading role is very much to be commended, given that country's long and sustained commitment to UN peacekeeeping and peace enforcing operations. Its role will mitigate the fears of French unilateral action and should encourage African states to become more fully involved. Unless they do it will be much more difficult for them to criticise Western inaction and caution in this crisis, which combines political and humanitarian aspects in equal and unusually transparent fashion.
The politics of military and humanitarian intervention must be geared to resolving the deep seated political questions that underlie this conflict. This requires that the troops involved be well armed and willing to use their arms to enforce their mandate if necessary. Only in this way can humanitarian corridors be opened for the refugees, as well as facilitating an attempt to resolve the conflicts through a conference and longer term agreements. It is essential to keep sight of these longer term, political aims as the extraordinarily pressing and urgent humanitarian catastrophe is dealt with. Otherwise the entire fabric of the Great Lakes region is in danger of disintegration, provoking a wider and more dangerous disintegration of Zaire. In that case war would return to take on its more classical role as the continuation of political failure.