12 April 2000
Holbrooke Urges Congress To Support Lusaka Peace Plan
(Calls UN effort acceptable risk, cites peacekeeping successes) (550) By Susan Ellis Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- There are "no roads, the rivers are silted up, communications are down," the jungle is encroaching, and numerous bands of rebel armies and some "very strange elements" are shooting and roaming the country in quest of its rich natural resources. That is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke believes the UN must send its peacekeepers and observers, with the financial support of the United States. "If the UN does not go into the Congo, I am certain the war will metastasize and spread, but I cannot guarantee success [even if the UN does intervene]. It's a risk. It's the toughest issue I've ever dealt with," he told a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee April 11. "The Africans themselves worked on a plan last summer called the Lusaka Peace Plan and they have asked the UN to support (it)," he told the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary. The UN did so, and is now preparing to send 500 military observers backed up by support forces that will total 5,000, with the United States asked to pay 25 percent of the cost, or $41 million for Fiscal Year 2000. Holbrooke said he believes it is well worth the cost and the risk. He calls it "an acceptable risk" involving no physical involvement of U.S. troops "and very little fiscal involvement. This is not a supplemental (appropriation). The $41 million will come out of existing funds," he says. "The announcement ten days ago that the contending parties are ready to stop shooting, and their call for the UN to accelerate its deployment, can only be read as a plus," he said. "I hope we have the support of this very important subcommittee. The Africans came up with this plan and all they're asking for is for us to support it." Holbrooke cited as a model the recent UN peacekeeping effort in East Timor. "Absent the UN, the Indonesians would still be in charge of East Timor...and now, instead, we're seeing emerge a new sovereign nation in the South Pacific which will soon join the community of nations. As in Mozambique and Namibia, the UN has been (instrumental) and these are success stories," he said. The Congo's "biggest tragedy is the opposite of (that in) East Timor," he said. While East Timor is a poor country, the Congo is "very rich -- diamonds, uranium, chrome, hardwood forests, illegal poaching of animals. Incredible resources and everyone wants them." The Lusaka Peace Plan requires that all the parties "stop shooting at each other, start withdrawing, supervised by the UN, and at the same time have a political dialogue under the leadership of a prominent African," he said. "That plan is now being administered by the UN," Holbrooke continued. "It has a 50-50 chance of success. If we don't go ahead with it, we have no chance to prevent the war....It's a virtual certainty that absent the UN-backed effort, it will explode." (The Washington File is distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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