By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where "everything is broken but the human spirit," there is still "vibrancy" and "a lot of goodwill," U.N. Special Representative to the DRC William Swing told a meeting at the Woodrow Wilson International Center February 12.

"People want to get involved in the [political] transition" and make up for a civil war that has brought death to more than 3.5 million Congolese. And the U.N. is making progress helping them toward that goal, he said.

The career diplomat and former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, South Africa, Haiti and DRC, who now heads the U.N. Observer Mission to the Congo (MONUC), gave a "peace-building update" to Africanists, government officials and journalists at a Council on Foreign Relations/Search for Common Ground event. Swing explained that he had given a similar briefing to the U.N. Security Council in New York the day before.

Swing reported that MONUC currently fields 10,000 troops from 109 nations under a $641 million budget. It operates through 24 field offices in the DRC and also has liaison offices now in other countries including Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi. A new office is slated to open in South Africa next month. To get information out about the U.N. mission and the transition, Swing said MONUC established Radio Okapi, which is now the most wide-ranging station in the country, broadcasting in five languages.

Swing was named to head MONUC after the peace-building force was established in October 1999 to provide security for the political transition in DRC. He said he felt more progress on the security front could now be made in the war-torn nation because of MONUC's Chapter VII role, which under U.N. rules allows it to use "all necessary [military] means" to protect MONUC troops and civilians.

Force protection remains important, Swing emphasized, as he reported on the death that day of one of MONUC's military observers, noting, "There is still a great deal of risk out there for our troops, who are doing a magnificent job."

Swing said, "I'm working with people who have had 20 to 30 years of experience in the U.N. -- I've only been there a couple of years myself -- but it's working out well. My only role is to make sure that everyone is working on this transition with the same sense of urgency that I and MONUC have to try to make this happen according to the schedule the Congolese have set for themselves" with elections set for June 2005.

Swing said he began a proactive strategy of deploying up to 10,000 troops in Bunia, in eastern Congo, to guard against further massacres of civilians and help ensure the orderly repatriation of foreign forces back to countries like Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. The deployment involves shifting elements of two MONUC brigades, located in Ituri and Kivu -- some 9,000 troops -- to five other spots in the troubled Bunia sector. A guard force of approximately 1,000 troops is also stationed in Kinshasa providing security for members of the new transitional government. That force will later be deployed to areas in the east, he added.

In addition to MONUC protecting internally displaced refugees in Bunia, Swing said, "Refugees are [also] in every one of Congo's nine neighbors,... more neighbors than any other country in Africa. What I'm interested in is two-way traffic. I want the armed groups going out [of DRC] and the refugees coming back."

Along with force and civilian protection, Swing said another important goal of the Bunia deployment was to disrupt "the vicious triangle" of arms trading. Although there is a U.N. arms embargo in place, the flow of weapons into the region, purchased through the illegal harvesting of precious resources like rare timber and minerals, is virtually unhindered. Moreover, Swing said, "this fuels the conflict that in turn leads to more arms purchases," Swing said. Interdicting the illegal trade is not an easy task, considering there are 325 airfields to be monitored in Bunia.

Even with these challenges, Swing told his audience, "there are reasons to be encouraged" about progress in DRC.

"Despite four years of war; 12 years of instability and 44 years of political and economic mismanagement," he said, "national unity is intact. The Congolese people are one -- they want to be one, they don't want to be something else -- and during this entire war...I think it's safe to say there was never any talk about a secessionist movement. People are unified by war fatigue. They are unified in the hope of a peace dividend with security now."