Instability still reigns in the Congo
Photo AP: Congolese vented their outrage at the failure of the United Nations peacekeeping force to stop the rebel advance.
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN (The New York Times)
GOMA, Congo — When Congo shakes, Africa trembles.
This vast linchpin of a country at the green heart of the continent, covering 905,000 square miles and bordering nine nations, never goes down alone.
When the Congolese state began to collapse in 1996, it set off a regional war. When it imploded again in 1998, it dragged in armies from a half-dozen other African countries. The two wars and the mayhem since have killed possibly five million people, a death toll that human rights groups say is the worst related to any conflict since World War II.
The worry now is that Congo is on the brink again, with neighbors poised to jump in, which is why the relatively small-scale bush fighting last week attracted some of the most intense diplomatic activity Congo has seen in years. The French foreign minister, the British foreign minister, top United Nations diplomats and the State Department’s highest official for Africa all jetted in to the decrepit but important lakeside city of Goma.
