DRC rebel group says French UN troops would be viewed as "enemies"
French military team in DR Congo's Bunia to pave way for int'l force
Tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting are on the move in jungles littered with land mines and infested by murderous gangs, and calls are growing for the United Nations to act more strongly to prevent a return to anarchic tribal bloodshed that has killed dozens in Ituri in recent days.
Carla del Ponte, chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia and Congo's neighbor Rwanda, said the killing in Ituri bordered on genocide.
"Our evaluation, from what we know, it could be a genocide," she told a group of reporters at the United Nations in New York.
France is taking a lead role in drafting a U.N. Security Council resolution that would approve one U.N. member state going to the former Zaire, a former Belgian colony now called Democratic Republic of Congo (news - web sites) (DRC), to help quell the fighting.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) said the United Nations had sent out a request to all governments "with capacity."
"France has indicated that in principle it is prepared to participate in such a force, provided there is a clear mandate and other governments join in," he told reporters.
Rival Congolese ethnic groups and Rwanda questioned France's motives for wanting to become involved in a conflict in which more than three million people have died, according to aid agencies, mostly through war-related starvation or disease.
Rwanda remains deeply suspicious of France for allegedly intervening in order to slow the advance of Tutsi rebels seeking to end Rwanda's 1994 genocide and overthrow the French-backed Rwandan government of the time. France dismisses the charge.
you're right, we shouldn't bash the French for their roles they choose, looks like France will be welcome there as well...