LONDON- The United Nations mandate for policing the truce in the Congo expired this week, without the 500 military observers requested by the Secretary-General ever being sent into the field. It remains to be seen whether the Security Council’s recent decision to send a 6,000 strong force to police the very tentative truce in Sierra Leone will be acted on. At the moment it seems more than doubtful. The outside world appears to be almost frozen in its tracks when it comes to dealing with African civil wars. In Somalia the UN pulled out, after the grisly death of 18 American soldiers. In Angola, the UN pulled its peacekeepers out last year after years of apparently fruitless wear and tear. And in Rwanda, the scene of the worst genocide since the killing fields of Cambodia, the UN is accused of turning a blind eye in its moment of need. The horror...
