British troops could be sent to Congo

Nov 2 2008 By Euan Hamilton

BRITISH troops could be sent to war-torn Congo if diplomatic efforts to solve the humanitarian crisis fail.

Minister for Africa Lord Malloch-Brown said the UK and Europe could not stand back if fighting between government and rebel forces erupted again.

An estimated 250,000 starving civilians have fled ferocious fighting between government troops and Tutsi rebels.

Rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda claims to be protecting ethnic Tutsis from attack by Hutus from neighbouring Rwanda.

His 4000-strong army had looked set to overrun the provincial capital of Goma, causing 50,000 to flee their homes, but he called a halt to their advance last week.

They tightened their hold yesterday on newly seized swathes of eastern Congo.

Tens of thousands of frightened, rain-soaked civilians were forced out of makeshift refugee camps and rebels stopped some from fleeing to government-held territory.

Lord Malloch-Brown hinted at troops being sent in as Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner arrived in the country to try to get the warring parties to talk.

He said: "We have certainly got to have it as an option. The first line of call on this should be the deployment of the UN's troops from elsewhere in the country.

"But we must have plans. If everything else fails, we cannot stand back and watch violence erupt.

"Britain is the so-called standby country which would need to contribute."

The senior Foreign Office minister stressed deployment of EU troops was a last-ditch option.

But his comments are likely to alarm British commanders at a timewhen troops are severely stretched fighting on two fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The conflict has its roots in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which saw 800,000 Tutsis butchered. More than four million are said to have died in the last four years.