Because the Congo peace talks failed to deliver the much-promised ceasefire agreement last weekend does not mean they have failed or that Thabo Mbeki is mistakenly staking his reputation on a lost cause.
The president is to be commended for his evident hard work in attempting to settle a dispute which lurks menacingly on the road to Africa’s revival. Getting the warring parties to the table, and keeping them talking to each other, is an achievement in itself for which Mbeki can take much of the credit.
His offer to send South African troops as part of an African-led, multinational force is a sensible move which reflects both the government’s commitment to ending the conflict and our country’s responsibilities to the rest of Africa. But South African troops must go as peace monitors, not as peace enforcers.
They should only be deployed when it is clear that all the warring parties are committed to ending the fighting and want the South Africans, along with troops from other African nations such as Nigeria, to reassure the belligerents that their enemies are respecting the ceasefire.
What a peace verification force in Congo cannot do is replicate Nato’s role in Kosovo, where the military alliance is an occupation army. That would draw South Africa into a war it has no interest in fighting. Lesotho was a lesson in unwelcome peace enforcement. It would be all the more difficult in sprawling Congo with its vastly more complicated politics and labyrinth of military alliances.
It is also important that South African peacekeepers come under the United Nations flag, not because Africans need others to lead but so the major powers on the Security Council cannot wash their hands of responsibility for the tragedy in Congo.
Even within these parameters, a peace- verification force faces a daunting task. The extremist Hutu militias – the interahamwe – which led the 1994 genocide in Rwanda before fleeing to what was then Zaire are not party to the talks.
They will have to be disarmed and dispersed or driven home for there to be a lasting peace. It was the interahamwe, after all, which led to the Rwandan invasion of Zaire in 1996 and the latest war.
The Rwandan army is likely to try and finish the job before it pulls out of Congo, but the interahamwe has a knack for defying predictions of its final demise.
Then there is the sheer size of Congo. How many troops will it take to properly oversee a ceasefire? With the right logistics a peace-monitoring force will be able to detect whether any of the belligerents have returned to the offensive in a major way. But no one should be surprised if small scale killings continue far beyond the cities.
Costs are less of a worry. In the end, the UN will stump up the money because it cannot be seen to turn away from an African peacekeeping initiative.
But first there has to be a settlement.
That the talks in Lusaka have bogged down is no great surprise. The obstacles to agreeing, let alone maintaining, an end to the fighting in a conflict that has drawn in nine countries are formidable.
The war is built around five other conflicts besides the battle between President Laurent Kabila’s government and the Congolese rebels. Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Sudan and Angola have all involved themselves in Congo as a direct result of insurgencies on their own soil.
Zimbabwe is embroiled for reasons President Robert Mugabe has never convincingly explained but which his compatriots suspect have a lot to do with making money. Namibia, Libya and Chad have also sent troops.
Disentangling all the participants from the war requires a deft touch.
Kabila is demanding the withdrawal of hostile foreign troops – principally Rwandan and Ugandan – from Congolese soil. Kabila says he is then prepared to open talks with rebels backed by his two neighbours.
Rwanda says it is not prepared to pull out of eastern Congo if this allows the interahamwe free rein to resume cross border attacks.
The squabbling Congolese rebel groups have also set conditions for signing a ceasefire, including the release of all political prisoners and the lifting of Kabila’s ban on opposition political activity.
The failure to reach an agreement so far is partly a reflection of the dire leadership of some African states. Throughout the war, Mugabe and Kabila have put their personal interests over those of their countries or continent. Both men have been making money out of the misery of others.
Despite the complexities, there are reasons for optimism. The pressures to end the war have been building for months. The conflict has imposed a heavy financial and political toll on Zimbabwe. Angola, which provided much of the logistics for its allies, has pulled most of its troops home to fight the renewed war against Unita. And Congo itself is running into a deep financial crisis.
On the other side, Uganda is under mounting pressure from donors to cut rising defence spending. Kampala has fallen out with its ally, Rwanda, over the aims of the war – a dispute which has also divided the rebels.
Rwanda has given off mixed signals. Its original objective of overthrowing Kabila, as it did Mobutu Sese Seko, is now beyond its grasp. Rwanda seems increasingly prepared to settle for less, as it should, in return for real guarantees for its security.
Any peacekeeping mission risks failure. It also risks success. It is an investment worth making for South Africa.