UNITED NATIONS, May 30 (UPI) -- The U.N. Security Council Friday authorized the deployment of an international emergency force to help stabilize the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's volatile northeast, where tribal violence has killed more than 400 people.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked France to lead the force, which will be deployed next week to the besieged region of Bunia, and will stay in Congo until Sept. 1.
Hundreds of people were killed and maimed in the region since the first week of May. Thousands more sought refuge in the regional headquarters of the U.N. Congo peacekeeping force, known by its French acronym MONUC, in Bunia and at the airport.
U.N. spokeswoman Jiang Hua said the International Committee of the Red Cross reported Friday recovering a total of 415 bodies. Humanitarian agencies have reported thousands wounded, many in traumatic machete amputations, and scores of rapes.
Two unarmed U.N. Military observers, one from Jordan and one from Malawi, were assassinated earlier this month north of Bunia.
The bloodshed, although nowhere near the approximately 800,000 killed in the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, has raised fears of a parallel calamity.
However, the situation was reported quiet in the city of about 250,000 but tense for the second day in a row.
The Security Council resolution calls on all members of the conflict to cease military activities immediately and on nations in the region to support the mission.
MONUC's 700 lightly armed Uruguayan peacekeepers garrisoned in Bunia would be supported by the "robust" Interim Emergency Multinational Force authorized Friday.
The IEMF would be of battalion strength, numbering between 1,200 and 1,400 troops, 800-1,000 of them French, Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere of France told reporters after the vote.
An official announcement was to be made in Paris later on the number of French troops.
He expected most of the French to be station in Bunia with a few at an airport in Entebbe, Uganda, which the Kampala authorities have offered because the Bunia airstrip was too short, damaged and unusable at the moment. It's repair and upgrade was set as a priority.
The composition and which other countries participating would be determined after a meeting of troop contributing countries at U.N Headquarters, he said. However, de La Sabliere said the expedition would have a European as well as African "dimension."
He said Belgium and Britain and South Africa were among the nations to already have committed and Pakistan has said it was also ready.
A U.S. official said earlier in the week only that Washington was supporting the French effort "diplomatically," or helping to put pressure on neighboring nations to accept the force.
France has been blamed by Rwanda for complicity in the 1994 Hutu government-led genocide. Both Rwanda and Uganda have endorsed this resolution.
Diplomats said it was because of Rwanda's stance France wanted the resolution to spell out the operation was authorized under the U.N. Charter's Chapter VII authorizing the use of force, was of fixed duration and in a specific location.
The measure "Authorizes the deployment until Sept. 1, 2003 of an Interim Emergency Multinational Force in Bunia in closed coordination with MONUC ... to contribute to the stabilization of the security conditions and the improvement of the humanitarian situation in Bunia, to ensure the protection of the airport, the internally displaced persons in the camps in Bunia and, if the situation requires it, to contribute to the safety of the civilian population, U.N. personnel and the humanitarian presence in the town."
In September, the IEMF was to be relieved by a reinforced MONUC task force from Bangladesh to be deployed by mid-August.
The measure also "Demands that all Congolese parties and all states in the Great Lakes region cooperate with the IEMF and with MONUC in the stabilization of the situation in Bunia and provide assistance as appropriate, that they provide full freedom of movement to the force and that they refrain from any military activity in the region or from any activity that could further destabilize the situation in Ituri" province and to support the force's deployment.
In nearly five years of civil war, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the former Zaire and about the size of Western Europe, has seen fighting between the Kinshasa government, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, and rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda.
The real battle has been over the river-laced Central Africa nation's rich natural resources. Between 2.5 million to 3 million have died in the conflict. While most foreign forces have withdrawn since last year's cease-fire a lot of weaponry and local militias remain.
