Before Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president in 2007, he made clear he wanted to break with France’s old way of doing business in Africa – a cosy blend of post-colonial corruption and patronage known as “Françafrique” that suited a fair few African dictators and the French establishment alike.

He has made the same point during his past visits to the continent.

“The old pattern of relations between France and Africa is no longer understood by new generations of Africans, or for that matter by public opinion in France. We need to change the pattern of relations between France and Africa if we want to look at the future together,” Sarkozy said in South Africa early last year.

This week he is back in Africa for a visit on which France’s business interests play a very prominent role.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sarkozy called on the country to work with former foes Rwanda and Uganda in a partnership based on exploiting the region’s natural riches.

Another stop was in neighbouring Congo Republic to see President Denis Sassou Nguesso, an old friend of France who seized power in the oil-producing state in 1979, lost it in a 1992 election and then returned five years later via a civil war. In the past, Congo Republic symbolised as much as anywhere the old style of diplomacy.

After the Congos, the schedule takes Sarkozy to Niger, a particularly important country for nuclear power dependent France because of the uranium mining interests of French state-controlled nuclear energy group Areva. It is building a huge new mine in Niger, where the government is fighting Tuareg rebels who demand more of the region’s wealth.

Sarkozy is doing nothing different from other world leaders by bringing along a bevy of executives keen to sign deals. France also faces a great deal of competition from China and others in what it used to treat as its “backyard” and is keen to ensure it does not lose out.

In Brazzaville, Sarkozy repeated the pledge he made a year ago to renegotiate all France’s accords with African countries and to make sure they are published in full. But the pace of progress so far has raised questions over how determined France is to break with the past. What do you think the prospects for change are? Is it important?

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy with Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso in Brazzaville March 26, 2009. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

Rwanda sent hundreds of its soldiers into eastern Congo on Tuesday in what the neighbours have described as a joint operation against Hutu rebels who have been at the heart of 15 years of conflict. Details are still somewhat sketchy, with Rwanda saying its soldiers are under Congolese command but Kinshasa saying Kigali’s men have come as observers.

Evidence on the ground suggests something more serious. United Nations peacekeepers and diplomats have said up to 2,000 Rwandan soldiers crossed into Congo. A Reuters reporter saw hundreds of heavily armed troops wearing Rwandan flag patches moving into Congo north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province. The world’s largest U.N. peacekeeping mission is, for now, being kept out of the loop.

Foreign soldiers in Congo are nothing new. Rwanda first invaded in 1996. A 1998-2003 war in Congo sucked in six neighbouring armies. But after years of diplomacy and billions of dollars spent on peacekeeping and Congo’s 2006 elections, analysts are frantically trying to work out what is going on.

The current joint operation stems from an agreement signed in December between Rwanda and Congo to cooperate more closely after weeks of heavy fighting in North Kivu province. Although the fighting was officially between Congolese government forces and Tutsi rebels, most analysts saw it as an escalation of a proxy war between Rwanda and Congo that has continued despite 2003 peace deals.

U.N. experts have accused Rwanda of supporting the Tutsi CNDP rebels, formed in 2004 out of previous Rwandan-backed movements that fought against the government in Kinshasa. As on many occasions in the past, Congo was, in turn, accused of arming and using Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels to boost the effectiveness of its fragile and chaotic army.

The fighting underlined the weakness of President Joseph Kabila’s army, which looted and raped civilians as they fled the CNDP. But it also refocused attention on the Hutu rebels, many of whom crossed into Congo when they were routed after taking part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and have long since been used by both Rwandan and Congolese Tutsi forces as justification for military operations in the mineral-rich east.

Rwanda and Congo have frequently agreed to resolve the FDLR problem. With talk of normalising relations, does Tuesday’s intervention by the Rwandan army mark the first concrete step in new a new relationship between the two countries?

How will Kabila sell a Rwandan military intervention in Congo that is likely to be unpopular amongst many ordinary Congolese, who have long-accused Rwanda of entering their country to loot resources rather than remove rebel threats? How will a handful of Rwandans help Congo’s notoriously weak forces disarm the FDLR in 10-15 days after Kigali’s army failed to do the job during several years of occupation?

What is the international community’s role in all this? The U.N. has some 17,000 peacekeepers on the ground but they have largely been kept at a distance. What about the threat of reprisals on civilians? Over 600 people have been killed in recent weeks after another of Congo’s neighbours, Uganda, led an assault on its rebels in a another remote corner of the country.

Previous foreign occupations of Congo’s mineral-rich east have been justified by hunts for rebels. Is there a danger of history repeating itself?

In 1994 the U.N. Security Council failed to prevent the slaughter of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. U.N. officials often refer to that period as the darkest chapter in the 60-year history of U.N. peacekeeping.

In 2000 the council accepted responsibility for dragging its heels and failing to prevent the Rwandan genocide. Members of the 15-nation body vowed to take lessons from the tragedy.

But human rights activists, aid workers and U.N. officials say the Security Council is once again flirting with disaster by delaying action on an urgent U.N. request for more peacekeepers to help avert war in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo — right on the border with Rwanda.

“The Security Council needs to move fast to increase the number of peacekeepers and save lives,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher on the Congo for Human Rights Watch. “The calls from the secretary-general (Ban Ki-moon) and the cries of distress from the Congolese people should not continue to fall on deaf ears.”

The New York Times said in an editorial that the council was “shamefully failing to act”.

“The international community failed to stop Rwanda’s genocide and promised not to let it happen again,” the Times noted. “Has the world forgotten so quickly?”

An estimated 250,000 civilians have fled their homes since August to escape a resurgence of fighting between Tutsi rebels, Congolese government troops and Rwandan Hutu rebels suspected of participating in the 1994 genocide, all eager to gain control of the region’s ample mineral wealth.

According to Congolese President Joseph Kabila, Rwanda is among those causing mischief in North Kivu by backing Congolese Tutsi rebel chief Gen. Laurent Nkunda, who in turn accuses Kinshasa of supporting the Rwandan “genocidaire” rebels.

Making matters worse, U.N. officials say the Congolese armed forces have been guilty of looting and raping in Goma, the capital of Congo’s eastern North Kivu province.

Aid officials say all this has produced a “catastrophic” security and humanitarian situation, and the risk of a repeat of the kind of human devastation caused by a 1998-2003 war that killed several million in the former Belgian colony.

With Nkunda’s forces poised to take Goma, U.N. peacekeepers in Congo, known by their French acronym MONUC, have begged the Security Council to send 3,000 more forces to avoid a new war.

MONUC has 17,000 troops and police, making it the biggest U.N. force on the planet. But MONUC officials have repeatedly warned the council that the is force stretched too thinly to adequately protect the 10 million civilians in eastern Congo.

While aid workers struggle to feed and shelter the starving and terrified masses in eastern Congo, the 15-nation council has sat on MONUC’s pleas for reinforcements for over a month.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy, however, said that members of the Security Council are finally beginning to realize that reinforcements might be necessary.

On Thursday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown broke the ice by becoming the first leader of a permanent Security Council member to explicitly back a troop “surge” for MONUC.

Activists, aid officials and diplomats hope similar statements will follow and lead to swift council action so another Rwanda can be avoided.

Another bout of bloody clashes between Congolese Tutsi rebels and government forces, accompanied by vicious looting has sent the hapless civilians of eastern Congo’s North Kivu province once again running for their lives. Tens of thousands of people have fled the fighting, bringing to nearly 1 million the number of people displaced by fighting in North Kivu alone since Congo’s first ever democratic elections two years ago.

The fighting on the border between Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda has triggered the usual round of recriminations between the two countries’ governments. Foreign envoys are jetting back and forth between Kinshasa and Kigali. The United Nations and European Union are both considering sending in extra troops to help the U.N. peacekeeping force, already the world’s biggest at 17,000-strong.

But nobody seems really sure how to stop the violence, end the misery and secure lasting peace for the people of North Kivu.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband are due to meet Congolese President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa today (Saturday) and travel to the eastern city of Goma, threatened by an offensive by Tutsi rebels this week.

What can be done to end eastern Congo’s vicious circle of violence? Who, if anyone, holds the key to regional peace in Africa’s Great Lakes? And should the United Nations, or the European Union, send more troops to stop the fighting and help stem the humanitarian disaster?