Neil Campbell, EU Advocacy Manager of the International Crisis Group, recently returned from eastern Congo. Any views expressed are his own.

“Unacceptable and murderous.” Those were the words French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner chose to describe the situation in north eastern Congo at a press conference after October’s monthly meeting of EU foreign ministers. Sadly, Congo was not even on the agenda of that meeting.

In the following weeks, Laurent Nkunda’s rebels advanced on Goma, displacing up to 300,000 people; the Congolese army went on a spree of looting, raping and killing in that town; and there was a double massacre in Kiwanja on 4 November, first by pro-government Mayi Mayi militia, then by Nkunda’s rebels against suspected Mayi Mayi loyalists.

At the next meeting of EU foreign ministers, on 10 November, Congo at last made it to the agenda. But the European response to the crisis in central Africa is not encouraging. EU military assistance was not completely counted out in their agreed statement, but turning a general call for “reinforcement of cooperation between the EU, its member states and MONUC [the UN force]” into any specific reinforcements on the ground is far from straightforward.

For now, the EU has chosen the diplomatic route, pressing for a political solution within the framework of two key agreements signed over the past year. The November 2007 Nairobi agreement provides for normalisation of relations between Congo and Rwanda, disarmament of Rwandan Hutu rebels in Congo — including some perpetrators of the 1994 genocide — and ending Rwandan support to Congolese Tutsi insurgent Nkunda. The January 2008 Goma agreement outlines a ceasefire, voluntary demobilisation of combatants and the “Amani” peace process between the government, Mayi Mayi militias and Nkunda’s rebels.

On the one hand, an international push behind these deals is welcome. The current escalation in violence resulted in part from international complacency once these agreements were signed, despite the best efforts of the EU’s Special Representative for the Great Lakes region, Roland van de Geer.

Unfortunately, the EU’s recent track record of top-level diplomacy does not give much confidence the 27-country Union will stick together on this issue. Kouchner was the first to call for EU military intervention in Congo. The EU’s chief diplomat, Javier Solana, quickly rejected the idea, the Belgians came out in support, and the British were skeptical. Meanwhile visits to the region by van de Geer, commissioner Louis Michel, and Kouchner with UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband left no impression of a unified front. It is not clear if Miliband’s primary objective was conflict prevention or Commonwealth enlargement with Rwanda. And Solana was not even allowed on the plane.

Diplomacy by others may prove more coherent. The UN Secretary General appointed an African heavyweight as his special envoy. Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo was then joined by Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, the African Union’s representative, as facilitators of the Nairobi and Goma agreements at the regional summit in Nairobi last Friday. Obasanjo and Mpaka could learn from the Europeans’ mistakes and initiate a clear division of labour. The former military man Obasanjo should concentrate on the Nairobi agreement and disarmament and reintegration of militias, while Swahili speaking Mkapa should concentrate on other aspects of the Goma process and the Amani peace-building program.

But the EU could still offer practical and immediate assistance. Despite the deficit in political will for the military option, there are possibilities the EU should explore. Europeans could temporarily secure Goma and its airport, allowing the UN forces to concentrate on security in the surrounding areas of Rutshuru and Masisi.

Sure, the EU needs to focus on its commitment to the political solution and ensure that there is one coherent EU message. The best way to protect civilians is a return to the agreements, and by assisting the UN with a specific short-term security objective — allowing the UN some breathing space to fulfill its wider mandate — the EU can play an important role towards that political solution, and reinforce its diplomatic message with real and visible commitment.

Time is short, however. Laurent Nkunda’s continued talk of a national agenda risks massive escalation of violence and chaos. But if in turn his rebels are seriously threatened, there is the real chance of widespread revenge killings of the Tutsi minority, to which Rwanda may well respond. And if the fighting continues indefinitely, we may see repeats of Kiwanja on a much larger scale. The paths currently being followed by all armed groups will only lead to an intensification of the conflict, with dire consequences of further regional involvement.

(Chris Chapman is Conflict Prevention Officer at Minority Rights Group International. He is the author of “Why a minority rights approach to conflict: the case of Southern Sudan”. Any opinions expressed are his own.)

Probably the most toxic aspect of the current conflict in North Kivu is that, as in Iraq and Sudan and other countries, the protection civilians get from violence often depends on which ethnic group they belong to.

The FARDC - the national army - has fled Goma, unable to stem the advance of Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP). The UN peacekeeping mission is desperately calling for more resources, and in the past has been accused of failing to protect civilians.

In this security vacuum, leaders such as Nkunda are able to play on the grievances of their communities to recruit militias, even if their real motivations are about controlling mines and trade. Nkunda says he is fighting because of the abuses his people, the Tutsi, have suffered.

The Tutsi do have legitimate grievances, notably they have been the victims of a number of pogroms in the 1990s. But they certainly do not have the monopoly on suffering in North Kivu. To cite one example, the Mbuti Pygmies, an indigenous people in the Kivus and Ituri, has no militia to protect it; it has been targeted by armed groups, and subjected to massive human rights violations - torture, displacement and the rape of women and children.

The grievances of the Tutsi cannot justify the abuses committed by the CNDP: it has used rape on a massive scale as a tool to terrorise civilian populations, and mass graves of civilians have been found by MONUC, the UN mission in the DRC, in areas recently vacated by the rebel group. More recently, the group has been using refugee camps to launch attacks, in clear contravention of international law.

UN forces are well placed to provide security in North Kivu, because what is desperately needed is a security force that is perceived as neutral. It clearly needs strengthening, but the international political will to do so appears to be weak.

In response to a French proposal to send additional European Union troops, British Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch-Brown said, “we cannot rule out an additional deployment … but I think it is too early to say that is necessary … and whether it would arrive in time is also questionable”. It’s too early, but it may also be too late; a classic piece of diplomatic equivocation, and the result is likely to be that nothing is done.

Faced with another human catastrophe, we are yet again throwing up our hands in powerlessness. It is imperative that the EU approve the French proposal, and send troops to North Kivu within days; it was for this kind of situation, after all, that EU battle groups were proposed in the first place. Even if they arrive too late to protect Goma, there is no reason to assume that Nkunda will stop there.

However in the long term, the only way to stop these conflicts from re-occurring will be by addressing their root causes. There has been a succession of peace agreements between Nkunda’s forces, other armed groups and the DRC government.

But, like so many peace agreements, these have only addressed the visible part of the conflict iceberg; the immediate violence. What is needed is for the government to address grievances over illegal land seizures, by establishing a transparent judicial process to review claims. Economic opportunities must be improved by loosening the grip of the militias on import/export income and mines.

The Congolese army needs to become a professional, impartial force that provides security to all communities, including the most vulnerable, by integrating the various militias. In so doing, the militia brigades must be broken up and dispersed, otherwise they carry on waging the same wars in different uniforms.

Finally, and most importantly, the Rwandan and DRC governments need to stop using proxy militias to fight for control over North Kivu and its resources; if they fail to do this, they risk an inflammation of the conflict that may finally destabilize Rwanda and cause the Balkanisation of the DRC.

This commentary was originally published on Reuters AlertNet