Into the heart of darkness

Defense Minister, Radek Sikorski has said that Poland will be sending military police to the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of a multinational EU force, before the nation’s first ever democratic elections. (photo: Polish troops training for Kinshasa traffic cop duty?)

A man's most open actions have a secret side to them.
Jozef Korzienowski (Joseph Conrad)

When the UN – which already has 17,000 troops in one of Africa’s largest and most war torn countries – announced that it needed the EU to come and help stabilize the place before elections this June, the queue of member states lining up to volunteer help was...not very long, really.

The EU only promised to send a tokenistic 1,500 troops, but nobody seemed particularly keen to go to a country where war over the last decade has been estimated to have taken an incredible 4 million lives.

The British said, “Sorry mate, but we are a bit busy in Iraq, Afghanistan...’; Germany, which is apparently head of the special EU battle group (I didn’t even know we had one!) ready to send troops at lightening speed to trouble spots at a ‘moments notice’, has been dragging its feet, claiming that the mission needed ‘better clarity’.

Perhaps they just needed a little bit more notice to be able to move at lightening speed?

The only two countries to initially volunteer troops were Austria (about 30) and Poland. The Polish government initially promised Congo a massive battalion of...ten troops!

Now that's gonna sort out those pesky Africans!

Or perhaps not. How can a force of men not large enough to raise a soccer team, help stabilize a country the size of western Europe and which has 300 rival factions, all positioning for power?

To the rescue have come Spain, France and Sweden, that will, along with Poland and Austria, be sending a massive 500 men. The Germans are going to have to pick up the rest of the tab.

Apart from supporting the US and Europe’s man in the Congo, President Joseph Kabila, why drag the EU into Joseph Conrad’s worst nightmare?

Bush seems to think that the failed African states could be a hotbed of potential terrorists; Congo is a very poor country, but it has massive resources that industrialized countries are desperate to get a piece of; and then there is the real obsession in the EU at the moment – immigration. If only Africa would stabilize then maybe they would all stay in their own countries.

The EU is also desperate for a mission – any mission! – to make it seem relevant.
And out front, fighting for justice is plucky old Poland, its ten brave men, following in the footsteps of Joseph Conrad, into dark hearted EU gesture politics.