Can Kenya bring peace to eastern Congo?

For peopleUNeac living in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, foreign soldiers generally come in two types, the larcenous and the feckless. have mostly been responsible for the larceny, periodically plundering eastern Congo’s vast mineral riches ever since Rwanda and Uganda first invaded in 1996. By contrast, the fecklessness has worn a blue helmet: the mission in Congo, one of the most expensive ever mounted, has proved singularly ineffective at stanching the that has forced 5m people from their homes and is impoverishing a region of more than 100m people.Many Congolese cheered when the East African Community (), a regional economic bloc, announced plans in June to deploy an intervention force. True, Uganda and Burundi, both past invaders with less-than-cuddly reputations, are contributing men. But Kenya, untainted by such grubbiness, was to lead the force. Here, at last, was an honest broker with sufficient diplomatic and economic heft to make a difference, with a genuine belief that stability will make the region richer. Better still, the force had a robust mandate to “contain, defeat and eradicate negative forces”. With eastern Congo facing its gravest crisis in a decade, a Kenyan show of leadership could not have been more timely.