GOMA, Congo — The United Nations stepped further into one of the world's most complex and messy wars Thursday when the first armed U.N. troops flew into the Congo to back an uncertain international peace effort.
Landing in the shadow of a cloud-draped volcano, 110 Uruguayan soldiers were given an upbeat welcome in rebel-held Goma by Major-Gen. Mountanga Diallo, force commander of the U.N. military observer mission to the Congo (MONUC).
"Your arrival here represents a significant step forward and is a sign of the progress being made in the peace process," said Diallo, standing on a makeshift podium at a MONUC base.
Earlier, several hundred Congolese clapped, cheered and ululated as the soldiers, wearing green fatigues, blue cravats and baseball caps, marched to the base in this eastern frontier town framed by rolling green hills and the Nyiragongo volcano.
"The Tutsis are all going to go home now," shouted one of the crowd, referring to the Tutsi majority in the Rwandan army, one of the forces that has been involved in the war.
The South Americans later boarded smaller planes for a journey south to their new base just outside the town of Kalemie on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.
The Uruguayans will be part of 2,500 armed support troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo charged with guarding 500 unarmed U.N. observers monitoring a ceasefire in the country's many-sided war.
The observers will also try to verify whether the warring parties in the Congo, which include six foreign armies and two main rebel movements, have pulled back as promised nine miles from their frontline positions.
Congo's war began in 1998 when Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi invaded the country, backing rebel groups committed to the overthrow of then President Laurent Kabila. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent in their armies to defend Kabila.
Sending U.N. troops into the Congo might seem like a recipe for disaster — especially to those with memories of the United Nation's calamitous adventure in Somalia in the early 1990s.
It was not easy to find countries to supply the troops — Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal and Uruguay finally agreed — and the size of the force had to be scaled back from an original 5,500.