Peacekeepers in Peril

How will the U.N. do its job if it can't protect its own soldiers? Its peacekeepers entered Sierra Leone determined not to repeat embarrassing failures in Somalia, Rwanda and Angola. Even before last week's crisis, it announced plans to deploy an extra 5,000 troops, which would make the U.N. mission in Sierra Leone, or UNAMSIL, the largest peacekeeping force in the world. Yet last week Holbrooke acknowledged that Sierra Leone cast a "potential shadow" on all U.N. operations as he and a Security Council delegation met with Democratic Republic of Congo President Laurent Kabila in Kinshasa to sign the agreement to send 5,000 U.N. troops to monitor a tottering peace deal there. Holbrooke says the Congo war, which pits Angola- and Zimbabwe-backed government troops against Rwanda- and Uganda-backed rebel groups, is far too complex for the U.N. to do much more than try to negotiate among the warring parties. But as events in Sierra Leone are showing, making peace is a long way from keeping it.

--With reporting by William Dowell/United Nations