UN probe in Congo

For months, the new Congolese government of Laurent Kabila has been trying to thwart a United Nations investigation of ethnic killings and other human rights abuses during the country's recent civil war.

The UN security council must now make clear that it has run out of patience with Kabila's obstructions. If that fails to inspire better cooperation, the United States should suspend its plans to provide generous aid to reconstruct the Congolese economy.

A credible investigation is crucial because ethnic violence drove the fighting in Congo, formerly known as Zaire. Tutsi troops from Rwanda and the eastern Congo joined together to defeat marauding Hutu militia units in the border area. In the process, they allegedly massacred innocent Hutu refugees. The insurgency continued until the largely Tutsi rebels entered Kinshasa.

Many Congolese now distrust the Kabila forces as an instrument of Rwandan foreign policy that is inadequately representative of the community's ethnic diversity. Democratic government may not be possible until Kabila resolves these suspicions by permitting an impartial investigation as well as punishment of any soldiers guilty of killing innocent civilians. That investigation must begin now, before crucial evidence disappears.

The UN team has already been delayed for nearly two months because Secretary General Kofi Annan tried to accommodate earlier demands by Kabila. The UN agreed to replace the first head of the investigation and to expand its mandate to alleged atrocities by Hutu militia. That seemed reasonable.

Hutu violence was an important part of Congo's human rights problem. But with its latest demands, the Kabila government seems to show that its real goal is an endless delay.

The U.S. has greater leverage outside the UN. After decades of uncritical support for Mobutu Sese Seko, the corrupt dictator Kabila overthrew, the U.S. has some obligation to help rebuild Congo's shattered economy and society.

But Washington should not repeat its original mistake by giving a blank check to a new strongman who refuses to be accountable to his own people and to the international community.

-- The New York Times