Dr Muzong Kodi: Talk is fine, but Congo needs its peace to be imposed

David Miliband and his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, are looking for a diplomatic solution to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in eastern Congo. We must hope that their talks with the heads of state of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda make progress, but this crisis is about more than high politics. Immediate action must also be taken on the ground to prevent further loss of life. The advance of General Nkunda's rebel forces towards the regional capital, Goma, has left close to 200 dead and added 200,000 more internally displaced in a region that already has more than a million people on the run. If Nkunda were to enter the city, which he could at any moment, the scale of the slaughter would be horrendous.

Right now, the UN has 6,000 soldiers stationed in the North Kivo province, out of the 17,000 it has in the whole of the DRC. They are pitted against rebel troops that, according to some sources, number up to 10,000. The complexity of their mission is immense. They have three objectives: to protect civilians; to disarm the rebels in the area; and to monitor the separation of Nkunda's troops, on the one hand, and those of the national army of the Congo and Mai Mai militias. It's too much for them to do all at the same time.

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But it is not just their mission that is the problem. There is a fundamental problem with the UN, which is its lack of capacity to respond in this kind of emergency. The UN can only have the resources provided by its members, and the members have been very reluctant to respond to this kind of situation quickly. Expense is one reason, but another is that nobody wants to take casualties because it is so politically sensitive.

As a result their effectiveness is minimal. The UN's peacekeeping forces are made up of soldiers who are ill-trained and poorly equipped to fight the guerilla militias and the determined rebels led by General Nkunda.

That is not to say that they have not been of use. Their presence has prevented an even greater loss of life since the rebels began advancing in August. The Congolese army has all but collapsed. But the UN's forces have also suffered from a lack of credibility, following a string of scandals involving gold trafficking and abuse of women and children.

Given that there is now no longer a peace for the UN to keep, it is time to have peace imposed in the area. Civilians are being killed. It is therefore urgent to take up the proposal made by the French, supported by Belgium, to send a small force of highly trained and equipped soldiers from the EU to stabilise the situation in North Kivo and allow the displaced civilians to return home. According to the French, a Pan-European elite force of 1,500 soldiers is ready to go within 10 days if the EU agrees.

This has been tried twice before in the DFC. In 2003 a similar force was sent to the Ituri district in Northern Congo, and it helped to stabilise the situation and quell the conflict. A second time was in 2006-7, before and during the elections in Congo. Again, it stabilised the situation and provide enough security for people to vote in the elections.

But the UK and Germany have so far resisted the proposal. Diplomacy comes first, they say. Diplomacy is of course useful – it's not a case of either or. But diplomacy without a willingness to take firm action is empty, and the priority of the international community is to save lives. If we are serious about doing so, let's move now.

Dr Muzong Kodi is Associate Fellow of Chatham House's Africa Programme