Quick update: Democratic Republic of Congo

The military crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo appears to have been stilled for the moment after a face-to-face meeting on Friday between the leaders of DR Congo and Rwanda. Fighting around the town of Bukavu after its seizure by renegade commanders earlier this month generated a flood of more than 1,000 refugees a day into neighboring Burundi and raised fears of a total breakdown of the fragile peace established less than a year ago after five years of war that left millions dead from killing, disease, and starvation.

Forces lead by Colonel Jules Mutebusi and General Laurent Nkunda had seized Bukavu. Nkunda had claimed to be preventing genocide against his fellow Banyamulenges, but the UN rejected that charge, saying it could confirm the death of only four Banyamulenge civilians in recent fighting.

After the rebels were driven out, tensions increased even further when Congolese leader Joseph Kabila accused Rwanda of backing Mutebusi Nkunda. The fact that Rwanda allowed Mutebusi and 300 of his men to flee across Rwanda's supposedly closed border did little to disabuse the Congolese government of that notion, even though Rwanda called it a "humanitarian gesture."

For its part, Rwanda has denied any support for the rebels and denounced DR Congo's move of 10,000 troops to their common border as a hostile act.

In the face of this, Kabila met with Rwandan President Paul Kagame for four hours on Friday, during which time they pledged to stand by a 2002 agreement under which Rwanda withdrew 20,000 troops from DR Congo, which cleared the way for a peace settlement. The also agreed to send monitors to the border region as well as a joint mission to investigate the charges of aggression made by each side against the other.

The verification mission was originally called for under a 2002 peace accord that helped end the 1998-2002 multination war fought in Congo, but was later scrapped at Kabila's insistence. Friday's development showed a concrete, if small, move to advance the peace process.

There is still cause for great concern. For example,

Rwanda says Congo hasn't fulfilled it promise to disarm the Rwandan Hutus and send them home. Kabila pledged to do that under the peace deal that led to the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from Congo.

But for the moment at least, two sides that I'm quite sure have no desire to return to the chaos from which they have so recently emerged have found a way to head it off.

Oddly enough, I flashed on an old "Star Trek" episode. I actually don't remember the story but I remember the epilogue. Spock had made some comment about humanity's violent tendencies. Kirk, as part of his response, said something like the key to humanity's survival had been learning to say "I'm not going to kill - today. I won't say forever, I won't say that I never will, but I'm not going to - today." And then continuing to say that each day.

Well, DR Congo and Rwanda have decided they are not going to go to war - today. There's no promise, no guarantee on forever, but they're not going to war - today. And that's something to be glad of.

Previous posts on the situation in DR Congo were on May 15, June 7, June 11, and June 20.