Not Now, Madeleine

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KINSHASA, Congo: Madeleine Albright's gentle prodding of Congo president Laurent Kabila Friday in Kinshasa was a wish list of peacetime problems: Human rights. Political freedoms. War crimes investigations. Show progress, and the U.S. would be happy to extend its hand--and its wallet--in friendship.

But the war isn't over yet. "Albright is determinedly dancing around one obvious thing," says TIME New York Bureau Chief Marguerite Michaels, who watches the region. "The fighting in Rwanda and eastern Congo, far from having ceased, is getting worse."

That was clear enough after Thursday's massacre; Michaels is worried about how far the Hutu-Tutsi conflict could escalate. Will Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, a Tutsi, send troops on behalf of his friend Paul Kagame in Rwanda? Will Kabila? There are rumblings that Tanzania favors the Hutu side, as may Angola. "No one is sure who will intervene," Michaels says, "and if so, on whose side. This could very quickly get out of control."