The cattle are once again blocking traffic on Patrice Lumumba Avenue as it winds along Lake Kivu toward the Congolese city of Bukavu - and that's a good thing.

It signals an economic revival in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo near its border with Rwanda. Two years ago, rebels butchered all the cattle when they occupied Bukavu for a month while government and United Nations forces watched passively from their barracks.

Now the city is recovering, and its 300 000 residents have enough confidence in an expanded UN force to rebuild their herds -- and their city. UN officials say they and the government army are ready, in the wake of this week's successful national elections, to expel the rebels or force them to enter politics.

“Things will accelerate now,'' Pakistani General Maqsood Ahmed, commander of 3 500 UN troops in South Kivu province, said in an interview in his Bukavu headquarters.

“The deterrence is here. Support for the Rwandans is nearly gone. If they commit any atrocities, we will punish them severely.”

UN officials in Bukavu and the capital, Kinshasa, say the the July 30 election was a much-needed success story for the world body, following management scandals in the New York headquarters and sexual abuse of civilians by UN troops in eastern Congo. More than 20 million Congolese voted for president and a 500-seat legislature without any death related to the election and, Maqsood said, no violence in the east.

A stable government in Congo, a country the size of the US east of the Mississippi River, may open the way to building roads, expanding communications and opening mines to tap copper, cobalt and other natural riches in an economic lift for the country's 60 million war-weary people.

“It is good to succeed, particularly when you have invested as much as the UN has invested in the Congo,” said Haile Menkerios, deputy head of the mission, in an interview in his hotel suite in Kinshasa.

While international observers described the election - the largest ever mounted by the UN -- as peaceful, tensions could rise among factions in the next three weeks as the ballots are counted and results released. Azarias Ruberwa, a former rebel leader and contender for the presidency, this week said “massive” fraud benefited President Joseph Kabila.

While the border region is still menaced by Congolese, Ugandan and ethnic Hutu Rwandan rebels, Bukavu shows signs of recovering from the 2004 rebel incursion. Crude wood scaffolding stands in front of new brick houses under construction throughout the city.

Reduced violence along the nearby border with Rwanda allows Congolese to cross over with fish, sugar and coffee to trade for gasoline and meat, according to Alpha Sow, head of the UN's South Kivu office. Vendors line Lumumba Avenue, named for the country's first prime minister, carrying produce to markets or arranging bananas, melons and firewood for sale.

Thomas Njamu, who runs a pharmacy, said that people in Bukavu smile now when they see UN peacekeepers on patrol. That contrasts with Kinshasa, where people believe the UN supported Kabila's election and are often hostile toward the peacekeepers. Kabila is popular in Bukavu, as shown by the yellow baseball-style hats bearing his picture that were distributed during the campaign and are still widely worn.

“We couldn't understand why they didn't protect us before,” Njamu, 43, said in front of his store. “We didn't care then if they stayed or not. Now things are different. We have good feelings about the UN and about ourselves. It is all good for business. I hope it lasts.”

UN member governments have been paying $500-million a year for the Congo mission since 1999, when it was established after a series of wars.

“They have had a tough time getting results, capable units or the right mandate,'' said Chester Crocker, a former US assistant secretary of state for African affairs. ``This is Dodge City, the Wild West. If they had comparable numbers to missions in Sierra Leone or Cambodia, they would have had 50 000 troops instead of 17 000.”

The UN still doesn't have the intelligence-gathering capability to halt the flow of arms to the rebels from Rwanda and Uganda, and disarming and integrating them into Congolese society has “hardly started,” according to Menkerios, a former Eritrean ambassador to the UN.

“Perhaps in the future, with a legitimate government establishing control, they will have an air traffic control system and be able to prevent arms from coming in,” he said.

A porous border has allowed weapons smuggling to Congo, violating a UN embargo, according to a Security Council report in June. “Rebel attacks and occupation of territory remain disastrous for the security of the civilian population,” the report said.

Still, Menkerios said he expects a new government to have the international backing to negotiate with Rwanda on the return of Rwandan fighters in the area and hasten the assimilation of others into Congolese society. He is confident enough to say the UN might consider beginning to draw down the mission in a year.

One of the last two large Congolese rebel groups in the northeast Ituri region agreed two weeks ago to disarm and join the national army, and the other has accepted the terms and could sign an accord this month, Menkerios said. Members of both groups registered and voted.

Maqsood said in another year the Congolese army will be better able to stand its ground. “The election will be a good thing for them, and us,” he said.