The retired Canadian general tapped to help bring peace to the Congo by aiding troops from warring factions to find common ground is looking for a quick victory.

"I hope we're talking days and weeks," Maurice Baril told CBC Newsworld Saturday.

Baril is working with the United Nation's special envoy in an effort to end the fighting that has claimed more than 50,000 lives since 1999.

Maurice Baril (file picture)
Maurice Baril (file picture)

An international peacekeeping force that will eventually number 10,000 – including a small Canadian contingent – has already begun moving into the country.

While the fighting has been going on for years, "I think we can force them into a compromise," Baril said.

It will not be easy, but "they have to be convinced to start somewhere," he said.

"At this moment, they need outside help, outside advice, and of course outside pressure from the countries that are involved to come to a compromise."

Baril said he was very aware of the international failure in Rwanda in 1994, when Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire, who headed the United Nations Mission in Rwanda, pleaded for help to prevent a genocide.

The pleas fell on deaf ears.

But that failure "doesn't give me the right to sit and my hands and say, 'well we tried, it didn't work,'" Baril said.

He said he has many reasons to stay retired, but "I couldn't find any reason I could say 'no' to the Secretary General."