Global Policy Forum

By Michel Leclercq

Johannesburg, South Africa - The UN Security Council announced on Wednesday it would send half its members to the Democratic Republic of Congo in early May to discuss "concrete ways" to enforce the Lusaka peace accord before sending a 5 500-strong UN force to the region. "We are now discussing arrangements for such a visit," said Robert Fowler, the Canadian ambassador to the United Nations who is head of the Security Council this month.

Details of who would participate in the mission were still being discussed, but it was likely to include about half of the 15 members of the council and be headed by US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, European diplomats on the council said. They said the group would depart May 4 or 5 from New York, travel to Kinshasa to meet with DRC President Laurent Kabila, then to Lusaka to hold meetings with other heads of state involved in the conflict, spending about a week in the region. The aim of the trip would be to discuss "concrete ways" to make parties in the conflict adhere to a peace treaty signed at Lusaka in July and August 1999, Fowler said.

The announcement came after the weekend signing in Kampala of a new ceasefire by all parties involved in the 20-month old conflict in the former Zaire. The conflict pits Kabila and allied troops from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe against Congolese rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda. The United Nations had agreed in February to deploy 500 observers and 5 000 troops in the region, but said deployment of the UN Observer Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) would not begin until firm commitments for peace had been made on all sides.

The new ceasefire, which builds on accords signed last August in Lusaka which failed to end the fighting, is due to take effect on April 14. The agreement allows for creation of buffer zones where UN peacekeepers will be deployed. Diplomats said on Wednesday that deployment of MONUC, which is to monitor the ceasefire, could begin in June.

"Council members expressed their readiness to do everything possible to speed up the pace of MONUC phase 2 deployment and to oversee this disengagement plan," Fowler said on Wednesday. Earlier on Wednesday the under-secretary general for peacekeeping told the security council that "the question of rapid MONUC deployment has acquired additional urgency" following the Kampala accord.

Bernard Miyet said he planned to meet on Thursday with representatives of countries willing to contribute troops to the mission, adding that units capable of preparing landing strips and carrying out air operations were especially needed. "The situation in eastern DRC has deteriorated rapidly since the start of the year, with some 550 000 internally displaced people caught in the war," Miyet said. "The overall humanitarian situation in eastern Congo was reported as dire, with civilians being targeted by all parties to the conflict," he said, citing reports by UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Ross Mountain, who visited the region last week.

But UN resources fall far short of what is needed, as humanitarian agencies have received so far only 1,2 million of the 73,1 requested from the international community -- less than 4 percent, Miyet said. A UN spokesman on Tuesday had welcomed the Kampala accord as a significant step forward in the DRC peace process and said it was ready to help implement it. "It is now the duty of all belligerents to ensure ... the security and full freedom of access and of movement of United Nations personnel," said UN spokesman David Wimhurst.