Global Policy Forum

Senior officials in a UN mission to war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Thursday welcomed a UN Security Council resolution to considerably boost the size of the force.

"The decision by the Security Council meets widespread demands from the people and from humanitarian agencies, who have been asking for an increase in the UN military presence," force spokesman Hamadoun Toure said.

The Security Council on Wednesday authorized the United Nations to send an extra 3,000 troops to the DRC to help monitor the withdrawal of foreign armies and to demobilise guerrilla groups. The vast nation in the heart of Africa is gradually emerging from a complex war which has since August 1998 pitted rebels movements who now control almost half the DRC against the Kinshasa government.

At its height, the war drew in the armies of seven other African nations, but most foreign troops deployed on either side have either withdrawn or are completing their pullout, in line with an initial peace accord signed in Lusaka in 1999 and with subsequent pacts.

The UN Observer Mission in Congo (MONUC), initially set up in November 1999 to monitor this process and to assist with a politicits. Wednesday's resolution took note of a report from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who said that "in the past it has been extremely difficult for the United Nations to obtain such troops from member states."

However, South Africa and Bangladesh are said by sources close to the UN to have agreed to send some 1,600 soldiers each, though UN experts reckon it will take at least three months to deploy them.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said that France was ready to give "logistic and financial support" to such a deployment, when he visited Kinshasa in September. And France was instrumental in drafting UN Security Council Resolution 1445, which was passed unanimously by the 15-nation council at the United Nations in New York.

UN officials and aid workers are concerned at developments in the DRC's northeast Ituri region, bordering on Uganda, where local people are victims of long-standing tribal conflicts exacerbated by the war and the proliferation of modern weaponry.

In a report released in October, Annan recommended that, with the MONUC reinforcements in place, the United Nations deploy expeditionary forces to Ituri and also to Kisangani, the country's third largest city, in the northeast.

The problems of the DRC, including the wholesale looting of its natural resources by parties to the conflict, have not ended with the withdrawal of the foreign armies.

The east of the country remains particularly volatile, with power struggles among various local forces and militias in the wake of the pullout of Rwandan soldiers who backed the main rebel force in that area.

Toure on Thursday said that with more men, MONUC would be able to get on with the next phase of its task, which is overseeing the disarming, regrouping and social reintegration of a range of combatant units, with the repatriation of some guerrilla forces to their home countries.

In a separate development Thursday, EU special envoy to the DRC Aldo Ajello arrived in Kinshasa to contribute to a six-day forum among foreign ambassadors posted to the country, regarding post-war prospects and plans for cooperation.

An EU statement said that Ajello would chair a debate on how the European Union could help in the reconstruction of the nation and the eventual holding of democratic elections. The diplomatic forum is due to end on Saturday.