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UN Security Council Plans Mission to DRC
The UN Security Council plans to send eight envoys to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and other African nations next month, in a bid to try to talk warring parties into honoring the peace accords they signed earlier.
This was announced by the president of the 15-nation council, Jeremy Greenstock of the Britain, at the end of closed-door meeting.
"Its priorities will be to ensure that the peace process is taken forward, that the parties are motivated to the maximum to fulfill their engagements," Greenstock said.
The mission will consist of some eight ambassadors from the Security Council members, including the United States, Britain, Mali, Mauritius and Tunisia, and will be led by French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte.
Under an accord reached in December last year in Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, following a cease-fire agreement signed by all warring parties in 1999, troops have began an initial withdrawal of 15 kilometers from the front line.
The mission is likely to go to the DRC in the second half of May. The council in May 2000 sent a similar mission of seven envoys to DRC to see if combatants were willing to stop fighting.
To supervise the withdrawal, two units of Uruguayan U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed at Kalemie in the east of the DRC.
Greenstock said that the U.N. delegation would also go to Zambia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Uganda to speak to African leaders involved in the multilateral war, and they wanted to make sure disengagement deadlines were respected by the parties.
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