UN racial committee 'gravely concerned'

The UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has said it continued to be "deeply concerned" over the persisting grave situation in the DRC. In a press statement released late last week, the committee also expressed its concern at "violations" of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In a decision adopted without a vote, the Committee reiterated its previously expressed deep concern about the persistence - in "flagrant violation of the Convention" - of ethnic conflicts in the DRC which were, in general, "inspired by a policy of ethnic cleansing and might constitute acts of genocide." The Committee also decided to propose to the preparatory committee for the upcoming World Conference against Racial Discrimination that it should consider how the international community might "prevent or mitigate" mass and flagrant violations of the human rights of persons belonging to ethnic and racial groups and minorities - especially since its failure in recent years to respond to numerous conflicts around the world had resulted in "genocide, ethnic cleansing, the mass movement of refugees and displaced persons, and disruption of regional peace and security by armed groups able to commit atrocities with impunity." Peacekeeping meeting expected to follow Lusaka signing Zambian presidential affairs minister Eric Silwamba has said that the signing of the Lusaka peace agreement by rebels of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) would take place on Tuesday, 31 August. "The signing will take place on Tuesday. All rebel groups will take part in the ceremony", Silwamba told Reuters news agency on Sunday, adding that it would be followed on Wednesday by a meeting of the Joint Military Commission (JMC) - comprising the belligerents, the UN and the Organisation of African Unity - to discuss the deployment of a peacekeeping force to implement the treaty. Minister seeks diplomatic pressure on Rwanda, Uganda Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Yerodia Ndombasi met French diplomats and officials of La Francophonie in Paris at the weekend in advance of a scheduled summit meeting of francophone countries in Mocton, Canada, from 3 to 5 September, to press that "a stance be taken against Rwanda and Uganda" to pressure them into implementing the Lusaka peace accord and withdrawing their forces from the DRC, news agencies reported. Ndombasi especially welcomed Thursday's request by French president Jacques Chirac that the UN send an international peacekeeping force to DRC "to monitor a peace settlement", just as it had committed itself massively in Kosovo, AFP news agency added.