UN committee on security to meet in DRC this month

The United Nations Standing Advisory Committee on Security Questions in Central Africa will be holding its 17th ministerial meeting from 22 to 26 April 2002, in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA) announced last week. The agenda of the meeting includes discussion of the current geopolitical and security situation in central Africa; inter-state cooperation for peace and security; evaluation of the implementation of the Committee's previous decisions and recommendations; and review of the recommendations of the Subregional Conference on the Protection of Women and Children in Armed Conflict, held in Kinshasa from 16 to 20 November 2001. The meeting will also review the results of the recent meeting of chiefs of staff of the Committee's member states, held in Libreville, Gabon, from 18 to 20 March 2002. According to the DDA, the objective of that meeting was to reduce the global costs of organising joint military simulation exercises for peacekeeping operations in the central African region, which a previous meeting of chiefs of staff had estimated would cost CFA francs 2.281 billion (approximately US $3.25 million), a figure which member states felt was beyond their reach. The Committee would also be commemorating the 10th anniversary of its creation, in the context of which it would review the objectives underlying its establishment, and how far it had gone towards achieving them, with a view to determining a way forward, the DDA reported. The Committee, which is serviced by the DDA, was established on 28 May 1992 in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 46/37 B on regional confidence-building measures. It comprises the 11 member states of the Economic Community of the Central African States - Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo (ROC), Rwanda, and Sao Tome and Principe. According to the DDA, the Committee's major goals are to develop confidence-building measures and to promote arms restraint and development in the central African subregion. It meets at least twice a year at the ministerial level, and organises conferences, seminars and workshops on various issues related to peace and security in central Africa. Since its establishment, the Committee has adopted a number of decisions, such as the Non-Aggression Pact of 1996 and the Pact for Mutual Assistance of February 2000. It has also created a number of structures aimed at promoting peace and security in the central African region, such as the Council for Peace and Security; the Early-Warning Mechanism, based in Libreville, Gabon; the Subregional Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, based in Yaounde, Cameroon; and the Subregional Parliament, based in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Currently, the officers of the Committee comprise the DRC as president, the CAR as first vice-president, Equatorial Guinea as second vice-president, and the ROC as rapporteur.