Zuma completes Kisangani trip

South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Zuma left Kisangani on Wednesday after holding "fruitful discussions" with the leaders of rival factions of the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD), a foreign ministry spokesman told IRIN on Thursday. The spokesman said Zuma had gone to Kisangani "in a supporting role" to Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, who has been mandated by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to spearhead DRC peace efforts. The spokesman said the minister, who was accompanied by Zambian Presidential Affairs Minister Eric Silwamba, had been "warmly received" and that she was preparing a report on her mission. It would be up to Chiluba, however, to announce any outcome of her peace mission. Rebels reiterate divergent positions The rebel's Ugandan-backed Kisangani-based faction, led by ousted RCD president Ernest Wamba dia Wamba - who maintains he remains the movement's legitimate leader - is prepared to have "other factions" sign the ceasefire agreement "in the interest of peace." An RCD-Kisangani statement received by IRIN on Thursday said the group had appealed to Zuma and Silwamba to allow both the Goma and Kisangani factions to sign the accord, endorsed in Lusaka on 10 July by the six countries involved in the DRC conflict. To respond to the Rwandan-backed Goma faction's allegations that RCD-Kisangani was "non-existent," the two visiting ministers were "shown concretely on the map, where our positions are located," the statement added. Meanwhile, the RCD-Goma group has rejected the idea of having more than one RCD signatory on the ceasefire agreement, Radio Bukavu said on Thursday. It quoted an RCD-Goma statement as saying "why should the RCD sign jointly with an individual who, no longer having a mandate from the movement, represents only himself?". Deployment of UN military personnel to start UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has decided to start sending UN military personnel to the region, a UN spokesman said on Wednesday. The first group was expected to arrive within the next couple of weeks in Kinshasa and the Zambian capital, Lusaka, to be followed soon after by personnel heading to the capitals of other countries in the region, the spokesman said. Under a resolution adopted by the UN Security Council last week, up to 90 UN military liaison personnel are to be sent to the capitals of the DRC, Angola, Namibia, Uganda, Rwanda and Zimbabwe to assist in implementing the ceasefire accord. In Lusaka, the UN personnel would be deployed to the provisional headquarters of the Joint Military Commission (JMC), created by the peace agreement to disarm the fighters and verify the ceasefire, the statement added. Kisangani tension hinders campaign preparations The impact of recent unrest in Kisangani and the associated reduced availability of aircraft have hindered logistical preparations for the polio vaccination campaign in some areas, humanitarian sources told IRIN on Wednesday. Tension between military forces in Kisangani remained high following last weekend's clashes, some aircraft had been requisitioned, and permission to fly in the required vaccines and other immunisation supplies to Kisangani and several other rebel-held locations in Province Orientale and Maniema had not yet been granted by the authorities, the sources said. The national campaign, scheduled to start this weekend, aims to vaccinate some 10 million children as part of global polio eradication efforts. Meanwhile, a UNICEF spokesman told IRIN on Thursday that the campaign would go ahead as planned in spite of the huge logistical challenges. "The supplies and equipment are in place in the great majority of the country. There are a few areas where vaccines and equipment still need to be flown in, or delivered by boat in some cases, and that process is on-going," the spokesman said.