Reconnaissance team visits Mbuji-Mayi

A 12-person UN reconnaissance team travelled on Tuesday to the Kasai Oriental town of Mbuji-Mbayi, one of four locations where the UN Observer Mission in the DRC (MONUC) planned to base its military personnel, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York. Discussions between UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Bernard Miyet and DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila last week resulted in an agreement in principle for the start of the UN reconnaissance missions, he said. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the Security Council had given him “the heavy responsibility of deciding when conditions are ripe” for deployment of the expanded MONUC force to monitor and facilitate implementation of the Lusaka ceasefire agreement. Speaking in London on Tuesday at the commemoration of Commonwealth Day, Annan said Miyet was currently in the region to make “an on-the-spot assessment” of those conditions.