Annan welcomes "significant step" for peace

The military commanders of the belligerents in the DRC have received orders from the Political Committee overseeing the Lusaka peace process and "have agreed to a complete cessation of hostilities from 14 April," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said in a statement on Monday. This move follows the adoption by the Political Committee and the Joint Military Commission (JMC) established to implement
the Lusaka peace accord of a disengagement plan for belligerent forces during a series of meetings in Kampala last week. Annan welcomed "this significant step forward" in the DRC peace process, and the UN was prepared to work closely with the parties involved to implement "the challenging provisions of the disengagement plan," Eckhard said. It was now up to all the belligerents to ensure their military forces complied with the agreement and that they ensured "security and full freedom of
access, and of movement" for UN personnel, he added.

The JMC and the UN Observer Mission in the DRC (MONUC) will be responsible to monitor and verify the disengagement of forces, while MONUC will also be required to monitor and verify the various combatants' movements, Eckhard said. In this context, MONUC urgently needed specialist military units "to prepare for the deployment of its troops and equipment in the interior of the DRC," according to Eckhard's statement. The successful
deployment of UN troops to the interior depended on the availability of such units, and the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) would later this week ask troop-contributing countries to meet this need, it added.