UN representative reports on progress of mission

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Namanga Ngongi, said on Wednesday that Zimbabwe had "reaffirmed its willingness" to comply with UN Security Council resolutions on the DRC.

He was commenting on his Tuesday meeting with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Ngongi said that judging from his recent meetings with parties involved in the peace process, "a new tendency, more favorable towards dialogue rather than armed battles" was developing. He added that during his visit to Rwanda two weeks ago, the government "reiterated its willingness to participate in the realisation of resolution 1376". The resolution calls for the establishment of a joint coordination mechanism on disarmament, demobilisation, repatriation, resettlement and reintegration (commonly known as "DDRRR") of former combatants. He added that it was MONUC's job to "bring the different perspectives closer together so that the objective of disarming, demobilising, repatriating, reinstalling and reintegrating the combatants into civilian life in their country can be achieved".

With regard to the recent screening of 1,805 former Rwandan Hutu fighters in Kamina by the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC (known by its French acronym, MONUC), Ngongi said he discussed the matter with Rwandan authorities during their recent meeting. He had proposed that the Rwandan government "send a small group of people" to meet with those in Kamina. The task of the government delegation would be to convince the Kamina people that they could voluntarily return home without facing security problems. Then, the government would in Rwanda receive a delegation from the Kamina group to discuss conditions for their return. The Kamina group would also be allowed to assess whether their security needs could be guaranteed.

On the subject of the start of MONUC's third phase, Ngongi said that a mission had been sent to the northeastern city of Kisangani on Wednesday to assess whether the security of civilians would be guaranteed once it has been demilitarised. "We need to do a lot of prospecting, look at the sites that will be occupied and the places where additional MONUC forces will be deployed. There is a lot of short-term work to be done," he said.

In response to a question about the recent addendum report by a UN panel on the illegal exploitation of DRC resources, he said it was sad that the natural resources of the country were not serving its citizens. He added that the UN Security Council would discuss the report in December.

Reporters raised the issue of payment of civil servant salaries in rebel-held areas. It was recently alleged that an installment of these funds was confiscated by the Ugandan-backed Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC) armed opposition movement. Ngongi clarified that MONUC's role in the matter was purely of a logistic nature - in helping out with transportation - and that technicalities about delivery and distribution of the funds were a matter between the government and the MLC. Ngongi expressed the wish to avoid misunderstandings in the future on the matter of MONUC's transportation of civil servant salaries to areas controlled by the MLC, based in Gbadolite in the northwestern province of Equateur.