First UN survey team due to arrive in Goma

A technical survey team from the UN observer mission MONUC was scheduled to arrive in Goma on Thursday to assess logistics, communications, mine problems, housing and local transportation, sources in Kinshasa told IRIN. Two previous attempts to send survey teams to government-held areas failed this week as major differences emerged between the government and MONUC over the necessity of MLOs going to areas controlled by the Congolese army.

Thursday’s scheduled mission to Goma - where Emile Ilunga’s faction of the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) has its headquarters - did not represent a deployment of military liaison officers (MLOs) but was merely a one-day reconnaissance trip to help plan for their later deployment, UN sources told IRIN.

It was not immediately known whether that mission had gone ahead, though MONUC was confident it would since it was to a rebel-held area and not one controlled by government forces. The Goma survey was the only one planned so far, despite reports of a planned mission in Gbadolite, because “misunderstandings” between MONUC and the DRC remained to be resolved, informed sources told IRIN. In the longer term MONUC plans to go to all the possible MLO sites, which are close to the combatant parties’ field headquarters.