More UN military officers fielded

Recent deployment of new UN Military Liaison Officers (MLOs) has brought MONUC’s strength to about 70 military personnel, out of a total of 90 approved by the UN Security Council under the first phase of the UN’s involvement, the statement continued. Over the next few days, UN MLO teams will travel to Goma and Kisangani to begin their work, and two other teams will then be fielded to Gbadolite and Kananga. Their main role will be to build mutual trust and to bear witness to the faithful implementation of the Lusaka ceasefire agreement, it said. All parties had shown “close cooperation”, and last week’s appointment of Kamel Morjane as the UN Special Representative to the DRC was the “culmination of a series of recent positive developments”, MONUC stated.

Meanwhile, the UN has provided an aircraft to transport OAU verifiers to regional Joint Military Commissions (JMCs) to be set up at Boende, Lisala and Kabalo to help monitor compliance with the Lusaka accord. Last Thursday, 12 OAU verifiers were deployed to Kabinda, the site of the fourth regional JMC, the MONUC statement added.