Morjane emphasises need for “effective ceasefire”

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative in the DRC Kamel Morjane has called on all sides in the current conflict to implement an effective ceasefire to allow the deployment of a UN military force of over 5,500 in the country, and to prepare for the exchange of prisoners of war as outlined in the Lusaka agreement. Speaking before his first working meeting with Leonard Ntaremba, the DRC’s new General Commissioner to the UN Mission in the DRC, Morjane told a press conference that before the new UN deployment there should be “an effective ceasefire - note, an effective ceasefire, not the kind of ceasefire we have been witnessing since July which, you know, has never been respected.” All sides would have to agree on a disengagement plan “so that there will be no opposition, and no direct clashes on the various fronts,” Morjane, speaking on Congolese television, stated.