“Sierra Leone must not cloud international responsibility”

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had a difficult decision to make on whether or not the circumstances were right to ask the Security Council to approve phase II of the UN Observer Mission in the DRC (MONUC), a special Security Council delegation reported on Friday, after a week-long mission to the region. The current situation in Sierra Leone showed the danger of deploying peacekeepers before a conflict had run its course, but the DRC conflict had its own unique characteristics and the peacekeeping operation there should be judged on its own merits, according to the Holbrooke-led delegation. While Sierra Leone should not be allowed to cloud international responsibility in the DRC, it provided object lessons, of which “the need for security to be assured as deployments begin and the immediate availability of reinforcements” were the most important, it said.