UN deployment in Kisangani “absolutely critical” - Holbrooke

The Congolese people wanted peace, the withdrawal of outside forces and the rebel movements to lay down their arms, the members of the recent Security Council mission to the DRC told a UN debate on the mission’s findings on Wednesday. Everything about the mission had been designed to forward the process of national dialogue because “there was no military solution to the conflict,” said US Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke, who led the delegation. The most important conclusion of the mission was that all the combatants involved wanted to disengage, delegation member Peter Van Walsum of the Netherlands stated.

The issue of deploying a UN unit in Kisangani - where Rwandan and Ugandan armed forces have been involved in a number of armed clashes during the past fortnight - in the next few weeks was now “absolutely critical,” Holbrooke added. A number of other delegates echoed calls for the phase II deployment timetable - spelled out in UN Security Council Resolution 1291 - to be brought forward in order to inject confidence into the peace process by monitoring the ceasefire, and to advance plans for the entry of UN peacekeeping force into the DRC.