UN committee hears concerns over deployment conditions

Uganda and Tanzanian representatives on Tuesday expressed their concern to the ‘Fifth Committee’ (Administrative and Budgetary) of the UN at the conditions the international community was insisting upon for the deployment of UN peacekeepers in the DRC. Nester Odaga-Jalomayo of Uganda said he was pleased at UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s efforts to have UN troops deployed at an early date, but concerned at the conditions that had delayed deployment so far. He said the people of the DRC were waiting for UN assistance, and asked were member states prepared to let down those people as they had the people of Rwanda. “Assurances from the conflicting parties that they were abiding by the provisions of the Lusaka agreement would not be soon forthcoming. No such conditions had been provided for in other peace missions ... the failure to send troops was creating more difficulties and people were being killed unnecessarily,” Mohamed Yussuf of Tanzania stated.