UN Security Council welcomes withdrawal from Moliro

On Wednesday the UN Security Council welcomed the withdrawal the same day of rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) troops from the town of Moliro, Katanga Province, southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Security Council president, Ole Peter Kolby, called on all the parties to the conflict to comply with the other demands of the Council's resolution, adopted on 19 March, which demanded the withdrawal of RCD forces from Pweto, government forces from Kayaya and Yayama, and the demilitarisation of Kisangani. The Security Council "called on the parties to resolve the status of all outstanding New Defensive Positions in a conclusive manner", and appealed for calm in order to facilitate the withdrawals.

Sources told IRIN that before the withdrawal, the RCD rebel troops had captured or destroyed a large stock of munitions built up at Moliro by Burundi rebels of the Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD), with help from the DRC government.

Meanwhile, an agreement has been reached on a review of business deals concluded during the DRC conflict. A commission dealing with finance and the economy has adopted guiding principles for experts to use in "examining and assessing the validity of financial and economic agreements signed during the war", notably with foreign countries, AFP quoted a source close to the facilitator of the talks as saying.

The review of the contracts will be completed during a political transition phase for the DRC, which will last from the end of the 45-day inter-Congolese (ICD) dialogue on 12 April, until elections are held in the country. AFP quoted a representative from the RCD, who is participating in the ICD's economic commission, as saying that the guiding principles for assessing wartime contracts pertained to "the transparency of the deal, the absence of excessive advantage for one party or prejudice to the nation, the absence of personal enrichment and the official capacity of the signatories".

The committee dealing with humanitarian and social policies has also made considerable progress. AFP quoted a rebel source as saying that delegates from all groups were nearing agreement on the issue of nationality for all DRC citizens, including the ethnic Tutsi minority - the Banyamulenge - who are deeply concerned about marginalisation and persecution.

In a separate development, Human Rights Watch (HRW), has called on the UN Human Rights Commission in the DRC to increase the number of observers reporting on the ongoing war in the DRC. "All the words in the world do little to help victims suffering daily from this deadly war," said Alison des Forges, senior adviser on the Great Lakes region in HRW, in a press release issued on Thursday. "But more monitors in the field could deter some of the worst abuses against civilians and may even make killers and rapists think twice before targeting civilians."

While the field office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (HCHR) has some 20 human rights officers in DRC, these are too few to monitor abuses throughout the vast territory, says HRW. "HRW urges the Human Rights Commission to allocate more funds for monitors and to press the Security Council to recruit and deploy monitors assigned to MONUC [French acronym for the UN mission in the DRC] as rapidly as possible, particularly in the troubled eastern Congo."

A spokeswoman from the UN HCHR, Giorgia Passarelli, told IRIN that efforts were being made to coordinate better with MONUC. She said that while there were no plans to increase the numbers of field-based monitors or technical officers, periodic meetings between the two bodies were currently taking place and efforts were being made to arrange joint monitoring missions. "This is a new element for us, but we're moving towards strengthening cooperation with MONUC to maximise our resources and share information."

HRW specifically mentions atrocities committed in northeastern DRC between Hema and Lendu ethnic militias, which has been aggravated, the organisation says, by fighting between the rebel groups Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Mouvement pour la liberation and the Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo, as well as fighting in south Kivu between the Banyamulenge and the Rwandan army and RCD.