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Source App: [UN Council Calls For Seriousness In DRC Talks - Netscape]
UN Council Calls For Seriousness In DRC Talks
December 12, 1998
Congo United Nations (PANA) - The UN Security Council has asked secretary
-general Kofi Annan to continue working with the Organization of African Unity
(OAU) and all other parties to help find a peaceful and lasting solution to the
four-month old conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The call was made Friday by the Council's President Buallay Mohammed of Bahrain before the cancellation of a proposed two-day regional meeting on the DRC conflict, which was to begin in Lusaka, Zambia, Monday.
Mohammed said that if a cease-fire is reached in the DRC conflict, which erupted 2 August, the UN organ responsible for international peace and security, is prepared to get the world body actively involved, in coordination with the OAU, in its effective implementation and in the agreed process for political settlement.
UN sources have indicated that such involvement could be the deployment of a peacekeeping force.
Annan and French president, Jacques Chirac, had managed during the France-Africa summit in Paris late November to bring together DRC President Laurent Kabila and those of Uganda and Rwanda, whose armies are backing the rebels seeking to topple the DRC government.
The DRC is being militarily backed by Angola, Chad, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
In its statement Friday, the council said that current regional efforts, being coordinated by Zambia, should work out an orderly withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country as well as an arrangement for security along the international borders of the DRC.
The effort should also aim to re-establish the authority of the DRC government all over its all territory and the initiation of a process for an all-inclusive national reconciliation that will fully respect the equality and rights of all, irrespective of ethnic origin.
All this, the council said, should lead to the holding of early democratic elections in the country.
At an appropriate time, the council said, the UN and the OAU would have to host an international conference on peace, security and development in the troubled Great Lakes Region.
Other countries in the region where turbulence has not died down are the Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) and Rwanda.
In its statement, the council restated its concern that the conflict in the DRC threatens peace, security and stability in the whole region, with grave humanitarian consequences.
Warning that the present involvement of external forces in the country's conflict, runs against the UN Charter, the council reaffirmed the obligation of all UN member states to respect the territorial integrity of the DRC.
The council condemned reported violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the country as well as incitement to ethnic hatred and violence. It urged all parties to protect human rights.
It also asked all the warring parties to allow safe and unhindered access for humanitarian agencies to those in need.
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