The Democratic Republic of Congo and other

matters

We had a briefing from Assistant Secretary-General Annabi on the events in

recent days in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and particularly the

diversion of the new Moroccan contingent of the UN mission in Congo

(MONUC) which was suppose to go and deploy in Kissangani but was

deterred from doing that. Members of the Council wanted me to say

something in detail about that.

We heard the briefing from Hedi Annabi with some concern that there had

been this resistance from RCD Goma to the deployment of the Moroccan

contingent. This resistance is in contravention of resolution 1331, and of the

agreement with all the parties on deployment. Members of the Council were

clear in their own minds that it is not a reason to block or resist the

deployment of MONUC that any party should have concerns or worries about

another party not complying with the disengagement agreement. That is the

business of the Political Committee of the Lusaka Accord, it is the business

of the Security Council, it is the business of MONUC on the ground and

Ambassador Morjane. But it is not the business of another party to the

agreement to take action in controversion of agreed schedules because they

have worries about another party. So members of the Council wanted to

underline the importance of sticking to these disengagement schedules and

the schedules for the deployment of MONUC and to refrain all parties from

any retaliatory action of this kind.

Tomorrow there is going to be arranged a visit of a few Ambassadors resident

in Kinshasa by members of the Security Council to Goma to talk with the

leadership of RCD Goma about this incident, and to try and see whether

arrangements can be made to get back on schedule. So there is diplomacy at

work and the Security Council supports that diplomacy, and we wait to hear

the report of that further action and of Ambassador Morjane before we

consider the matter further.

We talked about the debate we are going to have next Monday on the

protection of civilians in armed conflicts following the report of the

Secretary-General earlier this month on that subject. And we focused on the

kind of pragmatic and practical steps that could be taken to follow-up the

Secretary-General’s recommendations which we hope will come out in public

on Monday. So we feel unusually prepared for an open debate with our own

brainstorming on it, and that was very useful.

I then reported on a visit that I had this morning from an OAU delegation

talking about sanctions against UNITA. The OAU representative here brought

the Nigerian Ambassador in Addis Ababa who is the Head of a new body in

the OAU: the ad hoc committee on the implementation of sanctions against

UNITA. And it is an interesting example of a regional organisation, a very

important one, taking up the recommendations of the Security Council and

the Secretary-General to follow-up in its own region the implementation of a

sanctions regime in a civil war that has caused tremendous damage in the

Angola region and for the OAU members generally. And this committee,

which was set up last summer came into being effectively in January, is now

liaising with the UN in following up sanctions against UNITA. So that was

quite an interesting development, and I might add that for those of you who

are following this closely the Nigerian Ambassador will be meeting

Ambassador Ryan later today because of his recent visit and his strong

interest as chair of the Sanctions Committee, in, may I say, the Fowler mode

on the subject.

Finally, we discussed the proposal again, particularly from the Russian

Federation, that, in addition to the mission of Congo in May, we should also

have a mission this summer to Kosovo. There is also a separate proposal that

came originally from Ukraine for a mission to Georgia. So we got our mission

boots on and we begun to discuss whether, when, what, who and how that

will continue. I have asked to consult the Special Representative on the

ground in Kosovo to see whether we can design the best context and the best

timing for a mission to Kosovo and l shall be following that up.

Q: Do you have any reaction to the Congo report yesterday, and its call for

sanctions on quite a number of countries and groups?

Not as yet in detail, London has not commented on this yet. We are very

interested in following up this whole issue of illegal exploitation of resources in

the Congo. In our view nationally, and again I think more generally it is one of

the reasons for the continuation of the conflict. The Panel has clearly done

some extremely good work. It has made the point that it has had quite a short

time to prepare this report, and that therefore there are things that need to be

followed up, investigations need to be deepened. You heard the chair of the

Sanctions, Mme Ba N’Daw, talk about that. We will have a discussion of this

tomorrow. The policy discussion of DRC will await the Secretary-General’s

report on MONUC which is coming up in a day or two and we will have that on

Friday.

Q: The problems in the Middle East seem worrisome to the

Secretary-General. Is the Security Council in any way interested in speaking

out on this and the possibilities of exchanges between Israel and Syria ?

We are certainly keeping a close eye on the problem and we are going to

have a briefing on the latest events in informal consultations tomorrow. And if

the Security Council decides collectively that the President should say

something after that, I shall say something. Obviously there is a very delicate

background to that, and indeed a history. We will see tomorrow whether we

have anything to say.

Q: The Panel reports on African countries and the ongoing difficulties

regarding MONUC right now. Does this mean things are moving ahead, finally

after Africa was designated similarly as the focus point for the Security

Council seems every year, every month, or are the problems still very

intractable and we are still exactly where we were. When you read the

diamond report yesterday and the plundering of Congo and you have Angola,

Sierra Leone and other missions?

You have partly answered your own question. I think there is a conglomeration

of activity which is changing the picture in terms of UN activity on these

conflicts and on the people who are exploiting them. It has already been noted

and indeed the Nigerian Ambassador noted it this morning that the difficulties

have increased for an organisation like UNITA in selling diamonds and in

buying arms. It has become more difficult and more expensive and therefore

more of a problem to run a rebellion of that kind. I hope the same will be

considered true of the interaction between the revolution of the United Front in

Sierra Leone and Liberia, and will be seen as something which is relevant to

the conflict in the Great Lakes and in the DRC. I think the UN generally, and

the Security Council in particular, are getting more operational and more

detailed in their activity. But there also needs to be a regional response

because you cannot implement these regimes unless you have the

agreement of the neighbours and the region, and this is something that is now

beginning to click in a really operational way. It is immature as yet, a lot more

needs to be done, a lot more resources need to be put into it but I think we

are seeing the beginning of a new stage of real hard implementation of what

before were resolutions that tended to sit around on the shelf.