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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

DRC: UN panel on resource plunder given new six-month mandate

NAIROBI, 27 January 2003 (IRIN) - The UN Security Council unanimously approved on Friday a new six-month mandate for the panel of experts investigating the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), UN News reported.

In adopting resolution 1457 (the complete resolution), the Council said the continued plunder of the DRC's natural resources was one of the main elements fuelling conflict in the DRC, and demanded that all states concerned take immediate steps to end those illegal activities.

The Council said that the panel's new mandate should include a further review of relevant data and analysis of information gathered by the panel, in order to verify, reinforce and, where necessary, update the panel's findings, and/or clear parties named in the panel's previous reports.

The mandate should also include information or actions taken by governments in response to the panel's previous recommendations; an assessment of the actions taken by all those named in the reports; and recommendations on measures a transitional government of the DRC and other governments in the region could take to ensure the resources of that country were used legally and on a fair commercial basis to benefit the Congolese people.

In the interests of transparency, the Council invited individuals, companies and states named in the panel's last report to send their reactions to the secretariat no later than 31 March. It asked the secretary-general to have those reactions published as an attachment to that report no later than 15 April.

In that report, released on 21 October 2002, the experts said that despite the withdrawal of foreign forces from the DRC, "elite criminal networks" had become so deeply entrenched that continued illegal exploitation of the country's natural resources was assured, independent of the physical presence of foreign armies.

The panel reported that the humanitarian consequences of the financially driven conflict had been horrific: in the five eastern provinces of the DRC, the number of excess deaths directly attributable to the Rwandan and Ugandan occupation since the outbreak of war up to September 2002 had been between three million and 3.5 million people.

It also said that a ban on the export of raw materials originating from the DRC would be counterproductive, and recommended that punitive measures be taken to curb the illegal exploitation of the country's natural resources by criminal organizations and persons.

The experts also suggested that financial restrictions be placed on 29 companies based in the DRC, Belgium, Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa, and that a travel ban and financial restrictions be imposed on 54 persons, including senior officials in the DRC, Zimbabwe and other countries in the region.

Themes: (IRIN) Economy

[ENDS]

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