19 June 2003
U.S. Studying Whether to Increase U.N. Peackeepers in DRC
(Negroponte says political will needed to make larger MONUC work)
(690)
By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent
United Nations -- Increasing the number of United Nations peacekeepers
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will not resolve the
country's problems if all the parties don't have the political will to
abide by the Lusaka peace accords, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John
Negroponte said June 18.
Negroponte just returned from a weeklong Security Council mission to
Central Africa. He said that the United States is reviewing the
situation and is still undecided about whether to support an expansion
of the U.N. Organization Mission in the Congo (MONUC) when its mandate
is to be renewed at the end of the month.
"Increasing the size or changing the mandate of MONUC is something we
are still looking at and want to look at very, very carefully," the
ambassador told journalists outside the council's chambers after the
mission's report.
"Our view is that, fundamentally, no amount of peacekeeping forces are
going to be able to help resolve this situation if there isn't the
political will amongst the parties both in the Congo and in the
neighboring countries to achieve a satisfactory political outcome," he
said.
"The Congo is just too large a country to be able to think that a
large foreign intervention can make that much of a difference over the
long-term," the ambassador said.
The 15-member Security Council mission, headed by Ambassador Jean-Marc
de la Sabliere of France, visited the Ituri province in the eastern
Congo, the site of recent intense ethnic fighting, as well as the
neighboring countries of Burundi and Rwanda. An emergency
multinational force mandated by the council in May and led by France
is being deployed in Ituri in an attempt to secure the region until a
MONUC contingent arrives in September.
Negroponte said that he returned from the mission "hopeful about the
prospects for peace in the Congo and success on the political front.
"But at the same time there are many, many challenges ahead and this
is going to require restraint on the part of the parties inside the
Congo," he said. "One of the things they are going to have to do is
pull back from positions taken in recent days violating the cease-fire
lines that had been earlier established.
"The interim multinational force that has been sent there is playing
an extremely useful role in terms of stabilizing the situation in
Ituri and in Bunia in particular, but now these other elements have to
fall into place," the ambassador said.
"A key element," Negroponte added, will be for the parties to press
ahead and form a new transitional government by the end of the month.
"We are still hoping, although not certain" it will happen," he said.
All the neighboring countries "stated they were committed to the peace
process and to the Lusaka accords," Negroponte said of the mission's
contacts. "They have all maintained they have withdrawn their forces.
"There are suggestions and allegations that some of them still may
maintain military relationships -- or at least political relationships
-- with these forces and certainly have an influence over the factions
that are operating inside the Congo," he said.
"We urge them to exert their influence with those elements to try to
make this peace process work," Negroponte said, "to try to exercise
restraint with drawbacks to agreed cease-fire lines and to at least
concentrate their efforts on creating this transitional national
government in Kinshasa. Otherwise they risk falling back into the
pattern of violence and warfare that has characterized this
situation."
De la Sabliere reported that the mission contacted heads of rebel
movements and passed on very strong messages that there would be no
impunity for human rights violations. He said that a large portion of
the militia seen on the streets in Bunia were young children.
He also said that the council should look into how MONUC could be more
effective in the peace process and consider a more robust mandate for
the peacekeepers.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
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