Military

DATE=6/26/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=U-N / CONGO (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-304789

BYLINE=JENNY BADNER

DATELINE=UNITED NATIONS

INTERNET=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The United Nations Security Council has adopted a resolution extending a U-N peacekeeping mission to the Congo for one month. Correspondent Jenny Badner reports from the United Nations.

TEXT: The Security Council renewed the Congo peacekeeping mission that was set to expire on Monday. The 30-day measure gives U-N diplomats more time to decide their next move for the war-torn Congo.

The resolution deals with the U-N Mission to the Congo, know as MONUC. It is separate from a new French-led multinational force recently deployed in Congo's northeastern Ituri region.

This month's President of the Security Council, Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov, says diplomats are considering a French proposal following recommendations by Secretary General Kofi Annan to bolster MONUC.

/ / / LAVROV ACT / / /

The draft proposal from France is based on the secretary general's recommendations as he submitted them in his report. Yesterday, the secretary general addressed a special letter for us urging the council to consider those recommendations in good faith and as soon as possible because of the deteriorating situation.

/ / / END ACT / / /

MONUC now has about five-thousand lightly armed peacekeepers in the Congo. In a special report, Secretary General Annan recommends boosting the military strength of the mission to 11-thousand troops. He also proposes extending the mandate for one full year and suggests a possible arms embargo for the troubled Ituri and Kivu districts.

The French-led, 14-hundred multinational peacekeepers are authorized to use force to rein in the violence in the town of Bunia in eastern Ituri, the site of recent deadly inter-ethnic violence. But their mandate expires in September.

Since 1998, more than three million people, mostly civilians, have died in Congo's bloody civil war. (SIGNED)

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