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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
DRC: Disarmament of ex-combatants begins
KINSHASA, 23 Apr 2004 (IRIN) - Officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo began on Thursday a programme to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate some 330,000 former combants in the east of the country.
"We are obviously aware of the central role the DDR [Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration] will play in the peace process," said Julia Taft, the UN Development Programme's assistant administrator and director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery.
She added, "However, this role depends on the conditions that will prevail and the decisions that will be taken in the security sector, particularly that which concerns the integration of the army and political structures."
Taft arrived in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, on Thursday to preside over the ceremony. The government recently named officials for a national body to carry out the DDR programme.
Defence Minister Jean-Pierre Ondekane has said the government is due to decide on the inclusion of armed groups, that remain active in the district of Ituri, Oriental Province, and in the southeast of the country, in the DDR programme.
Militia groups in Ituri continue to fight each other despite the installation of a national transitional government and the deployment of close to 5,000 UN troops in the area.
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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