Military

19 April 2005

Security Council Bans Arms Sales to Democratic Republic of Congo

Resolution enlarges 2003 embargo, prohibits all military aid to rebel groups

By Judy Aita
Washington File Staff Writer

United Nations -- The Security Council April 18 unanimously voted to ban arms sales "to any recipient in the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)" with the exception of the government's army and police.

The six-page resolution expands the first arms embargo passed by the Security Council in 2003 on rebel groups in the eastern provinces and others who did not accept a cease-fire.  The new ban now applies to all rebel groups in the country and includes financing and financial assistance related to military activities.

Military shipments intended for the national army and police must be cleared through the Security Council's DRC Sanctions Committee and coordinated with the U.N. Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC).

The embargo was widened to cover other regions of the DRC because militias continue to operate and wreak havoc on local populations in the east despite an official end to the civil war in 2003.  MONUC, with 16,700 peacekeepers, is trying to oversee the peace agreement, help demobilize rebel groups and assist the current government of President Joseph Kabila in establishing a broad-based democratic regime.  Elections, which had been scheduled for June, have been postponed.

On April 18, MONUC dismantled five camps belonging to the Union of Congolese Patriots rebels in northeast Ituri.  A week earlier, the U.N. peacekeepers launched an operation to arrest and disarm the Patriotic Resistance Front of Ituri.  Since 1999, inter-ethnic clashes in the region have left 60,000 dead and displaced more than 500,000 people.

Expressing "serious concern regarding the presence of armed groups and militias" in the eastern part of the DRC, particularly in the provinces of North and South Kivu and the Ituri district "which perpetuate a climate of insecurity in the whole region," the council said that all governments in the region must maintain a registry of flights originating in their territories headed for the DRC.  The DRC and MONUC are to increase the monitoring and control of airports in the DRC.

Nations are to immediately freeze the funds, other financial assets and economic resources of those violating the embargo, according to the resolution.

An estimated 4 million have died in the DRC since the civil war -- which drew in six countries in the region -- began in 1998. 

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)