PRESS BRIEFING BY SECRETARY-GENERAL’S SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

PRESS BRIEFING BY SECRETARY-GENERAL’S SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE

IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Kamel Morjane, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told journalists this afternoon that he was satisfied with the confirmation given today by the various parties to the Congolese conflict that they planned to disengage their forces.

Equally important, Mr. Morjane added, was the Security Council's confirmation of the disengagement, and the pressure it was applying on all the parties to the conflict to disengage.  It was good that the parties had understood the Council's position on the need for urgent action.  The Secretary-General had also underlined that urgency yesterday.

Mr. Morjane was speaking at a press briefing he gave at Headquarters this afternoon, following a Security Council meeting on the Democratic Republic this morning.

For more than a year there had been much professed goodwill and many reaffirmations of commitment, he said.  But immediate disengagement was the only guarantee for an effective ceasefire.  However, the United Nations was still waiting for the parties to give their troops the executive orders to disengage.  The Congolese Rally for Democracy and the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo had promised to issue the orders today.

Another important development was Congolese President Joseph Kabila's acceptance of former Botswana President Ketumile Masire as the neutral facilitator for the inter-Congolese dialogue, the Special Representative said.  The late President Laurent Kabila had previously rejected Mr. Masire -- an appointee of the Organization of African Unity (OAU).  It would now be possible for the facilitator and his team to resume contacts with the Congolese Government, the opposition and civil society.

Regarding the deployment of United Nations military observers, Mr. Morjane told a correspondent that the United Nations had planned for 500 observers.  Some 40 officers would arrive in Kinshasa on 26 February to form 10 new four-member teams to complement the 39 teams already in the country.  They would be deployed after two weeks of briefings.

He said the observer teams would be deployed in four sectors, starting with Pweto in the south-east, where the situation was most serious.  The deployment would then progress gradually towards the north-west, in step with the disengagement.  It would take 56 days.

A journalist asked if the former Rwandese Armed Forces and Interahamwe militias were strong enough to take United Nations soldiers hostage, as rebels had done in Sierra Leone last year.  Mr. Morjane responded that the risk must be considered.  However, the Rwandese rebels could be disarmed if there was

transparent cooperation between the Governments of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Asked by another correspondent about the security of United Nations observers, the Special Representative said they would be in precise positions agreed upon with the parties.  The United Nations military presence was neither an intervention nor an interposition force.  The observers would monitor the disengagement and redeployment of the various forces, and those forces would be responsible for their security.

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