UN
United Nations Peacekeeping
3 Mar
2009
MONUC hails Washington meeting between DRC, Rwanda and Ugandan Foreign Affairs Ministers
The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for the Democratic Republic of Congo, William Lacy Swing, welcomes the meeting between the DRC, Rwanda and Ugandan Foreign Affairs Ministers, scheduled for Thursday 13 May in Washington, USA. The announcement was made Wednesday by MONUC spokesman, Mr. Hamadoun Touré, during the UN Mission?s weekly press conference.
MONUC's chief hopes that the meeting will accelerate the normalisation of relations between these neighbouring countries, under the terms of the declaration of the principles on good neighbourliness issued in New York in September 2003, indicated Mr. Touré.
Furthermore, he indicated, Mr. Swing travelled last Friday to Luanda, Angola, where he held talks with Angolan authorities on the peace process in the DRC and other developments in the Great Lakes region. This visit is part of his regular contacts with the sub-regional countries that play a role in the DRC peace process.
Mr. Touré further informed the press that next Friday, a MONUC board of enquiry is to be deployed to Bunia to investigate the allegations on sexual abuses reportedly committed by some MONUC staff in the Ituri district.
The Spokesman also announced that MONUC was going to organise a refresher course for 350 elements of the integrated police force next Monday at Kapalata training centre in Kisangani. He added that this is a first, insofar as the training is intended for the police officers drawn from all the belligerents' components.
Updating on the military situation, MONUC military spokesman Abou Thiam recalled Friday's clashes in Ituri between MONUC peacekeepers and from the militiamen of the FNI (Front des Nationalistes et Intégrationnistes). Two elements of the Ituri Brigade were wounded and 10 militiamen killed in the fighting.
Again in Ituri, 20 militiamen attacked a section of a Moroccan contingent in Bunia yesterday, indicated Commandant Thiam, noting that a peacekeeper was injured. The military spokesman also announced the arrival of the Senegalese army chief of staff, General Papa Khalilou Fall, to see for himself, among other things, ''the conditions in which MONUC Senegalese contingent are operating''.
MONUC Human Rights senior staff, Mr. Luc Henkinbrant, who was invited to attend the conference, made public MONUC report on the situation in DRC's prisons. The report, which covers the period 2002-2003, deals with the legal situation of the detainees and conditions in which people are detained in DRC's prisons. The situation is ''serious'' said Mr. Henkinbrant. He stressed the non-compliance with national and international norms of detention such as the denial of the right to be legally assisted, non-respect of the period of custody, detentions in several sites not subject to any judiciary control'etc. He further added that ''90 % of DRC prisons are in bad condition with dilapidated infrastructure''. He listed plagues such as promiscuity, lack of appropriate sanitary conditions and malnutrition. The poor conditions of detention led him to assert that a ''5 or 10-year sentence in DRC is de facto tantamount to a death sentence''.
Furthermore, he indicated, Mr. Swing travelled last Friday to Luanda, Angola, where he held talks with Angolan authorities on the peace process in the DRC and other developments in the Great Lakes region. This visit is part of his regular contacts with the sub-regional countries that play a role in the DRC peace process.
Mr. Touré further informed the press that next Friday, a MONUC board of enquiry is to be deployed to Bunia to investigate the allegations on sexual abuses reportedly committed by some MONUC staff in the Ituri district.
The Spokesman also announced that MONUC was going to organise a refresher course for 350 elements of the integrated police force next Monday at Kapalata training centre in Kisangani. He added that this is a first, insofar as the training is intended for the police officers drawn from all the belligerents' components.
Updating on the military situation, MONUC military spokesman Abou Thiam recalled Friday's clashes in Ituri between MONUC peacekeepers and from the militiamen of the FNI (Front des Nationalistes et Intégrationnistes). Two elements of the Ituri Brigade were wounded and 10 militiamen killed in the fighting.
Again in Ituri, 20 militiamen attacked a section of a Moroccan contingent in Bunia yesterday, indicated Commandant Thiam, noting that a peacekeeper was injured. The military spokesman also announced the arrival of the Senegalese army chief of staff, General Papa Khalilou Fall, to see for himself, among other things, ''the conditions in which MONUC Senegalese contingent are operating''.
MONUC Human Rights senior staff, Mr. Luc Henkinbrant, who was invited to attend the conference, made public MONUC report on the situation in DRC's prisons. The report, which covers the period 2002-2003, deals with the legal situation of the detainees and conditions in which people are detained in DRC's prisons. The situation is ''serious'' said Mr. Henkinbrant. He stressed the non-compliance with national and international norms of detention such as the denial of the right to be legally assisted, non-respect of the period of custody, detentions in several sites not subject to any judiciary control'etc. He further added that ''90 % of DRC prisons are in bad condition with dilapidated infrastructure''. He listed plagues such as promiscuity, lack of appropriate sanitary conditions and malnutrition. The poor conditions of detention led him to assert that a ''5 or 10-year sentence in DRC is de facto tantamount to a death sentence''.
