UNITED NATIONS (AFP) UN chief Ban Ki-moon is stepping up efforts to settle the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), asking his peacekeeping chief to travel to the region, his press office said Friday. The secretary general, who is on a brief visit to Nepal, was sending Alain Le Roy, the head of UN peacekeeping, to the region and had discussed the crisis with a number of world leaders over the past two days, a UN statement said.
| Ban would do better to let the Indian troops there take off the gloves and enforce the peace. And send the mighty Uruguayans home. |
Ban notably spoke with Presidents Joseph Kabila of DRC, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania as well as with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Ban stressed to them "the importance of doing everything possible" to consolidate the ceasefire ordered in Goma, Nord Kivu's capital, by rebels led by ethnic Tutsi warlord Laurent Nkunda, and to halt further violence. He also urged them to do all they could to bring the key protagonists, the presidents of DRC and Rwanda, "to a neutral venue for negotiations."
Ban stressed that the 17,000-strong UN mission in DRC (MONUC) "must be given the additional resources it needs to carry out its mandate" and that humanitarian workers should be allowed to work "without hindrance."
And he asked the UN Security Council to speed up efforts "to support or complement" MONUC, which has deployed 850 troops to maintain security and protect civilians in Goma, after Rwandan-backed Nkunda loyalists threatened to seize the city.
MONUC has requested troop reinforcements while France has suggested sending sending an EU battle group of up to 1,500 troops to bolster UN troops in Nord Kivu.
| If the EU group shows up to fight and enforce the peace order that would be a considerable step. |
Fighting resumed in the east of Congo on August 28 in violation of a ceasefire agreed in January, marking a return to the unrest that has gripped the region since the mid-1990s. Some 220,000 people have been displaced since August, bringing to more than one million the number forced from their homes in Nord Kivu, a province bordering Rwanda that totals five million. 
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