The United Nations (UN) Security Council mission to Africa's Great Lakes region is not likely to provide much of a boost to the struggling peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi, say Southern African security analysts.

The relief organisation, Refugees International, has said the recent positive developments in the DRC are having little immediate positive impact on the Congolese people. Anne Edgerton, who recently visited the region on behalf of Refugees International, told a US sub-committee that displacement was still occurring in remote areas as armies withdrew and redeployed to new territory in the country.

A United Nations Security Council delegation arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday night on "the most important mission the Security Council has ever undertaken", in the words of the mission leader, French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte. In a brief statement at Kinshasa airport, Levitte said the 12 ambassadors in the delegation hoped "to help the parties in the Congo conflict move towards peace and a complete application of the Lusaka ceasefire agreement".

More than 1,000 trucks are stuck on the main route leading from the seaport of Matadi to Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after heavy rains washed away large sections of the road, the BBC reported on Friday. Some of the trucks have been there for as long as 20 days, and the produce they are carrying - mostly much-needed fresh food for the capital - is rotting under the heat and rain of Congo's wet season.

OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim has commented that peacekeeping missions often fail because they are ill-equipped and under-funded, AFP reported. Speaking in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam on Thursday, he said the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC was inadequate.

A prominent human rights organisation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has expressed concern at the detention or disappearance of at least 200 political prisoners and others in government-controlled territory. In a report on the human rights situation in government-controlled DRC in the first 100 days of the new president Joseph Kabila's rule, the African Association for the Defence of Human Rights (ASADHO) said there had been little improvement so far. Noting the president's promises of change, ASADHO nevertheless condemned the "inquisitorial and secret character of the inquiry [into the late president's Laurent-Desire Kabila's assassination] conducted entirely by the army and security services without any intervention by the judiciary".

A final report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) on mortality rates in eastern DRC says the level and indiscriminate nature of violence since August 1998 is disturbing. It is estimated that one in every eight households has experienced a violent death since the start of the war, about 40 percent of which are women and children. The report stressed that the mortality rate in eastern DRC was extraordinarily high.

The UN Security Council on Thursday condemned the illegal exploitation of the natural resources and wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and expressed serious concern at those economic activities fuelling the conflict in the country. The condemnation followed a day-long open discussion of a report by a UN panel of experts charged with investigating the illegal exploitation of Congolese natural resources and other forms of wealth.

A new union of armed and unarmed opposition forces in the DRC has been formed, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported on Thursday. The movement is called the "Union of Congolese forces for the Integral Respect of the Lusaka Accords and the holding of the inter-Congolese dialogue" (UFAD). The new movement's creation was announced by rebel MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba. It is supposed to be a uniting body of all the armed and unarmed parties.

The International Secretariat of OMCT is very concerned about the death penalty to which 4 children were condemned by the Military Court (COM, Cour d’Ordre Militaire) of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Military Court is an
exceptional court from which no appeal is possible. In each of these cases the trials have allegedly been carried out summarily.

Angola's Interior Minister Fernando da Piedade has said the country's army intervened in the DRC and also in the Republic of Congo (ROC) because of these countries rights to "legitimate defence against aggressor forces, national judicial fundamentals and respect for international law".

Rebels of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) have reversed a decision to block UN peacekeepers from deploying in the city of Kisangani. The UN announced that the deployment of 120 Moroccan peacekeepers - due to have taken place last Sunday - would now go ahead on Friday.

The malnutrition figures just in from Kasika, near Bukavu, had Claude Jibidar and his World Food Programme (WFP) team in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) more than a little confused. Like many parts of the DRC they had had little or no access to Kasika since war began in the DRC 32 months ago. "We didn’t know quite what to expect not having had access to the area for so long," said Jibidar, "but we certainly didn’t expect what we found."

I am writing to express my great concern that public comments and policy statements in recent years by your new appointee for Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Walter H. Kansteiner III, could be a harbinger of a nightmarish U.S. foreign policy for the resolution of the tragic war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I hope that this is not the case and I respectfully request your immediate and most forceful assurances that these statements do not reflect your view on the resolution of the current crises in Congo.

The International Secretariat of OMCT requests your URGENT intervention in the following situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by the African Association for the defense of Human Rights (ASADHO), a member of the OMCT network, about the arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention and the subsequent placement under house arrest of Brazilian Pastor Carlos Rodrigues and an aide, Mrs. Christine.

Opposition leader, Joseph Olenghankoy, last week urged Masire to convene the inter-Congolese forum to "usher in a new political order" in the DRC, AFP reported. At a press conference in Kinshasa, Olenghankoy asked Masire to convene and determine the a dates and venue of the forum, adding that "beyond this date, the peaceful and democratic opposition and the civil society would be forced to choose a president of the republic."

THE president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, says he is fully in control of the situation in his country, after dismissing his entire government cabinet on the eve of a visit to Germany.

The leader of one of the Congolese rebel movements has refused to give an assurance that his troops will pull back from the front-line in compliance with a peace treaty.

Congo Kinshasa (DRC) President Joseph Kabila was sworn in on 26 January this year after the assassination of his father, Laurent-Desire Kabila, on 16 January. Since taking office he has promised cooperation with the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) and free movement of humanitarian agencies, and given approval for Sir Ketumile Masire to move ahead with organising the inter-Congolese dialogue on a new political dispensation for the country.

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