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Democratic Republic of Congo

Answer

The UK co-sponsored UN Security Council resolution 1843, which was adopted on 20 November, authorised an increase in the UN mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo's (MONUC) force levels of 2,785 military and 300 police. These additional resources were requested by the UN Secretary-General to reinforce MONUC's presence in North Kivu allowing the mission, inter alia, to bolster its capacity to protect civilians; to maintain zones of separation between rebel groups and to increase the mission's mobility. We are pressing to ensure that deployment is as quick as possible. We are working with the UN and international partners to ensure that these additional resources are found and deployed in theatre as soon as possible. Although the UK is not in a position to contribute troops to MONUC given our existing military commitments, we are considering what staff, logistics or other help we can provide to MONUC and to potential troop contributors. We understand that the UN has received expressions of interest from several countries. It is a matter for the UN and the countries in question to announce publicly if they will contribute troops. Clearly it is vital that any troops are capable, correctly equipped and able to deploy quickly. MONUC now has 95 per cent of its troop strength deployed in the east of the DRC following internal reorganisation of the mission, reinforcing its capacity to protect Goma and other areas of North Kivu until new resources arrive. An EU force is not currently under consideration, although we will keep this under review. We believe that any countries, including individual European countries, willing to contribute troops should deploy to MONUC, which has an existing command structure and logistical support in place.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

6427; 705 c302-3WA

Session

2007-08

Subjects

Armed forces Deployment Peacekeeping operations Democratic Republic of the Congo UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk