Democratic Republic of the Congo / UN offers support to Congolese civil society
KINSHASA, Dem. Rep. of Congo (DRC) May 27, 2009/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Daily press briefing by the offices of the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general and the spokesperson for the general assembly president.
On the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Alan Doss, was among the keynote speakers yesterday at a major Congolese civil society gathering in Kinshasa. In his address, Doss called for the swift implementation of national reforms to fight poverty and corruption among other challenges facing the country. Doss offered UN support to the gathering, urging participants to come up with a workable strategy for growth and poverty reduction.
Elsewhere in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN peacekeepers were responding this past weekend to various reports of violence by illegal armed groups. On Saturday, the peacekeepers deployed to a village near the north-eastern town of Dungu where an attack by the Lord’s Resistance Army left one person dead. Twenty others were injured while the rebels burnt down some 20 huts before fleeing. And on Friday in the Bukavu area, a peacekeeping patrol exchanged fire with a group of Rwandan rebels after the rebels attacked a bus at a roadblock. And you can read more about that upstairs.
And the Mission also says that it is providing logistical assistance to Congolese judicial authorities in the trial of Mai Mai militiamen facing charges of mass rapes and torture.
Their trial opened two days ago in a regional court in Province Orientale. The Mission says it provided helicopters to help get judicial personnel to the remote area, some 290 miles from the provincial hub of Kisangani. UN human rights experts will also be monitoring the proceedings. Thirty-four Mai Mai fighters are on trial for a spree of sexual violence, including the alleged rape of more than 135 women and children in July 2007.
SOURCE
United Nations – Office of the Spokesperson of the Secretary-General
