DR Congo Peace Process Delayed

GOMA, DR Congo, Sunday – The peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) stumbled Sunday as rebels barred some 120 UN peacekeepers from deploying in Kisangani, demanding UN condemnation of alleged ceasefire violations by government troops. The deployment of the Moroccan soldiers in the DRC's third largest city was to have begun Sunday under a UN-monitored peace agreement signed in December in the Zimbabwe capital Harare. The rebels of the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) also prevented the head of the UN observer mission in the DRC (MONUC), General Moutanga Diallo, from going to Kisangani to greet the Moroccans. The RCD had warned MONUC that the Moroccan soldiers "would not be able to deploy in Kisangani as long as (the UN) has not officially condemned the massacres of Kasai and Katanga where whole villages were torched and the civilian residents massacred by the soldiers of (President Joseph) Kabila," a rebel spokesman said. "MONUC must go verify the serious violations and go to places where there are problems instead of staying in the cities," said Joseph Mudumbi Mulunda, the RCD foreign relations chief. Under the Harare agreement, which followed up on the 1999 Lusaka ceasefire accord, all warring parties were scheduled to retreat 15km from front-line positions by March 29 to allow the deployment of some 3,500 UN peacekeepers. AFP Ends