Democratic Republic of Congo: Now is not the time to relax the UN Arms Embargo

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL MEDIA BRIEFING 26.03.2008 AI Index: IOR 40/011/2008 Democratic Republic of Congo: Now is not the time to relax the UN Arms Embargo Amnesty International today urged the UN Security Council not to weaken the arms embargo on the DRC, arguing that any relaxation would be premature and could prove counter-productive to the protection of human rights. [...] There has been too little DRC government progress towards professionalizing its security forces and ending impunity to justify a loosening of UN controls at this stage.” Under the terms of the existing embargo, the DRC government can, subject to prior notification to the UN, obtain arms imports for the use of security force units that have gone through the national programme of integration and ref [...] Far from proposing a relaxation of controls, the Group recommended a strengthening of the capacity of the UN peace-keeping force to the DRC, MONUC, to monitor the embargo. [...] The proposal currently before the Security Council is a step back from such close monitoring.” Amnesty International also warned that that it would be inappropriate to ease the embargo while the integration into the regular army of armed groups in the eastern Kivu provinces is unresolved. [...] A previous initiative, known as the “mixage”, to integrate Laurent Nkunda’s CNDP armed group into the national army failed dismally and was the spark behind the latest resumption of conflict in North-Kivu in the last months 2007, attended by mass human rights abuses and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians.