A visiting UN Security Council delegation, which is touring Africa's Great Lakes region, has asked the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to speed up its electoral timetable so that elections would be held on time in June 2005. The preliminary reforms meant to pave the way for elections have not been approved. One of these is the reunification of the armed forces, from previously belligerent groups. So far, only the army chief of staff and other senior army command positions have been integrated. Rank-and-file soldiers still give their loyalty to the their former militia commanders.

As rising ethnic tensions fuel the risk of renewed war in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local government officials have reportedly delivered guns to civilians despite a United Nations embargo, Human Rights Watch has said. This week Human Rights Watch received reports that the U.N. embargo on firearms to eastern D.R.C is being violated. According to local sources, local government officials have delivered firearms to civilians in Masisi, North Kivu, long the site of conflict between different political and military groups.

Congolese security forces and UN troops have stepped up their patrols in Goma, a town in the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern province of North Kivu, following a recent spate of night-time killings by unidentified armed men in uniform. The killings and general climate of insecurity that has gripped the area sparked protests in Goma on Monday. Some 1,000 demonstrators burned the Kayembe administrative offices and demanded the resignation of Gen Obed Rwibasira, commander of the 8th Military Region, based in Goma. The demonstrators are blaming him for failing to protect the population sufficiently.

On November 9, 2004 Human Rights Watch will give its highest recognition to Maître Honoré Musoko, a courageous human rights lawyer whose work has exposed massive human rights abuses in Ituri, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Maître Musoko is the director of Justice Plus, one of the few human rights organizations still active in Ituri. Justice Plus monitors human rights violations, provides human rights education and intervenes directly in individual cases to halt abuses where possible.

As the DRC tries to consolidate peace after a five-year war, the government, private companies and foreign donors are all keen to find ways of tapping into the vast resources of timber in Africa's third-largest country. With nearly 222 million acres of woodland, it has the world's second largest rainforest, half of Africa's total.

People’s Armed Forces of Congo combatants under the command of General Jérôme Kakwavu tortured 24 civilians and killed six of them in October, Human Rights Watch charges. Operating in Ituri, a region in the northeastern corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the armed group has so far remained outside the peace process that has brought other rebel forces into a transitional government.

UN authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have handed over a French UN civil servant to French authorities following allegations that the person sexually molested children. Last week, two Tunisian UN peacekeepers were sent home following a UN investigation into the sexual abuse of minors.

'Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration' (DDR) refers to a temporary intervention designed to restore security and establish the preconditions for post-war recovery. In the Republic of Congo (RoC) DDR activities have focused on reducing the number of weapons in the hands of ex-combatants, their reintegration into society, reform of the armed forces and police, and repatriation of foreign ex-combatants. Evaluation of these activities suggests that DDR in the RoC is achievable, but requires more political and financial support.

In the course of the armed conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), tens of thousands of women and girls have been victims of systematic rape and sexual assault committed by combatant forces, says a new report from Amnesty International. "Women and girls have been attacked in their homes, in the fields or as they go about their daily activities. Many have been raped more than once or have suffered gang rapes. In many cases, women and young girls have been taken as sex slaves by combatants," says AI.

The report, 'Mass rape - time for remedies' says rape has often been preceded or followed by the deliberate wounding, torture (including torture of sexual nature) or killing of the victim. Rapes have been committed in public and in front of family members, including children. Some women have been raped next to the corpses of family members. Despite the official end to the war and the inauguration of the transitional government, humanitarian needs in some provinces have been increasing, notes Amnesty. "Throughout large areas of the east people are lacking even the most basic services for health and food security."

Amnesty estimates that fewer than 30 per cent of Congolese have access to even basic health care. The countrywide malnutrition rate is around 16 per cent, rising to up to 30 per cent in areas of the east, with 13 per cent classed as severe malnutrition. It is believed that over one million children aged under five suffer from acute malnutrition, and that one in every five Congolese children do not live to see their fifth birthday.

Although the levels of conflict in eastern DRC have diminished since the signing of the peace agreements, violence has continued. In many areas the violence is now sporadic and localised, but in other cases has been more extensive and threatened to reignite widespread armed conflict in the east.

* Compiled from the report by Pambazuka News. The full report is available at http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engafr620182004

The mining sector in the DRC is seen as a potentially large revenue earner capable of funding rehabilitation and economic revival, but hopes that mining can act as an engine for growth will not be realised unless immediate action is taken to control the illicit trade in minerals from the south-eastern province of Katanga.

"Stringent and transparent management of natural resource exploitation is crucial to the future peace, stability and economic development of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)," says a report from Global Witness released in September. The report says there is currently a “cobalt rush” occurring in Katanga caused by record-high international cobalt prices. But it notes that there is “little indication” that this dramatic rise in trade has had any benefit to the DRC economy or the Katangan province.

The real losers in the “cobalt rush”, notes the report, are artisanal miners working under "appalling" conditions in mines throughout southern Katanga. "Deprived of any alternative sources of employment, young men and boys work for as little as US$1 per day gathering mineral soil by hand. They have no protective equipment, and their activities are left completely unregulated by local authorities."

The report makes recommendations to the international donor community, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, transitional government and United Nations. The DRC is emerging from a devastating conflict that cost the lives of an estimated three million people. A transitional government is charged with taking the country through to elections in 2005.

* Written from the report by Pambazuka News. For the full report, click on http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC16091

This post will head an emergency response team, based in South Kivu's provincial capital, that will respond to emergencies within the province within 48-96 hours, conducting rapid needs assessments, delivering essential assistance and mobilizing additional resources within the wider humanitarian community.

With the international spotlight on high-profile hotspots such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan's Darfur region, NGOs are increasingly concerned that conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo may be allowed to escalate unchecked, threatening to unravel the country's fragile peace process. Congo is struggling to recover from a five-year war that pitted government forces, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. More than three million people were killed either as a direct result of fighting or through hunger and disease.

The 1,618 Congolese-Tutsi refugees who massed at a border crossing between Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since mid-last week were taken to a site in the centre of Uvira on Tuesday, despite strong opposition to their return home, South Kivu Province Deputy Governor Didas Kaningingi told IRIN. "Everything went well," he said from Bukavu, capital of South Kivu. "We have transferred all 1,618 registered refugees without incident and hope that the humanitarian bodies will now take care of them."

This is a summary of a full-length case study, to be published in December 2004. It examines the role of land access in the conflicts which have affected Eastern Congo, especially since 1993. Based on fieldwork and an extensive review of secondary literature, it includes recommendations for the Government of the DRC, the international community, and civil society actors. It concludes that since the start of the Congolese war, land has turned from a 'source' of conflict into a 'resource' of conflict.

At least 1,000 Congolese Tutsi refugees, mostly women and children, have been stuck on the Burundi border with Democratic Republic the Congo (DRC) since the middle of last week, waiting on authorities in the Congo to let them back in. "Not a single organisation, either in Congo or Burundi had assisted us until [Monday]," Boniface Rukumbuzi, one of the refugees, told reporters. The only help had come from friends or other Congolese Tutsis living in Burundi, he said.

Armed with an expanded mandate and an increase in troop strength, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) may now be better placed to capitalise on the slight improvement in the security situation in the east of the country. Although UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan only received UN Security Council authorisation to raise the troop strength by 5,900 from 10,800, he said the newly approved troop ceiling of 16,700 would "contribute to improving the mission's operational capabilities, which are severely under resourced".

Jean-Marie Muzaz, a chief nurse, has attended to the victims of cholera for as long as Mandela was in jail: 27 years. In the absence of government help, he has designed his own equipment to deal with this "poor man's disease" - one of the clearest indicators of poverty and despair. According to Musafiri, six years of conflict in Kalemie have killed 55% of the children under five, 31% of the pregnant women, 17% of the men. Now people die from Aids, many of them women who were raped during the war. December will see the departure of the Italians who provide drugs to the cholera victims.

Key Security Council members reached broad agreement on Wednesday on a resolution authorizing an additional 5,900 peacekeeping troops to help Democratic Republic of Congo keep a shaky peace on track. The infusion of fresh troops, which diplomats said had been tentatively endorsed by the United States, Britain and France, would be well below Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call for an extra 13,100 soldiers for the vast central African nation.

Rampant corruption and smuggling in the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) means the impoverished country loses millions of dollars in revenues from copper and cobalt mining each month. Rather than profiting from its vast mineral wealth, the DRC has been torn apart by years of war - often over its natural resources - and the country remains one of the world's poorest.

Some 360 Congolese refugees have returned from neighbouring Burundi, despite violent protests from villagers who did not want them back. The refugees, who are ethnic Tutsis, spent two days stranded at the border with DR Congo after protesters blocked roads and threw stones at them. They eventually reached the eastern town of Uvira after troops were deployed to disperse the protests.