Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Marking the end of a successful seven-month military campaign to take control of Africa's third largest country and to oust its President Mobutu Sese Seko, who had ruled Zaire since taking power after a military coup in 1965, the head of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire/Congo (ADFL), Laurent Desire Kabila, arrived on 21 May 1997 in Kinshasa to take control of the country. Since President Mobutu had given up power on 16 May and, subsequently, left the country, Mr. Kabila assumed the functions of the President of the new Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and introduced parts of its new Government in the evening hours of 22 May.

Although the Alliance's advance to Kinshasa remains clouded by charges of serious human rights violations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 19 May expressed satisfaction that the transfer of power had taken place in Kinshasa "without major loss of life". As he called for continued restraint from all parties, he appealed to Member States to extend generous assistance to the Governments and peoples of the Great Lakes region of Central Africa.

Mr. Annan expressed trust that the Government of the DRC "would be broad-based, including other political groups, and that the new authorities will work for political reconciliation, democracy and prosperity for the peoples of the country", according to his Spokesman, Fred Eckhard. "The Secretary-General expects the new authorities to work closely with the United Nations and the international community in assuring that the human rights of all are fully respected and that the victims of the conflict, in particular refugees, receive all necessary assistance", he said.

The Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to the Great Lakes region, Mohamed Sahnoun of Algeria, had met with President Kabila in Lubumbashi on 18 May and had received assurances on his cooperation with international organizations.

Mr. Annan, the Security Council and the United Nations system, along with the OAU, other regional and international actors, as well as South Africa, France and the United States, had been doggedly pursuing a peaceful resolution to the conflict. As fighting spread, Mr. Annan on 16 April stressed that "if we don't manage change in Zaire, we may lose control of it".

The various efforts reached a breakthrough in late March at the summit meeting of the Central Organ of the OAU's Mechanism for Conflict Prevention Management and Resolution, in Lome, at which ADFL and the then existing Government agreed to open direct talks in South Africa. Those talks began early the following month. The relatively peaceful changeover in Kinshasa was in part due to those external interventions.

Obstacles to Investigative mission

United Nations human rights officials in Geneva on 12 May voiced strong objections to actions by the Alliance, which made it impossible for a United Nations team to investigate human rights violations in the eastern part of Zaire, as mandated on 15 April by the Commission on Human Rights.

Ralph Zacklin, Officer-in-Charge of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights/Centre for Human Rights in Geneva, deplored the fact that obstacles created by ADFL had effectively prevented the Joint Investigative Mission from entering the area.

He made a statement following a meeting with the three members of the investigative mission, who had just left Kigali on 10 May, where they had spent a week awaiting final clearance from the Alliance to enter and begin their work in eastern Zaire. Since the Alliance did not allow them access to the territory under its hold, the mission returned to Geneva and started to prepare its report to the General Assembly, due on 30 July. Nevertheless, the mission remains prepared to return to the area if it received assurances of full and unconditional cooperation, including security arrangements.

The United Nations Children's Fund reported on 13 May that two members of its international staff had been beaten, tied up and gagged by five armed men dressed in military uniforms who entered a house in the town of Goma, in an area controlled by ADFL. The attack, which had taken place the previous morning, followed two other security incidents over the preceding weekend involving United Nations staff and vehicles in the area.

On 24 April, the Security Council called on the Alliance "to ensure unrestricted and safe access by all humanitarian relief agencies so as to allow the immediate provision of humanitarian aid to those affected, and to guarantee the safety of humanitarian relief workers, refugees, displaced persons and other affected civilian inhabitants in the areas which the ADFL control". It also said it was "particularly alarmed by reports of massacres and other serious violations of human rights in eastern Zaire", and called on ADFL and others concerned in the region to cooperate fully with the United Nations investigative mission.

The Secretary-General on 21 April had deplored recent attacks on refugee camps and humanitarian workers in the eastern part of the country, and paid tribute to the courage of all aid workers who, "inspite of extremely difficult conditions, are doing their utmost to deliver assistance to the population in need". He urged all parties to allow the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population caught in the conflict.

Refugees

Although more than 34,000 refugees have been airlifted back to Rwanda as of 22 May, several thousand remain in the transit center outside Kisangani and in other parts of the country. The still severe refugee situation prompted the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to move into a new phase of its operation. While UNHCR continues to airlift refugees from Kisangani to Rwanda, it started to send out smaller operational teams to areas much further west, north and south of the DRC in an attempt to identify, care for and repatriate Rwandan refugees. Inspite of these efforts, there remains a large number of Rwandan refugees who were still unaccounted for, many of them women and children.

UNHCR estimates that as many as 250,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees remain unaccounted for in the DRC. The country also continues to host over 40,000 Burundi refugees and some 160,000 Angolan refugees in its Shaba and Bas Congo regions. Former Haut Zaire in the north accommodates 111,000 Sudanese and 18,500 Ugandans. Women and children comprise a large portion of the refugee population.