Brussels, 07/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - The attention of the EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on 10 November (see related article) will once again be focused on the situation in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Following the informal Gymnich discussion in Marseilles (see EUROPE 9774), this meeting will allow President in office Bernard Kouchner to report formally to ministers on the visit he made, along with his UK counterpart David Miliband, to Goma, Kinshasa and Dar-es-Salaam on 31 October and 1 November. European Development Commissioner Louis Michel will brief the Council on the regional summit in Nairobi which, under the aegis of the United Nations, is bringing together seven African heads of state and the European commissioner in the Kenyan capital on 7 November to try to find a political solution to the crisis and, as Michel hopes, draw up a roadmap for peace with monitoring of commitments made (see EUROPE 9777).
In Nairobi on the morning of 7 November, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told Congolese President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagamé, with whom he had bilateral meetings, that he wanted an immediate halt to hostilities and a withdrawal of forces to the positions held prior to the resumption of fighting in August.
The wording of the conclusions that the EU Council will adopt will necessarily be affected by the outcome of the Nairobi summit. The EU Political and Security Committee (COPS) stands ready to make any necessary adjustments on Monday morning to the draft conclusion on the table.
In any event, the Council is expected to express its deepest concern at the increase in fighting between government troops and the armed rebellion of the National Congress for the Defence of the People, led by Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda in Northern Kivu, and the serious humanitarian consequences, after large sections of the population have been displaced.
The Council is also expected to roundly condemn the unacceptable breaches of human rights in the east of the DRC, in particular the sexual violence against women and the recruitment of child soldiers. The Council will underline that the 2007 Goma Agreement and the 2008 Nairobi Agreement continue to provide an appropriate framework for bringing stability and peace to the east of the DRC. It will also probably repeat its support for the UN MONUC mission to Congo and call for everything to be done so that this force can assume its full role. (A.N./transl.rt)