20/5/2005
5 Experts Named To Monitor UN Arms Embargo On DR Of Congo

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan this week named five experts to monitor the Security Council arms embargo against the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with a mandate expiring at the end of July.

He told the Security Council that they were Ibra Deguène Ka of Senegal, who will chair the Group of Experts, arms trafficking expert Kathi Lynn Austin from the United States, finance expert Enrico Carisch of Switzerland, aviation expert Abdoulaye Cissoko of Mali and customs and border control expert Jean Luc Gallet of France.

In April the Council voted to extend the embargo to “any recipient” in the DRC, though it made exceptions to the country’s Transitional Government, under certain circumstance, and the UN peacekeeping mission there.

The resolution also froze the assets of sanctions violators, and required neighbouring countries to monitor aircraft and their pilots, especially in the eastern DRC districts of the Kivus and Ituri, especially by verifying the validity of documents carried for the aircraft and pilots’ licences and by maintaining a registry of flights.

The Governments of the region were also obliged to ensure that only customs airports were used for international flights, and were called on to report back in 45 days on how they had implemented the resolution.