7 November Development Council

Date: 14/11/1996

EU DEVELOPMENT ministers, along with Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Emma Bonino and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata, agreed that aid must resume for up to 1.2 million refugees caught in eastern Zaïre.

THE ministers' joint statement advocated the creation and protection of corridors through which humanitarian aid could pass. In the statement, they “underlined the need to ensure safe and protected humanitarian corridors” to facilitate aid delivery and to help refugees who wanted to return home to do so safely. EU envoy Aldo Ajello said conditions were already safe enough in Rwanda for the nearly 900,000 Rwandan refugees to return to their country.

NO MENTION was made in the statement, however, of troop deployments, rendering the call for safe corridors virtually meaningless. Only France and Spain said they were willing to contribute troops if a UN-backed force were to be created. The EU offered to finance and help create an African force, but African leaders have said they favour a UN-led neutral force.

MINISTERS also agreed to send a special mission of development ministers from Ireland, the Netherlands and Italy with Commissioner Bonino to assess the humanitarian situation and identify ways of speeding up aid. Irish Development Minister Joan Burton, who chaired the meeting, said the Union would examine new applications for aid when non-governmental organisations (NGOs) could return to the area and formulate specific requests to the EU.

REAFFIRMING the Union's commitment “to do everything in its power to help immediately vulnerable people”, ministers said, however, that “the complex problems at issue can only be resolved through early and substantive dialogue”. They endorsed the call issued by African leaders at a summit in Nairobi last week “for an immediate cease-fire”.

MINISTERS expressed “full support for the efforts of the UN, regional leaders and the Organisation of African Unity to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the conflict”. They called for a regional conference under the auspices of the UN and the OAU.