The United Nations has prepared a plan for a three-year phased withdrawal of the world body's biggest peacekeeping force from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Reuters quoted a U.N. report as releasing today. The government of the sprawling, mineral-rich Central African country has called for the 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers in the country, known as MONUC, to depart Congo sooner -- in 2011. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's latest report to the Security Council says President Joseph Kabila had asked the United Nations to submit a proposal by June -- the 50th anniversary of the country's independence from Belgium -- for withdrawing MONUC. U.N. diplomats have said privately that Kabila is eager to demonstrate before next year's elections that he is not dependent on U.N. blue helmets to provide security. But Ban made clear that Congo's army and police are not yet up to the task in the country's turbulent east. "The (U.N.) technical assessment mission came to the conclusion that a continued significant presence of the MONUC force was essential in the Kivus and Orientale provinces" in eastern Congo, the report said. The recommendation comes despite the improvement of relations between Kinshasa and neighboring Rwanda, which have been conducting a proxy war in eastern Congo for years. U.N. troops are backing government operations to oust Rwandan Hutu rebels from eastern provinces. There are also elements of the feared Ugandan rebel group known as the Lord's Resistance Army in Congo. The U.N. plan would focus on training Congo's troops and includes a three-year phased withdrawal of MONUC, Ban said. He called for extending MONUC's mandate for another year. In a clash in northern Congo on Monday that was apparently unrelated to the conflicts with rebels in the east, U.N.-backed Congolese troops retook a Congolese provincial airport from rebels, following heavy weekend fighting in which at least three U.N. workers died.
