US training DRC military
2007-10-24 22:12
Washington - The United States is stepping up efforts to train the Democratic Republic of Congo's military to help the government subdue rebel forces in the eastern part of the country, the State Department's senior official on African affairs Jendayi Frazer said on Wednesday.
The US initiative follows a renewed outbreak of violence in east DRC and a pledge by President Joseph Kabila last week to begin forcibly disarming rebel fighters loyal to former army general Laurent Nkunda.
Kabila is to meet US President George W Bush at the White House on Friday and is expected to discuss security issues.
Government and rebel forces have been accused of drastic human rights violations including mass rape, as the government has struggled with little success to establish authority over the lawless eastern regions of the country, which are thousands of miles from Kinshasa, the capital.
Frazer said in testimony at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that the US military training would be aimed at improving the national army's discipline and enforcement of human rights.
Negative forces
The United States has already been involved in training at an officer level, but is expanding those efforts.
"We are now considering direct military training of a limited number of army units so that they can have the capacity to deal with the negative forces," Frazer told the subcommittee on African affairs.
In an interview following her testimony, Frazer would not detail what the training would entail.
Nkunda left the army and formed his own militia soon after the DRC's war ended in 2002, claiming he needed to protect his minority Tutsi ethnic group from Rwandan Hutu rebels who took refuge in eastern Congo following Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
DRC's government has struggled with little success to establish authority over the lawless eastern regions of the country, which are thousands of miles from Kinshasa, the capital.
Since January, between 400 000 and 500 000 people have been displaced by fighting in DRC's North Kivu province, according to the United Nations.
'A strong signal'
When pressed by subcommittee chairman, Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat, Frazer said that the United States is prioritising diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
"The United States and other donors must send a strong signal that a more militarised policy is simply not acceptable," Feingold said.
On Wednesday, Nkunda's rebels said they would send 200 of their fighters to rejoin the country's national army as part of negotiations to end violence in the region, potentially a major step toward ending a resurgence of violence.
- AP