/ 25 January 2007

Army reforms key to DRC stability, Amnesty says

The failure of efforts to demobilise tens of thousands of fighters in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and train a national army would risk destabilising the country and undoing democratic gains, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

In a report, the London-based human rights group urged the DRC to forge ahead with integrating ex-combatants into the national army and tackling widespread rights abuses by the armed forces as a strategy to secure peace.

”A failed demobilisation and army reform programme risks a new cycle of political and military crises that could lead to an escalation of violence and a deterioration of the humanitarian and human rights situation in a country already ravaged by war,” said Tawanda Hondora, deputy director of Amnesty’s Africa programme.

The DRC held historic elections last year, a milestone in the country’s slow recovery from decades of mismanagement and a 1998/2003 war that caused an estimated four million deaths through violence, hunger and disease.

The first democratic elections in more than 40 years were won by incumbent President Joseph Kabila. He was sworn in on December 6 and vowed to make pacification of the country a priority, especially in the violence-torn east.

The world’s biggest United Nations peacekeeping force, more than 17 000-strong, is deployed in the DRC, but its troops and the Congolese army still face renegade eastern rebels and militias.

The World Bank and donor countries have, so far, invested about $200-million in a programme to demobilise tens of thousands of government soldiers, rebels, and militia members.

Amnesty warned that funding was now drying up, and many former fighters had yet to receive promised training aimed at helping them earn a living in civilian life.

The plan to merge former rival factions into a new national army, the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, FARDC, was also faltering.

Even those soldiers who have undergone the process continue to commit widespread human rights abuses against civilians, to the point that watchdogs single out the Congolese army as the biggest rights abuser in the country.

”A framework does exist for the creation of a truly national, apolitical army that respects the rights of the people. But this framework needs to be translated into a reality on the ground,” said Amnesty’s Hondora. – Reuters