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DRC: Officers in Belgium for Military Instructor's Course

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
September 24, 2004
Posted to the web September 24, 2004
Nairobi
Congolese military officers have arrived in Belgium to begin a five-week
training programme as instructors in their country's newly unified army, a
Brussels newspaper, Le Libre Belgique, reported on Friday.
It said the 280 Congolese arrived at Camp Elsenborn, in the Ardennes, on
Thursday for an official welcome ceremony and would be trained by 27
instructors from Belgium's 12th "Regiment de linge de Prince Leopold" and the
"13e [13th] de Ligne de Spa". The Congolese trainees comprise 250 sub-
lieutenants and captains, as well as 30 majors and lieutenant colonels.
The purpose of Belgium's aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo was to
ensure that there were Congolese military instructors that could weave former
enemies into integrated territorial brigades loyal to the state, the paper
said. Aspects of the training module in Belgium will cover the respect for
civil population, rules of engagement, and behaviour.
The Belgium segment of the training constitutes the second part of a wider
programme of Belgium-military aid to its former colony. The first training
cycle, under Belgian instructors, took place in the northern Congolese city of
Kisangani, at the end of which the first integrated brigade of the Congolese
army was deployed to the northeastern district of Ituri on peacekeeping duties.
After their training in Belgium, the instructors will return home to train
their colleagues as military instructors.
"This training is important because Congo's institutions are being rebuilt and
will depend on the army for protection," Jean-Pierre Mutamba-Tshipanga, Congo's
ambassador to Belgium, said, according to the newspaper.
La Libre Belgique also quoted Belgium Defence Minister André Flahaut as saying
Brussels would help rehabilitate Congolese military facilities such as the
officer training school in Kananga, Kasai Occidental Province; and the Kamina

   

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