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Officers in Belgium for military instructor's course

    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 Air Base in Katanga Province.

    [La Libre Belgique story in French on: www.lalibre.be]
    [On the Net: DRC: Belgian military aid arrives]

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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