650 troops pulled out of eastern hotbed for training

A senior army officer has said 650 government soldiers left the eastern Congolese town of Goma on Thursday for Kitona, in the western province of Bas-Congo, where they will undergo retraining for inclusion in the country's new unified army.

The chief of staff of the 8th Military Region based in Goma, Col Alfred Bindu, told IRIN the soldiers would undergo 45 days of training with their comrades from other provinces of the country.

Fractured by years of civil war, the military is trying to rebuild by integrating former enemies into a new unified army before the end of the political transitional period in 2005, when general elections are due to be held. However, 120 Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese soldiers refused to go with their comrades to Kitona town, fearing that they would be taken for Rwandans and, thus, victimised.

Tension has been running high between Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese and others in the east. It has led to a revolt by some Kinyarwanda-speaking (also known as Rwandaphones) Congolese soldiers and fighting between them and loyal army troops.

So far, Belgium, the former colonial power in the Congo, has taken the lead in retraining the new Congolese army in the northeastern town of Kisangani.

The withdrawal of some soldiers in the 8th Military Region for training in the west coincides with the threat by Rwanda to invade eastern Congo to disarm Rwandan Hutu militants that Kigali said posed a threat to Rwanda. In a reaction to the threat, Congolese President Joseph Kabila announced on Monday his intension to deploy up to 10,000 troops to the east of the country in the next two weeks.

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