Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
19 December 2007
Kigali — A high tech European Union (EU) project to revamp the army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was re-launched three months ago, is not going as well as planned, RNA has established.
The EU says the project to streamline the administration of the armed forces is progressing but admits that military reforms are not at the top of the DRC government agenda.
The project aims to establish the size of the army, identifying soldiers and locating them so they can be paid regularly. Each soldier will be issued with an ID card containing a digital fingerprint and information on rank, age, marital status and number of children.
Sources tell RNA that instead, the ongoing conflict in the East of the country has put what is essentially a technical process, way down on the army's priority list.
And while the official line from Brussels is that the process is ongoing despite delays, insiders say that the EU mission is not getting the cooperation it had hoped for.
Critics say that the census and ID project is a drop in the ocean and a total reform of the armed forces is essential in the DRC's young democracy.
Meanwhile, according to aid agencies in the eastern DRC, civilians fleeing violence in east of teh vast country are facing a shortage of medical care as disease outbreaks begin to plague the troubled region.
MSF said on Wednesday that the town of Rutshuru, which has doubled in population in one month, was facing a cholera epidemic, the first time since the charity deployed in the area in 2005. About 1 200 people have been treated since mid-November.
Copyright © 2007 Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
Read comments. Write your own.
