:
Democratic
Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire)
March 22, 2007:
UN peacekeepers, and their armored vehicles, deployed around the
capital, Kinshasha. The UN troops are
deployed as a "buffer" to prevent a clash between Congolese government forces
and former rebel Jean-Pierre Bemba's security force. In response to a
government disarmament order, former presidential candidate and leading
opposition politician Bemba refuses to
disarm his militia and personal
guards. Bemba insists that there had been
numerous attempts on his life and the personal troops were necessary to assure
his security.
March 20, 2007: UN investigating teams reported
that a recent "assessment" confirmed that members of the Congolese Army (FARDC,
Forces armées de la république démocratique du Congo) and the Congolese police
had participated in "human rights abuses" in the eastern Congo's Ituri
province. In February 2007 troops went on "a rampage" of looting after a fight
with the FNI militia. While most of the large, organized rebel units have been
disarmed or dispersed, this has left dozens of bandit gangs wandering around
the bush. That's over 20,000 armed men, with banditry as their only livelihood.
While not as much of a military threat, the bandits will be more difficult to
hunt down than the rebel militias. It will take some time, perhaps months, to
recruit local tribesmen as scouts and trackers to find the bandits, and capture
or kill them.