Regional army chiefs meet in Kampala

A meeting of Chiefs of Defence Staff of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) opened in Kampala yesterday with officials calling on the military leaders to jealously guard the independence of the Congo neutral international force.Both the summits of the ICGLR and SADC have agreed and decided on a military solution for the crisis in eastern DRC guided by a regional political agenda. While ICGLR initiated the idea of a Neutral International Force (NIF), a SADC summit in December, last year, directed that the regional bloc deploys a standby force in Eastern DRC under the auspices of the neutral force. At the meeting yesterday - attended by Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) Chief of Defence Staff Lt. Gen. Charles Kayonga - Uganda’s Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga said the region must maintain visibility, control and accountability as it moves to work with the UN through its force in DRC (MONUSCO).“We have succeeded to leverage the cooperation of the UN. However, if we don’t keep our line of thinking firmly this opportunity could be lost,” he told over twenty military chiefs.“You, the Chiefs of Defence Staff must not be found lacking in articulating the most feasible mechanism to ensure that the NIF concept is maintained, and command and control and political accountability not lost.”The regional military initiative has already mobilised troops, money and logistical support.The neutral force, to be commanded by a Tanzanian General, has already been boosted by $20 million contributed by the DRC government while South Africa has pledged logistical support to the force. The Military Assessment Team (MAT), an initiative by the ICGLR, last year estimated that the force will require a support package of $100 million and 4,000 troops - although the Uganda Defence Minister, yesterday, said that the number could increase given the unpredictable troop reinforcements by negative forces in the DRC. Officials called on the military chiefs not to only focus on M23 rebels but also deal with negative forces that originated from outside DRC like the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia group largely blamed for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis.

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Regional army chiefs meet in Kampala