Kinshasa, 14 January 2010 - Within the framework of the United Nations Security and Stabilisation Support Strategy (UNSSSS) for Eastern DRC, nine projects have been launched to reinforce the capacity of the PNC, the Congolese National Police and help it to fulfil its mission successfully.
According to MONUC police commissioner Wafy Abdallah "Training and deployment of the Congolese National Police (PNC) are the two major priorities of its reform including ensuring the security of the whole of the eastern territory; the Police Force must be provided with the necessary logistics to be able to respond to the challenge of insecurity and earn the confidence of the local population."
MONUC Police will provide training to about 10,000 police officers from Intervention units, Territorial police and Specialised units, to be deployed in Eastern DRC, notably North and South Kivu provinces and Oriental province. The training modules cover themes such as maintaining and restoring public order, the basics of an intelligence service, public security, police ethics, human rights, sexual violence, the need for refresher courses, stabilisation). MONUC works in coordination with Congolese authorities and donor countries (Germany, Japan, United States, Sweden, European Union, PBF, Netherlands) in the implementation of the training project which is worth several million US dollars.
Nine UNSSSS projects designed to reinforce PNC's capacities in Eastern DRC.
This UN programme started with a project on the deployment of Territorial Police in twenty districts situated along six priority axes of South Kivu province, North Kivu province and Ituri. 506 police officers have already been selected and trained 300 of whom deployed early 2009 in seven units created along the two priority axes of the North Kivu province: Sake-Masisi and Rutshuru-Ishasha. This project worth US$13,000, 000 has been funded by Sweden, Netherlands and the USA.
MONUC Police will provide training to 1 500 members of the Rapid Intervention Police (PIR) to be immediately deployed in thirty four sites in North and South Kivu provinces and in Haut Uélé. This highly specialised police will be tasked to back the territorial police in the event of crisis. The German government has already disbursed the $3,800,000 required for the project.
This programme also provides for the deployment of border police officers and the setting up of five provincial coordination units (tasked to facilitate links between the different units at provincial level), twenty four sectors and five hundred border police stations. The International Migration Office (IOM) is training 1 500 police members already identified and to be deployed between the two Kivus, Katanga and Oriental provinces. It is a project worth US$12m, $4.5m has already been provided by Japan and the USA.
MONUC Police will also provide training to 4 mobile intervention companies made up of 150 police each. These Mobile Intervention Groups or Anti-Riot Police also have military training and are especially tasked to cope with unrest. They will be deployed in Bukavu and Goma. This project worth $2.4m has been funded by the European Commission.
Another important project is to train 1 500 ex-combatants as "integrated police" (within PNC), the major part of which are drawn from the armed groups (CNDP, Pareco and Mai-Mai). 300 of them are likely to be deployed in Haut Uélé. The US$1.5m project has been funded by the Peace Building Fund (PBF) and will be implemented by UNOPS.
Another project for which funding is not available yet is the creation of anti-crime squads (BAC) to fight major urban criminality in cities such as Goma, Bukavu, Bunia, Kalemie and Kindu.
Training for Judiciary Police to fight sexual violence
There is also a need to identify and train specialised judiciary police officers in the fight against sexual violence, who would be deployed in seventeen police stations and thirty police sub-stations. Funding for the project is not available yet.
Again, within the framework of the fight against the violence targeting women, USAID will provide fund for the training, deployment and equipment of specialised units in the fight against sexual violence. This US$2.8m project provides for the deployment of 400 specialised Police in Ituri.
Apart from this UNSSS programme, MONUC police is the mainspring of the reform programme for the Congolese national police. (Draft organic law, Police census) Some projects were designed as part of the bilateral cooperation. As a result, Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) funded a project worth US$1.9m to help MONUC Police train 6 000 Congolese police in four provinces: Kinshasa, Bas-Congo, North Kivu, Oriental Province and rehabilitate Mbankana, Kasangaulu and Kapalata training centres.
The training of PNC begins with themes like why do we need a police force, what is the role of the police force, especially its responsibilities towards the population. At the provincial police inspection in North Kivu, at the end of a four-week training, Jean Claude, a PNC officer expressed gratitude to the International community and MONUC: "We are persuaded that the training contributed to reinforcing police capacity, especially in term of the regulation skill which did not have and we are confident that they will now be able to organise and manage check posts effectively; it used to happen everywhere previously. We are now preparing to resume the training mid-January."
Commissionner Wafy Abdallah says "MONUC police along side PNC made a significant contribution to the restoration of the state authority in a large part of the DRC. The funding and actions undertaken are an indication that the International Community, represented by MONUC, is determined to proceed with the stabilisation and security reform processes for the whole of the DRC."