As the first element of a recently established East African regional army to deal with crises, soldiers from Burundi have been sent to the volatile eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“As you have seen, our soldiers have been received officially. They are in Congo on an official mission,” the spokesman for Burundi’s army, Colonel Floribert Biyereke, told reporters on Monday.
The deployment was confirmed by a DRC army spokesman, Lieutenant Marc Elongo, who said the mandate is to track down “all foreign and local armed groups in order to restore peace” in the mineral-rich region bordering Rwanda and Uganda where dozens of rebel groups operate.
Tensions between the DRC and Rwanda, which the former has accused of supporting the recently resurgent M23 rebel group, in part led to the East African Community creating the regional force earlier this year.
In response, Rwanda accuses the DRC of supporting the FDLR, a rebel group it sees as a threat. In the DRC, there are more than 120 active armed organisations.
Burundi shares a border with the DRC, and some observers are alarmed by its military’ presence there. The head of the Burundian Human Rights Initiative, Carina Tertsakian, warned reporters that the military might go after the RED Tabara rebel organisation, which has been charged with carrying out attacks within Burundi.
“It is no surprise that Burundi is the first country to offer troops,” Tertsakian said, asserting that hundreds of Burundian forces already had been quietly deployed in the DRC for several months on that mission.
“Burundi is a direct party to the conflict, so cannot be viewed as a neutral actor,” she said, adding that Burundian security forces have a long record of human rights abuses.
“It therefore seems unlikely that their deployment will end the insecurity in the area.”