Burundi sends soldiers for regional force in Congo

BUJUMBURA, Burundi

Soldiers from Burundi have deployed to troubled eastern Congo as the first part of a recently created East African regional force to respond to crises.

"As you have seen, our soldiers have been received officially. They are in Congo on an official mission,” the spokesman for Burundi’s army, Col. Floribert Biyereke, told The Associated Press on Monday. He said a battalion had been sent.

The deployment was confirmed by a Congolese army spokesman, Lt. 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.

The tensions between Congo and Rwanda, which Congo has accused of supporting the recently resurgent M23 rebel group, in part led the East African Community to create the regional force earlier this year. Rwanda in turn accuses Congo of backing another rebel group, the FDLR, which Rwanda considers a threat.

Burundi also borders Congo, and the presence of its soldiers there concerns some observers. Carina Tertsakian with the Burundian Human Rights Initiative told the AP that the soldiers might pursue another rebel group, RED-Tabara, that has been accused of carrying out attacks inside 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 Congo 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.”