Embargo on Congo arms to be relaxed

Date:25/09/03

By David Cronin

AN EU arms embargo on Congo is set to be watered down so that a newly established army in the former Belgian colony can receive weapons from the West.

Aldo Ajello, the Union's envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region, feels the formation of a national army is vital for the transitional government in Kinshasha, which is trying to rebuild stability after a ten-year civil war left up to five million dead.

To assist the formation of the new army, the European Commission has recommended that a 1993 ban on arms sales to the former Zaire should be altered to allow training and equipping of the military and police.

The Commission blueprint, due to be adopted by EU foreign ministers next week (29-30 September), also states that the embargo should not affect the UN peacekeeping force in the north-eastern Ituri province. The EU executive underlines that arms supplies must be authorized by "competent authorities" in member states and comply with the Union's non-binding code of conduct on arms sales, designed to prevent the aiding of dictators.

The sale of weapons to paramilitaries will remain banned.

Foreign ministers are scheduled to modify an arms embargo on Liberia, to allow technical training and assistance to ECOMIL, the Nigerian-led peacekeeping mission, deployed after President Charles Taylor stepped down.