Brigade Officer Training Graduation Ceremony

[AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY IN FRENCH]

Address by Ambassador Roger A. Meece
Centre Supérieur Military, Kinshasa
July 20, 2007, 10:00

Mr. Ministre of National Defense et Veterans’ Affairs,
Officers and Soldiers of the FARDC and Ministry of Defense,
Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

We gather once again to salute a cohort of Congolese officers who today complete seven weeks of brigade level staff officer training.  This is a large class of 105, ranging in rank from captain to colonel.  More than 550 officers from the FARDC have graduated.  This brigade level staff officer training program has been a collaborative effort of the Congolese Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Department of Defense, and it began in 2006.  Our purpose since the beginning is to train officers to be effective and responsible leaders of a disciplined and professional army.  

Today’s graduation ceremony comes at a time of intensive and useful consultation and discussion about the future of the DRC’s security sector.  I think we all recognize that a fundamental criterion for the success of this country’s new democracy is an army whose uniform reassures Congolese citizens and makes them feel safe. 

To this end, a week ago, many of us from the Congolese and international communities gathered at the invitation of the Minister of Defense to give new momentum to security sector reform.  We know there are continued tensions and lawlessness and suffering, particularly in the Kivus, as well as delays in implementing brassage in the FARDC.  These circumstances prompt Congolese political leaders and their friends in the international community now to conjugate efforts, in the most effective way possible, to plan a way forward to building a truly professional army.  Together, we must ensure the peace.

My country, the United States of America, stands beside the Congolese government in its determination to make a professional army a cornerstone in the DRC’s future.  Such an army is needed as much as the other cornerstones of your future.  I see these other cornerstones as being:

• a strong and independent judiciary,
• a national legislature exercising oversight over government,
• a decentralization of political power,
• a competent health sector capable of countering HIV/AIDS and other illnesses,
• policies which promote economic opportunity and growth of the private sector,
• policies which responsibly husband your natural resources,
• a rigorous and comprehensive public education system, and
• a free and responsible press which reliably informs and speaks for the Congolese people on all these many fronts.

Mister Minister,

My country, the United States, stands beside yours as the DRC advances inexorably to assume an important place in Africa and in the world.  In addition to providing humanitarian assistance, we are with you in many of the chantiers which beckon Congolese who are resourceful, hard-working and motivated for the good of the country.

The security sector is, of course, in one of those chantiers.  We look forward to working with you and the new command structure of the FARDC in helping you professionalize your military forces, demobilize and help those who should return to civilian life, and disband all illegal armed groups.   The brigade level staff officer training is one aspect of our cooperation in this sector, and one sign of our continued willingness to help in the vast chantier of good governance.

To the officers who are graduating today, you have my sincere congratulations on your achievement.  You have worked hard and your families are justifiably proud.  

What I ask of you is continued determination to act according to the high stands of your military profession.  I also ask your continued determination to be the defenders of your country’s constitution, and specifically of the freedom, democracy, and human rights it enshrines for the Congolese people.

If you do so, I can guarantee you this: You can look in the eye of any military officer from any of the world’s growing number of democracies and know – as he or she will know – that you wear a common uniform, one which signifies that you share the honor and responsibility of ensuring the peace and reassuring your citizens in the exercise of their constitutional rights.

Thank you.