Current Organisation
The President, Major General Joseph Kabila is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Defence ministers, formally Ministers of Defence, Disarmament, and Veterans (Ancien Combattants), with the French acronym MDNDAC, since the post-2002 transition began have been:
- Jean-Pierre Ondekane (of RCD-G), c. July 2003 - 3 January 2005 (Africa Confidential, 'The Nearly Government,' 11 July 2003)
- Adolphe Onusumba Yemba (of RCD-G), 3 January 2005-February 2007 (05KINSHASA23, 5 January 2005)
- Chikez Diemu, February 2007 - 2008
- Charles Mwando succeeded Diemu in 2008.
Laurent-Desire Kabila was serving as his own minister of defence in October 1997, ands Joseph Kabila was doing the same while President in August 2002.
The Colonel Tshatshi Military Camp in the Kinshasa suburb of Ngaliema hosts the defence department and the Chiefs of Staff central command headquarters of the FARDC. Jane's data from 2002 appears inaccurate; there is at least one ammunition plant in Katanga.
Below the Chief of Staff, the current organisation of the FARDC is not fully clear. There is known to be a Military Intelligence branch - Service du Renseignement militaire (SRM), the former DEMIAP. The FARDC is known to be broken up into the Land Forces (Forces Terrestres), Navy and Air Force. The Land Forces are distributed around ten military regions, up from the previous eight, following the ten provinces of the country. There is also a training command, the Groupement des Écoles Supérieurs Militaires (GESM) or Group of Higher Military Schools, which as of January 2010 was under the command of Major General Marcellin Lukama. The Navy and Air Forces are composed of various groupments (see below). There is also a central logistics base.
It should be made clear also that Joseph Kabila does not trust the military; the Republican Guard is the only component he trusts. Major General John Numbi, former Air Force chief, now inspector general of police, ran a parallel chain of command in the east to direct the 2009 Eastern Congo offensive, Operation Umoja Wetu; the regular chain of command was by-passed. Previously Numbi negotiated the agreement to carry out the mixage process with Laurent Nkunda.
Read more about this topic: Military Of The Democratic Republic Of The Congo
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