230 policemen undergoing public order maintenance and restoration training

26 juin 2015

230 policemen undergoing public order maintenance and restoration training

Bukavu, 23 June 2015 – Since 15 June, 230 members of the Congolese Police have been undergoing two months refresher training in “the maintenance and restoration of public order” and “Intervention gestures and professional techniques”

The training is organized by the Congolese National Police (PNC), in cooperation with the United Nations Police (UNPOL) component of MONUSCO, as part of PNC capacity building.

The 230 participants are police officers and agents from the Mobile Intervention Group (GMI), the Police Internal Investigation Section, and the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC).

Besides public order maintenance/restoration and intervention gestures and professional techniques, the courses taught by UNPOL and PNC instructors cover police ethics and human rights among other topics. .

UNPOL’s capacity-building support aims to make the PNC more professional, republican and respectful of human rights and civil liberties.

Indeed, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2211 of 26 March 2015, requests MONUSCO, in the context of the reform of the police, to contribute, in compliance with the human rights due diligence policy, to the provision of training, including human rights training, to units of the PNC.

For the moment, however, the police service in Bukavu is still faced with various challenges: absence of effective operational organization, lack of adequate logistical resources, and poor level of professional training.

It is for this reason that the police service in Bukavu is sometimes powerless in the face a resurgence of acts of banditry and other crimes in some neighborhoods of the town, acknowledges Congotor Kagoa, Deputy Commissioner of the Mobile Intervention Group.

«Such refresher training is always necessary, because among the beneficiaries there are those who have already received this training and also those who haven’t but now can,” he says. .

It should be noted that to date, out of the 4,500 policeman in Bukavu, only 700 have received professional training in community policing and road traffic policing. That is why this refresher session marks the launch of an extensive training program which will also include about sixty members of the traffic police (PCR).

Tahina ANDRIAMAMONJITIANASOA/MONUSCO