Military service age and obligation:
18-45 years of age for military service
Manpower available for military service:
males age 18-49: 11,365,610 (2005 est.)
Manpower fit for military service:
males age 18-49: 6,464,223 (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - dollar figure:
$103.7 million (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
1.5% (2005 est.)
Transnational Issues Congo, Democratic Republic of the
Disputes - international:
heads of the Great Lakes states and UN pledge to end conflict but
unchecked tribal, rebel, and militia fighting continues unabated in
the northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
drawing in the neighboring states of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda; the
UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(MONUC) has maintained over 14,000 peacekeepers in the region since
1999; thousands of Ituri refugees from the Congo continue to flee
the fighting primarily into Uganda; 90,000 Angolan refugees were
repatriated by 2004 with the remainder in the DRC expected to return
in 2005; in 2005, DRC and Rwanda established a border verification
mechanism to address accusations of Rwandan military supporting
Congolese rebels and the DRC providing rebel Rwandan "Interhamwe"
forces the means and bases to attack Rwandan forces; the location of
the boundary in the broad Congo River with the Republic of the Congo
is indefinite except in the Pool Malebo/Stanley Pool area
Refugees and internally displaced persons:
refugees (country of origin): 5,277 (Republic of Congo) 11,816
(Rwanda) 18,953 (Uganda) 19,400 (Burundi) 45,226 (Sudan) 98,383
(Angola)
IDPs: 2.33 million (fighting between government forces and rebels
since mid-1990s; most IDPs are in eastern provinces) (2005)
Illicit drugs:
illicit producer of cannabis, mostly for domestic consumption;
while rampant corruption and inadequate supervision leaves the
banking system vulnerable to money laundering, the lack of a
well-developed financial system limits the country's utility as a
money-laundering center
This page was last updated on 19 December, 2006