Zaire ARMED FORCES MANPOWER AND TRAINING
Recruitment and Retention
Caption: Prior to the 1990s some Zairian officers
received United States military training, including the air force
major (top left), army captain and army second lieutenant pictured
here.
Courtesy United States Department of Defense
Military service in Zaire is voluntary, although the
constitution does provide for conscription in the event of
a
national emergency. Zaire has a fairly large population in
relation
to the size of its military. For example, 1993 estimates
indicated
that Zaire had a potential military manpower pool (males
fifteen to
forty-nine years of age) of 8.9 million, about half of
whom are fit
for military service. Although this pool is in theory
adequate to
ensure a sufficient number of recruits, the FAZ has had
problems
attracting enough qualified personnel and retaining them
in
service. A major deficiency in this respect is that the
FAZ has no
formal recruiting organization, and prospective recruits
often have
to go out of their way to enter the military. Moreover,
the service
conditions inhibit many young men from electing to serve
in the
military and often make it difficult for the FAZ to
convince them
to make the service a career. The people who remain in the
military
are often not the best and most motivated soldiers, but
rather
those who have no alternative or are in a favorable
position
because of their ethnic affiliations.
An interesting aspect of Zairian military life is the
fairly
significant presence of women, both in enlisted and
officer ranks.
Although most enlisted women have insignificant roles and
often owe
their rank to sexual favors provided to senior officers,
Zairian
female officers usually perform legitimate roles in the
military,
in both command and staff positions. In 1987 three female
captains
graduated from the Command and Staff School, one of them
among the
top ten graduates. That result represented the first time
women had
attended and graduated from this elite institution and
could signal
the advancement of these women to field-grade ranks.
Data as of December 1993
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