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USA/Africa: Peacekeeping Repackaged
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jun 10, 2004 (040610)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
The United Nations last week approved a $2.8 billion budget for 11
peacekeeping missions for 2004-2005. New peacekeeping missions,
including in Sudan, could increase this figure to as much as $4.5
billion. As of the end of April, however, member states owed $1.3
billion in arrears on their peacekeeping assessments. This included
$480 million in arrears owed by the United States. The U.S. supplies just
over one percent of the 53,000 military personnel involved in UN
peacekeeping missions.
Neither budget arrears nor additional U.S. support for the UN were
mentioned when the White House announced "new" support from the
group of G8 rich countries for African peace efforts this week.
This was one of many initiatives on display for the G8 summit in
Sea Island, Georgia. According to a White House transcript of a
June 8 briefing, a "senior administration official" said the
administration would ask Congress for $660 million over five years
for training for African peacekeepers, and meet more regularly with
G8 countries to coordinate peacekeeping support. In response to a
reporter's question about action on Sudan, the official said the
humanitarian crisis in Darfur was regularly being discussed by the
G8, but declined to predict any new action by the U.S. or other G8
countries.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains an excerpt from the White House
briefing on what is being called the "G8 Action Plan: Expanding
Global Capability for Peace Support Operations." Also included are
two recent articles from AllAfrica.com on new thinking in EUCOM,
the U.S. strategic command based in Germany that covers most
African countries. It is unclear whether the training and
coordination referred to in the White House briefing is
specifically directed towards peacekeeping, or whether it also
includes the "anti-terrorist" efforts that are highlighted in the
reports from EUCOM.
For additional background on recent thinking on international
peacekeeping, see the two issues of AfricaFocus Bulletin for
January 31, 2004 at http://www.africafocus.org/docs04/pk0401.php
and http://www.africafocus.org/docs04/hrw0401.php
U.S. military programs in Africa were reviewed in a 2003 background
report from the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. A summary
is available at http://www.africaaction.org/docs03/mil0303.htm, and
the full report at
http://www.prairienet.org/acas/military/military.html
Future bulletins will focus on other issues in USA/Africa relations
as they showed up on the agenda at the G-8 summit this week. For an
overview, including links to a new Council on Foreign Relations
report on the G8 and Africa, see
http://allafrica.com/stories/200406100104.html
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Announcement: The American Friends Service Committee Africa Program
is holding its first annual Bill Sutherland Training Institute for
Africa Advocates on June 23-27, 2004 in Washington, DC. For more
information and registration see
http://www.afsc.org/africa/toward-africa
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Africa Peace Efforts to Receive Expanded G8 Support
The White House (Washington, DC)
Press Release June 8, 2004
[excerpts only: full text available on http://www.whitehouse.gov
and at http://allafrica.com/stories/200406090007.html]
G8 initiative seeks to improve coordination, training for
peacekeeping
Leaders of the world's largest economic powers are following up on
pledges made at previous Group of Eight (G8) summit meetings to
extend greater technical and financial support to African countries
involved in peacekeeping operations in Africa.
According to one senior Bush administration official, African
leaders "have indicated to the G8 and to the rest of the world that
for them this is a very high priority ... to take control of
solving the conflicts and managing the restoration after the
conflicts." ...
The centerpiece of the initiative is a pledge by the G8 countries
to provide training over the next five to six years to new
peacekeepers around the world, beginning in Africa. The
administration official said the total number of new peacekeepers
trained could be "well in excess of 50,000 around the world."
The official said that Italy has offered to devote an Italian
training center for so-called "heavy police," or gendarmes, to move
forward as quickly as possible with this initiative. ...
More broadly, the initiative seeks to establish a logistics support
arrangement in order to move trained peacekeepers from countries
willing to provide them to emerging conflict areas. ...
Following is from the White House transcript of the background
briefing:
...
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: ...
So the centerpiece of this initiative will be a pledge by the G8
countries to train a certain number, we hope well in excess of
50,000 peacekeepers around the world, but beginning in Africa, over
the next five or six years. And it really is sort of a unique --
it's the first time the G8 has taken on a specific -- a pledge like
this, and has said, we are going to train this number of
peacekeepers over this time frame, and we're going to seek to equip
them, and we're going to seek to help them get to where they want
to be.
The initiative, very quickly, has a few components to it. We're
pledging that over the next year or so we're going to put together
a logistics support arrangement so that we can better coordinate
getting peacekeepers to where they need to go from those countries
willing to provide them, say, in Africa, from West Africa to
another part of Africa where they're perhaps needed. There's going
to be a clearinghouse arrangement that will serve as kind of a
coordinating mechanism among the G8. ...
QUESTION: I just wanted to get some details about how you're going
to fund this, because it sounds very ambitious. But training 50,000
people over the next five to six years, how much do you think
that's going to cost? And do you have any firm pledges for money at
the moment? Where do you expect this money is going to come from?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That's a great question. And let me
just say about this number, 50,000, the number that I think we're
going to roll out is going to be well in excess of 50,000. I don't
want to name a specific number at this stage. It will be a dramatic
number, it will be much more than 50,000 that we're going to seek
to train and equip over the next five, six years.
The funding -- in the first instance, we, the United States, are
going to seek from the Congress $660 million to spend over the next
five years for training and equipping, and we believe that that
will probably go a long way toward training and equipping 45,000 to
50,000, maybe even more peacekeepers right there.
There are also ongoing training programs that are being expanded --
the French have the their recomp program in Africa that trains
thousands of peacekeepers a year. The British-trained peacekeepers
and thousands -- have already trained 4,000 in recent years -- the
Kofi Annan Center that already exists in Africa is already a
training site. So there's a lot that's going on. The European Union
is doing a lot to train peacekeepers. So we have sort of on the
books or in prospect just right now, today, the resources to train
well in excess of 50,000. And, of course, part of the purpose of
rolling out this initiative is to try to spur more activity, more
spending, over the next five years.
Q: I wonder if you could go a little bit more into your idea, the
clearinghouse. Would the clearinghouse be making decisions about
where troops are to be deployed, and how would that connect up to
U.N. efforts?
A: The U.N., of course, has done a lot of work on peacekeeping
operations and how to mount them and how to deploy peacekeepers. Of
course, the United Nations comes into play once there is a U.N.
mandate for a peace operation. There are some 14 peacekeeping
operations around the world, I think seven or eight in Africa. But
there is -- in the very initial stages of a crisis, often before
the United Nations has an opportunity to act or pass a mandate,
what you have is an immediate need to find peacekeepers, match them
up with the airlift, get them trained and get them to the site of
the problem.
The idea of the clearinghouse is that we would, at the level of the
G8, get experts together on a periodic basis to exchange
information about the offers that are out there for airlift and for
equipment and what have you, so that we already have it -- if you
will, we already have a Rolodex, we already have in the bank offers
of support that we can go immediately to, so that every time
there's a new peace support operations need, we don't have to
reinvent the wheel. ...
Q: Who exactly is in charge -- who would be in charge of these
peacekeeping troops? Would it be the G8, the U.N., the AU {African
Union]?
A: This doesn't change any of the current constructs that are out
there. I mean, all of this is done -- is being done, obviously,
with a view to the strictures that are already out there about how
U.N. peacekeeping operations operate. We're doing this -- we've
already briefed African leaders -- I think my colleague and others
have done some of that -- African emissaries and representatives.
This isn't going to change how peacekeeping operations look or how
they're run. I mean, it's still the case, obviously, that when a
crisis erupts, the nation that's affected or nations in the
neighborhood often make requests for peacekeepers. Then a
solicitation goes out. Sometimes interested nations outside the
region, like the United States, France or others are involved in
that process. Sometimes it's the United Nations.
This isn't going to change any of that structure. We're not talking
about a new paradigm or how peacekeeping operations are controlled
or regulated. ...
Q: As you all are having these discussions, a lot of the world is
looking at what is happening in Sudan. Has anything come up
practically in your discussions so far on that crisis, given that
what is looming there is a disaster?
A: ... everyone in the G8 is concerned about Darfur. There have
been discussions and actions taken in the Security Council,
Commission on Human Rights, and it is not acceptable to anyone the
way in which humanitarian relief is not being allowed there, and
the fact that the Janjaweed militias are continuing to carry on the
ethnic cleansing. So the answer to your question is, it's a
continuing discussion among the G8 members, not just here, but in
every forum in which they find themselves.
Africa Command Not European Command, Says Official
http://allAfrica.com
May 4, 2004
By Charles Cobb Jr. Washington, DC
The United States European Command (Eucom) will change its name to
reflect a new strategic concern with Africa, according a senior
Eucom official involved in the planning. Eucom "does sound
extremely Eurocentric," said the official, speaking on background
and on a condition of anonymity.
"Eucom gives the wrong impression; only 25 or 30 percent of the
Eucom area of operation is actually Europe, unless you're counting
Russia all the way out to the Urals," the official said during an
interview with AllAfrica.
The official suggested "Eurafrica" would be a name that reflects
the reality that "probably over half" of the Command's territory is
in Africa. Other possible names are under consideration as well.
The official offered no timetable for the change to take place.
Eucom's area of operations includes 43 African countries. Another
seven - Djibouti, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and
Kenya - fall under the responsibility of the U.S. Central Command
(Centcom).
The suggestion that Eucom needs a name change was made during a
telephone interview in which the official, speaking from Stuttgart,
Germany where Eucom is headquartered, elaborated on Pentagon
concerns about Africa. The continent "is an area of enhanced new
strategic concern," the official said. "Stability, combating health
issues like HIV/aids, which we think will lead to instability in
coming years if it's not quickly dealt with and very strongly dealt
with, terrorism, and resources are probably the four big national
security issues we see in Africa," the official said.
In a broad sense, the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and
Washington, DC triggered this new concern. "When 9/11 happened we
sat down here at Eucom. We put together a special planning team to
decide what defensive and preventive measures we needed to take in
Eucom in terms of combating terrorism and protecting U.S. citizens
and interests. We looked at regions and prioritized those regions
in terms of what we perceived at the time as the most likely area
and safe haven for terrorists to operate from."
The South, Eucom planners concluded, demanded greater attention.
"The region that rose to the top was northern Africa because of the
large Islamic populations, because of the large areas of
uncontrolled territory where the nation have a difficult time
controlling their sovereign areas and because of what one would
call a sympathetic or apathetic population and a number of other
reasons. That's what drove us to north Africa and areas of the
Sahel."
Citing some of the major "Jihadist" groups operating in the region,
the official said their "primary motivation" is to "undermine and
overthrow." Furthermore, according to this official, there are
splinter groups "that have aligned themselves with a broader global
jihadist movement." These splinter organizations "are less
concerned with overthrowing a specific government and more
concerned with waging a war or jihad with the west," the official
said. Noting that several Moroccans were involved in the recent
bombings in Spain, the official said "Madrid points out that this
is not a local problem."
At this point, said the official, American 'boots on the ground'
are not what Eucom envisions. "Our main goal is to give the nations
of northern Africa the resources and capability to take care of
their own problems. We don't want them to become like Afghanistan."
He denied that a late March military campaign in Niger and Chad
against the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known as the
GSPC, involved U.S. troops. "There was intelligence sharing. That
was our major contribution." Other sources say that P-3 Orion
aircraft guided the anti-GSPC operation and a Voice of America
report said that ground troops led the Algerian army to a large
weapons cache that was believed to be headed for terrorist groups.
Terrorist organizations "use the political borders between these
nations, and the uncontrolled spaces to move about freely and to
limit the state's ability to do anything about them." Eucom intends
to "give them equipment that's right for what they need, whether it
is vehicles, or communications equipment or body armor or training
on how to maintain their vehicles or training on how to maintain
communications systems. Maybe encryption gear so they can encrypt
and talk securely."
The State Department has funded a Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) under
which Eucom is assisting Mali, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania in
detecting and responding to suspicious movement of people and goods
across and within their borders through training, equipment and
cooperation is one model. "We may have a better lock on a group
because of our superior intelligence gathering capabilities" the
official insisted. "We do not see establishing U.S. bases."
In March, Nato's Joint Command Southwest (JCSW) and the Spanish
Instituto Universitario announced plans for a seminar on security
and cooperation with the Maghreb and Sahara as part of Nato's
"Mediterranean Dialogue". And later this month a conference will be
held in Europe to initiate an "African Clearing House" program
aimed at avoiding duplication of efforts.
"The idea is to bring together military folks from about a dozen
European nations who have engagement with African nations to
compare what they are doing with what we are doing. everybody sits
down and sees what everybody else is doing," the official said
during the interview.
General Sees Expanding Strategic Role for U.S. European Command In
Africa
http://allAfrica.com
April 15, 2004
By Charles Cobb Jr. Washington, DC
Three weeks ago, "the first meeting ever" between the chiefs of
defense of North African states and Sahel states took place at the
Stuttgart, Germany headquarters of the United States European
Command (Eucom). Although they are next door neighbors it was "the
first time that the chief of defense of Chad and the chief of
defense of Niger talked to each other in their life," Eucom Deputy
Commander, Charles F. Wald told an audience at the American
Enterprise Institute on Tuesday.
The defense chiefs participating in the meeting came from Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Niger. "When
we talked to them about regional security challenges," Eucom's
chief of counter terrorism in the Plans Division, Lt. Colonel
Powell Smith, told allAfrica.com, "to a man they identified the
greatest security challenge facing their nations as 'religious
extremism' -- that's how they termed it not how we termed it and
they want to combat it."
Out of that Stuttgart meeting came plans that led to a
Eucom-Niger-Chad "coordinated" military operation against the
Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known as the GSPC. The
group, led by Algerian-born Abderrazak le Para, is said to be
associated with al-Qaeda and was held responsible for the
kidnapping of 32 tourists in southern Algeria last year.
After successful government crackdowns on the group in southern
Algeria and Mali, members fled through Niger to Chad. In Niger,
according to Defence Minister Hassane Bonto, the GSPC was working
hand-in-hand with armed bandits and was using hideouts and arms
caches left over from a rebellion in the 1990s by Tuareg nomads.
Forty-three of the GSPC were reported killed in the combined
operation, including, possibly, le Para, although that has not been
confirmed.
"This was a real terrorist threat," said Wald. "Part of this group
were Nigerians, Nigeroise, Chadians, Malians and some Algerians,"
he told the AEI meeting: "Libya is terrified of them. This is a bad
group of people...They have declared allegiance to al-Qaeda. And
I'll tell you one thing. I think the United States learned a lesson
in Afghanistan. You don't let things go."
Eucom's campaign against the GSPC, in partnership with Chad and
Niger, is an example of the growing importance of Africa to the
security concerns of Eucom, Wald said. Until September 11, he
acknowledged, Africa was not part of any strategic plans of Eucom,
whose official area of operations includes 43 African countries.
Another seven - Djibouti, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia
and Kenya - fall under the responsibility of the U.S. Central
Command (CENTCOM). "[Africa] was always there but it wasn't a
strategic there."
Oil is an important part of the strategic concern. Without African
crude oil, "each year the U.S. would need an additional 10 billion
gallons of gasoline," the president of ChevronTexaco Overseas
Petroleum, George Kirkland, told the AEI meeting. "That's about
enough for fourteen and a half million cars and trucks," he said -
"more than the total number of registered vehicles in the state of
New York." In 10 years, thirty percent of U.S. oil will come from
the Gulf of Guinea, Wald said. "We will also become very dependent
on natural gas from Africa."
Europe's vulnerability is another part of the concern. Much of
Sahelian Africa is "a belt of instability," said Wald. Islamists
use vast empty or sparsely-populated spaces for transit into Europe
and sometimes for terrorist training. Alienation because of failed
government policies in many nations makes fertile recruiting ground
as well. "Terrorists training in the Sahel can be in the United
States or Europe in a matter of hours," retired General Carlton W.
Fulford, Wald's predecessor at Eucom who now directs the Africa
Center for Strategic Studies, told the AEI meeting.
At the heart of the new strategic thrust of Eucom is working with
African regional organizations: the Economic Community of West
African States (Ecowas) in the west, the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) in the south, the Maghreb Union in the
north, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) and
the East African Community in the east and the Central Africa
Economic and Monetary Community (Cemac). But encouraging a new
political/military geography is also necessary, said Wald. One
symbol of this is the Eucom partnership with Algeria, Mali, Niger
and Chad known as the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) that transcends
the traditional north Africa - sub Sahara distinction that still
divides the continent at the U.S. Department of State.
In Wald's mind, thinking outside of the box seemed to include how
Eucom itself needed to be described now that it is paying strategic
attention to the south. Africa is so big that Eucom breaks it up
into regions, Wald said. "The United States European Command is a
misnomer," he said. "One of the things we are working on is trying
to figure out what should the name of the command be because this
is not Europe, I guarantee you."
It is not clear whether Nato has also shifted its view on Africa
and is extending its mission southward too. "De facto, Nato has a
mission in Africa because we have a mission in Africa," said Wald.
"Nato's interests are not now sitting in garrisons in Germany or
France or UK waiting for a million Russians to come across the
border. Europe needs to get out, go forward and do some
prevention."
Wald thinks they inevitably will. "Everybody's going to come to the
same conclusion at some point. Some will get there faster than
others."
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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