U.S. and Democratic Republic of Congo representatives gathered February 17, 2010, at a military base outside of Kisangani in north-central DRC to mark the establishment of a light infantry battalion intended to be a model unit for the future of the Congolese military.
The train-and-equip mission, part of a long-term, multi-lateral U.S.-DRC partnership to promote security sector reform in the country, will assist the DRC government in its ongoing efforts to transform the Armed Forces of the DRC (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo, widely known as FARDC).
The training is intended to increase the ability of the Congolese army to conduct effective internal security operations as part of the FARDC’s rapid reaction plan, help preserve the territorial integrity of the DRC, and develop an army that is accountable to the Congolese people. This initiative also represents one aspect of a long-term, multiagency, international approach to promote a sustainable peace through the creation of a model unit in the FARDC.
Brigadier General Jean-Claude Kifwa, commander of FARDC’s 9th Region, spoke at the ceremony, saying he thought it was a sign of progress that a quick reaction force was being established in his region.
“I’d like to thank the authorities of my country for choosing Kisangani to be the center of quick reaction forces,” Kifwa said. “I think this is progress in the reform of our new army.” He said that the battalion’s main mission would be to protect the territorial borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Congolese people and their goods.
Members of the newly formed light infantry battalion will undergo a 6-8 month training program at the Base Camp in Kisangani. The training will cover small unit tactics, food preparation, maintenance, medical care and first aid, logistics support, HIV/AIDS prevention and communications. Human rights considerations and the respect for human rights in military operations will be incorporated in each aspect of the training.
“The commanders, staff officers and noncommissioned officers who will lead this battalion began their training last year in Kinshasa,” Garvelink explained. He added that the battalion’s soldiers were all carefully selected by the FARDC to “ensure the highest caliber of trainees possible.”
U.S. Africa Command (U.S. AFRICOM), via its Special Operations Command component, is providing on-the-ground oversight of the training program, which will be taught by U.S. military personnel and Department of State-hired contractors.
…
When asked about any possible hidden policy agenda of the United States in the Congo, Ambassador Garvelink answered, “The interest of the United States in the Congo is to see a democratic, representative government that takes care of its people and is at peace with its neighbors. That’s what our objective is.” (from africom.mil)
In February 2008 the US and UN organized a special training: U.S. Military Legal Experts Train DR Congo Military in Preventing, Prosecuting Sex Crimes. So far I have not heard of any significant successes resulting from this training.
Regarding the reasons for training an infantry battalion and the interest of the United States, Rick Rozoff points us to some timely information:
Earlier this month the Kenyan newspaper The East African divulged that “American legislators are pushing for a law that will see another phase of military action to apprehend Lord’s Resistance Army rebels.”
The news source added that the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Bill adopted by the U.S. Congress last year “requires the US government to develop a new multifaceted strategy” and as such the new bill under consideration “will not be the first time the US government is providing support to the Uganda army in fighting the LRA.
“The US has been backing the UPDF [Uganda People’s Defence Force] with logistics and training to fight the rebel group.” [12]
Last month it was announced that the U.S. Africa Command has dispatched special forces to train 1,000 Congolese troops in the north and east of their nation, where Congo borders Uganda.
Former U.S. diplomat Daniel Simpson was quoted above as to what in part is Washington’s motive in pursuing a new war in and around Somalia: To test out AFRICOM ground and air forces in Djibouti for direct military action on the continent.
A United Press International report of March 10, placed under energy news, offered another explanation. In a feature titled “East Africa is next hot oil zone,” the news agency disclosed that “East Africa is emerging as the next oil boom following a big strike in Uganda’s Lake Albert Basin. Other oil and natural gas reserves have been found in Tanzania and Mozambique and exploration is under way in Ethiopia and even war-torn Somalia.”
…
The article added: “The discovery at Lake Albert, in the center of Africa between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is estimated to contain the equivalent of several billion barrels of oil. It is likely to be the biggest onshore field found south of the Sahara Desert in two decades.”
I wrote about oil and the LRA earlier in If Uganda Has Oil It Must Need The Pentagon’s Democracy. The comments include the Response of Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) to the ” Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009″courtesy of Africa Focus. They conclude:
… we applaud the commitment of the bill to bring about stability and development in the region. However, we as the Acholi religious leaders whose primary concern is the preservation of human life, advocate for dialogue and other non-violent strategies to be employed so that long term sustainable peace may be realized. Let us learn from the past experiences where we have seen that violence only breeds more violence.
Given current US finances, it seems unlikely that the US is investing in training the Congo soldiers out of a selfless desire to see a democratic, representative government that takes care of its people and is at peace with its neighbors. That certainly has never been the case before in the DRC. And considering the role of US Africa Command protege Paul Kagame of Rwanda, the proxy army the US is training and arming in Rwanda, and Rwanda’s involvement in resource exploitation and political terrorism in Congo, US motives are at best unclear.
In 2008 Refugees International reported in U.S. Civil Military Imbalance for Global Engagement: Lessons from the Operational Level in Africa that the US:
… only plans to spend $5.5 million in 2009 [in Congo, compared to 49.65 million budgeted for Liberia] to help reform a 164,000-strong army in the DR Congo, a country with 65 million people where Africa’s “first world war” claimed the lives of over five million people.
… intelligence, judiciary, and prison agencies are sadly neglected. In the DR Congo, the State Department has played a very active role in facilitating dialogue among belligerents and is concerned about the humanitarian situation in the east, but the Defense Department is virtually ignoring the nation’s desperate need of military reform. As a result, an inadequately resourced security sector reform program has contributed to the Congolese army becoming a major source of insecurity for civilian communities.
It would be nice if the Congolese Army protected rather than preyed on the civilians they are supposed to protect. But I doubt the brief and limited training will make a significant difference, even if Human rights considerations and the respect for human rights in military operations will be incorporated in each aspect of the training. And I suspect human rights are more an afterthought than a goal.
March 22, 2010 at 12:28 am
article in this week’s east african
Oil, minerals and the militarisation of globalisation
March 22, 2010 at 5:33 am
Thanks a lot! Xcroc, for this illumination!
Camouflage and total concealment is not only a military strategy, it is the oldest known tactic of any predator that walked on planet Earth. In order not to remain the sitting ducks to military adventurers, willing to shoot and protect oil and other natural resources on “humanitarian grounds”, articles like this can help open our eyes, bell the cat, and put “les sabots” under their feet for the victims to hear their every move!
This is more than necessary, seeing that others have taken the lead in selling AfriCom in Ghana. Gabriel Ochere-Darko, writes in “Obama’s Visit – What’s In It For Us And U.S.?”:
”Furthermore, the U.S. is, understandably, bent on establishing a regional command for Africa, similar to U.S. Forces Korea, with a homeport situated on the African continent to protect their interests. West Africa is its natural home, given the need to protect energy interests in the Gulf of Guinea. Liberia has offered but simply cannot match the kind of convenience available in Ghana. It can be a win-win situation.” (“The author of the article is the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, a think tank based in Accra.”)
Xcroc, please give us more of those! Africa needs intellectuals like Yunus Lubega Butanaziba, b real, and YOU! Thanks again for the illumination!
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March 23, 2010 at 2:10 pm
It would be nice if the world also stopped funding these abuses. The IMF, WB and many other countries continually give loans with little accountability from the government. The UN has backed the Congolese army in its abuses and massacres. A new strategy is definitely in order!
Thanks for the post!
March 23, 2010 at 5:58 pm
b real, excellent article. I tried to track down Butanaziba’s thesis at the University of Malaya, but so far as I could tell, it was not among the online theses. His work would be worth a look.
I haven’t read Huntington. I found one book available today by Huntington, Who Are We, in which he seems obsessed with anglo-protestant cultural superiority. I guess that is one justification for trying to control the world. As a sample these are the concluding sentences he writes to a chapter on Hispanic immigration to the US:
It sounds like the concept of assimilado, law that was abolished in Angola in 1961. Based on my limited readings today it sounds like Huntington is preaching power and resource grabs justified by cultural superiority. That is a time honored enemy of democracy and human rights.
Africom has the force of law to intervene in African security because African states have agreed to it. I’m afraid that is true. I don’t necessarily think all of them realize what the “partnering” is about, but I am sure many do. Lots of people are willing to sell out their brothers and sisters for power. And they are also caught between a rock and a hard place. If you don’t “partner” with Africom, will US agents get busy destababilizing your government so that a more Africom congenial government can take its place? The evidence and the history indicate so.
Nana, Thanks for posting this and the article about Butanaziba’s work at modernghana.com. I hope some people read them, although I know that to get a lot of readers there it has to be a hot Ghana topic.
apeaceofconflict, you are right that a new strategy is in order. Unfortunately, I don’t see where it might come from.
March 24, 2010 at 11:08 am
i too failed to find any online copy of butanaziba’s thesis. the geopolitics angle/filter and the ideals that have shaped it along the way are quite interesting & need to be fleshed out more than the brief article does. i assume butanaziba does this,
however
there are a couple of issues i noted in the report and i wanted to see if they are from that academic piece itself or errors on the part of the reporter/editors.
for instance, mackinder was not a “US political strategist” and, unless i am mistaken here, huntington’s “‘next pattern of conflict’ essay” is actually just the first section from his larger essay, clash of civilizations. (mamdani’s book “good muslim, bad muslim” contained a very compelling critique of those ideas and set them in a context wrt the cold war & afterwards in africa).
March 30, 2010 at 2:06 pm
b real, I remember Mamdani’s takedown of clash of civilizations. It is hard to take it seriously after reading that, although obviously people in key places do take it seriously. I had somehow confused Huntington with Bernard Lewis, so I didn’t immediately connect Huntington with what I had read.
I really would like to read Butanaziba’s thesis.
I found this by Ba Karang: Africom and the USA’s Hidden Battle Front in Africa. It is all matters you have discussed and that have been discussed here, but it is a neat and provocative summary. A friend posted it at modernghana.com
Somewhat unrelated, I generally enjoy political and social allegory in music and in storytelling. I doubt I entirely agree with the politics of this writer, but he writes a very clever Ghanaian allegory that I found entertaining. When will the horse stop dancing?
April 2, 2010 at 3:01 pm
i’d seen that article earlier included in an issue of ecoterra int’l’s smcm – we were a few yrs ahead of the curve, hopefully more voices continue to pick it up
relatedly,
daniel volman’s latest analysis @ ips
Obama Expands Military Involvement in Africa
he gives a partial rundown of some of these activities, leaving out the navy seals arranged execution of the three ‘pirates’ in the mv maersk alabama episode, which has some significance as, according to cia’s larry johnson, “the first counter terrorism op of its kind since the SEAL unit with the counter terror mission was established”.
and volman also repeats the recent spin in an AP article that:
as we observed last fall as the hunter-killer drones were moved into the region and as gets reported in somali media, they’ve been gathering intel for some time. even TFG officials candidly admit this, as reported, again, by the AP:
such quibbles aside, volman nails it when he writes:
i can forsee that it’s going to escalate rather quickly too and it’s going to be very difficult for them to keep from putting more yankee boots on the ground. theory is one thing, but practice is another…
April 4, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I think you are right about escalating quickly and about boots on the ground. I went and looked at the U.S. Air University’s Strategic Studies Quarterly article.
Security Assistance, Surrogate Armies, and the Pursuit of US Interests in Sub-Saharan Africa
Maj Shawn T. Cochran, USAF
Here are a few quotes:
The Somalia quote is almost funny. And the last quote implies the same thing you are saying about escalating quickly and yankee boots on the ground.
The Major uses Liberia 2003 and Somalia 2006 as case studies for the use of military surrogates. One thing he makes clear is that most of the military assistance to Ghana and Nigeria from Bush was so that they would get involved in Somalia. Without singularly stupid leadership, that wasn’t going to happen. What would be the advantage for either Ghana or Nigeria? I gather this was Jendayi Frazer’s plan. It certainly sounds like her bloodthirsty and dim witted approach.
At the beginning he talks about surrogate and proxy and partner being essentially the same thing. And one thing he considers is the importance of being able to pressure surrogates/proxies/partners to do what the “donor” wants done.