AFRICOM – programs, initiatives, bases

December 17, 2008

AFRICOM – programs, initiatives, bases

Posted by xcroc under Africa, Africa command, AFRICOM, CJTF-HOA, proxy war, recolonize, US military base, US Navy | Tags: Whitney Schneidman |
[8] Comments

US Rwanda military training Nov. 2008

GABIRO, Rwanda – Soldiers from the Rwanda Defence Force practice target shooting with their U.S. counterparts during a military-to-military training event at the Rwanda School of Infantry in Kigali, Rwanda on November 21, 2008. (Photo by Sergeant First Class Jonathan Platt, U.S. Defence Attache Office)

Daniel Volman has written an updated overview of AFRICOM published at Pambazuka News, AFRICOM from Bush to Obama.

He discusses the following questions:

What is AFRICOM?
What is AFRICOM’s mission?
Why is AFRICOM being created now?
What will AFRICOM do?
Where will AFRICOM’s headquarters be based?
What is to be done with AFRICOM?

As part of what will AFRICOM do?, Volman lists the various programs that are part of AFRICOM, or are being folded into AFRICOM. There are a number of bilateral and multilateral joint training programs and military exercises (excerpted from his article):

FLINTLOCK 2005 AND 2007 – Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) exercises … Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

TRANS-SAHARAN COUNTER-TERRORISM PARTNERSHIP (TSCTP) – links the United States with eight African countries: Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria.

EAST AFRICA COUNTER-TERRORISM INITIATIVE (EACTI) – the EACTI has provided training to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.

AFRICA CONTINGENCY OPERATIONS TRAINING AND ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (ACOTA) – training to African military forces. … By FY 2007, nineteen African countries were participating in the ACOTA program (Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia).

INTERNATIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROGRAM (IMET) – brings African military officers to military academies and other military educational institutions in the United States for professional training. Nearly all African countries participate in the program.

U.S. PRIVATE MILITARY CONTRACTORS IN AFRICA – [mostly] as part of the GPOI and ACOTA programs.

FOREIGN MILITARY SALES PROGRAM (FMS) – This program sells U.S. military equipment to African countries … The U.S. government provides loans to finance the purchase of virtually all of this equipment through the Foreign Military Financing Program (FMF), but repayment of these loans by African governments is almost always waived, so that they amount to free grants.

DIRECT COMMERCIAL SALES PROGRAM (DCS) – the Office of Defense Trade Controls of the Department of State licenses the sale of police equipment (including pistols, revolvers, shotguns, rifles, and crowd control chemicals) by private U.S. companies to foreign military forces, paramilitary units, police, and other government agencies.

AFRICAN COASTAL AND BORDER SECURITY PROGRAM (ACBS) – provides specialized equipment (such as patrol vessels and vehicles, communications equipment, night vision devices, and electronic monitors and sensors) to African countries to improve their ability to patrol and defend their own coastal waters and borders from terrorist operations, smuggling, and other illicit activities … No dedicated funding was requested for FY 2008

EXCESS DEFENSE ARTICLES PROGRAM (EDA) – ad hoc transfers of surplus U.S. military equipment to foreign governments. Transfers to African recipients have included the transfer of C-130 transport planes to South Africa and Botswana, trucks to Uganda, M-16 rifles to Senegal, and coastal patrol vessels to Nigeria.

ANTI-TERRORISM ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (ATA) – provide training, equipment, and technology to countries all around the world to support their participation in America’s Global War on Terrorism. … [includes] Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius, Niger, Chad, Senegal, Mali, Liberia, Ethiopia, Botswana, Djibouti, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique.

SECTION 1206, 1207, AND 902 PROGRAMS – Section 1206 program—known as the Global Equip and Train program—was initiated in FY 2007 and permits the Pentagon—on its own initiative and with little congressional oversight—to provide training and equipment to foreign military, police, and other security forces to “combat terrorism and enhance stability.” …
The Section 1207 program—known as the Security and Stabilization Assistance program—was also started in FY 2007. It allows the Defense Department to transfer equipment, training, and other assistance to the State Department to enhance its operations. …
The Section 902 program—known as the Combatant Commanders’ Initiative Fund— can be used by the commanders of Africom and other combatant commands to fund their own relief and reconstruction projects, rather than relying on the State Department or the Agency for International Development to undertake these efforts.

COMBINED JOINT TASK FORCE-HORN OF AFRICA (CJTF-HOA) – designed to conduct naval and aerial patrols in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the eastern Indian Ocean as part of the effort to detect and counter the activities of terrorist groups in the region.
… provided intelligence to Ethiopia in support of its invasion of Somalia in January 2007 and used military facilities in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya to launch air raids and missile strikes in January and June of 2007 and May of 2008 against alleged al-Qaeda members involved in the Council of Islamic Courts in Somalia.

JOINT TASK FORCE AZTEC SILENCE (JTFAS) – carry out counter-terrorism operations in North and West Africa and to coordinate U.S. operations with those of countries in those regions.
… constitutes a major extension of the U.S. role in counter-insurgency warfare and highlights the dangers of America’s deepening involvement in the internal conflicts that persist in so many African countries

NAVAL OPERATIONS IN THE GULF OF GUINEA – Africom will also help coordinate naval operations along the African coastline.
… The U.S. Navy has been steadily increasing the level and pace of its operations in African waters in recent years …
… the United States—conducted what were described as “presence operations” in the Gulf of Guinea …

BASE ACCESS AGREEMENTS FOR COOPERATIVE SECURITY LOCATIONS AND FORWARD OPERATING SITES – Over the past few years, the Bush administration has negotiated base access agreements with the governments of Botswana, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierre Leone, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zambia. Under these agreements, the United States gains access to local military bases and other facilities so that they can be used by American forces as transit bases or as forward operating bases for combat, surveillance, and other military operations. They remain the property of the host African government and are not American bases in a legal sense, so that U.S. government officials are telling the truth—at least technically—when they deny that the United States has bases in these countries.

Go and read the article, AFRICOM from Bush to Obama. There is a great deal more information there than I have included here, including the amounts of money involved in many of these programs.

As regards Obama’s thinking regarding AFRICOM, Vollman quotes Obama, and his spokesman Whitney Schneidman. Based on these public statements Volman writes:

… this suggests that the Obama administration will continue to expand the entire spectrum of U.S. military operations in Africa, including increasing U.S. military involvement in the internal affairs of African countries (including both counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations) and the direct use of U.S. combat troops to intervene in African conflicts.

Therefore, according to Whitney Schneidman, the Obama administration “will create a Shared Partnership Program to build the infrastructure to deliver effective counter-terrorism training, and to create a strong foundation for coordinated action against al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Africa and elsewhere.” He explained that the proposed program “will provide assistance with information sharing, operations, border security, anti-corruption programs, technology, and the targeting of terrorist financing.” In particular, Schneidman argued “in the Niger Delta, we should become more engaged not only in maritime security, but in working with the Nigerian government, the European Union, the African Union, and other stakeholders to stabilize the region.”

This is not reassuring. But Volman includes some notes of hope and good advice:

… It is likely, therefore, that the Obama administration will continue the militarization of U.S. policy toward Africa unless it comes under pressure to change direction. However, members of the U.S. Congress are now beginning to give Africom the critical scrutiny it deserves and to express serious skepticism about its mission and operations. Moreover, a number of concerned organizations and individuals in the United States and in Africa—the Resist Africom Campaign—came together in August 2006 to educate the American people about Africom and to mobilize public and congressional opposition to the creation of the new command. And the Resist Africom Campaign will continue to press the Obama administration to abandon the Bush plan for Africom and pursue a policy toward Africa based on a genuine partnership with the people of Africa, multi-lateralism, democracy, human rights, and grass-roots development.

If you are eligible to vote in the US, let your Congressional representatives know what you think about AFRICOM, and about militarizing the continent. There is still a lot of opportunity for change. But it needs a lot of push and pressure from the roots up. It may be that one can effectively change the policy without significantly changing the language. After all, a policy of “genuine partnership with the people of Africa, multi-lateralism, democracy, human rights, and grass-roots development” would do a lot more to fight terrorism and secure US access to resources than military expansion and recolonization can begin to touch. The Bush administration has had a rather one dimensional view of the word fight. Let us hope the Obama vision really is larger and more inclusive.

Read Volman’s article: AFRICOM from Bush to Obama

8 Responses to “AFRICOM – programs, initiatives, bases”

b real Says:

December 19, 2008 at 2:53 am
in case you haven’t caught it yet, here’s the resist AFRICOM video

hard to do justice to the arguments in only 8 minutes, but it does convey a pretty strong message

wrt obama’s admin, robert dreyfuss has a short piece on O’s nominee for nat’l security advisor, james jones, who we know from what i covered in the AFRICOM essay. dreyfuss writes

Jones is a fierce advocate of NATO expansion. As commander of the alliance from 2003 to 2006, he pushed for it to take greater responsibility for securing oil supplies in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. “Our activities are definitely moving to the East and to the South,” he declared, speaking to the National Press Club in 2006. He pushed NATO hard–encountering stiff resistance from European allies–to strengthen its commitment to Afghanistan, and he got NATO involved with training missions in Iraq too. No longer, he says, can NATO confine itself to the defense of Europe; it must increasingly engage in out-of-area operations.

…

In 2007 Jones became president of the US Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, meanwhile joining the boards of directors of Chevron and Boeing. Among the eighty-eight recommendations of the institute–including, naturally, Drill, baby, drill!–is this: “The U.S. government should engage the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on energy security challenges and encourage member countries to support the expansion of its mandate to address energy security.”

…

As Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Jones also sought increased engagement of US and NATO forces in Africa, and he strongly supported creation of the controversial new US Africa Command. “Africa is a continent of growing strategic importance,” he said. Two years before the establishment of that command, Jones was enthusiastic. “My staff at EUCOM spends more than half of its time on African issues,” he acknowledged.

the continent of africa is going to figure big in the obama admin, being a key strategic interest now & all that. count on it.

as william pfaff recently observed,

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has completed his national security team, and its composition tends to confirm that nothing fundamental is likely to change in American foreign policy.

Fundamental is the key word, meaning change in the goals pursued and the assumptions that underlie policy. One expects an end to the blatant contempt for international law and institutions displayed by the Bush administration. The torture, illegal seizures of individuals and secret imprisonments, and flaunting of generally accepted norms of human rights will undoubtedly end.
However the war on Muslim radicalism will go on. The evidence suggests that American policy under Barack Obama will be a continuation of the neo-conservative foreign policy of the Bush administration, given a human face.

he also touches on a topic that we’ve (‘we’, colloquially speaking) explored a little but which deserves closer examination

Last summer, Secretary of State Rice declared that the Bush government was wrong in its initial hostility to nation building. She wrote (in Foreign Affairs) that “democratic state building is now an urgent component of our national interest….it is absolutely clear that we will be engaged in nation-building for years to come.” She said that this reflects “a uniquely American realism” that teaches “it is America’s job to change the world, and in its own image.”

i’m sure one can pull rhetorical parallels from his campaign speeches referring to changing the world & america’s exceptional responsibility/calling to do so. my take is that is what the next admin will continue, though by trying to make the project a more multilateral effort

Reply
b real Says:

December 22, 2008 at 12:22 am
stars and stripes: Rota to have role in Africa missions

The Navy base and hospital in Rota, Spain, will be the primary go-to location for servicemembers freed after being held as prisoners of war or hostages while carrying out missions in Africa, officials said.

Rota was selected as U.S. Africa Command’s primary reintegration location because of Spain’s geographical proximity to Africa, and because the base’s airfield and hospital are within a mile of each other.

Reply
xcroc Says:

December 22, 2008 at 12:26 am
I knew about the Resist Africom film, but hadn’t watched it until you sent the link. It is quite good, and as you say, a lot to put in one short film. Even so, my recommendation for appealing to short attention spans would be to keep any effort like that between 3 and 4 minutes long, about the length of most pop songs these days. To do that with so much information requires really brilliant editing, and there aren’t that many really brilliant editors around. They did get critical info across right from the beginning. And the song at the end is excellent.

I was not reassured by the choice of Jones. In fact I was most unhappy, but not entirely surprised. I get a feeling that Obama may want foreign policy to continue in the direction it has has for decades while he deals with the domestic situation. His voting record in the senate, by my recollection, would seem to indicate comfort with some unfortunate aspects of US foreign policy.

It seems somewhat hopeless to look to the democrats in Congress to look a bit harder at Africom. But there are a lot of new democrats. And even with the propaganda efforts to support Africom, the giant flaws in the idea do show.

I do get tired of seeing most of the pictures of Americans in Africa are pictures of military training, military activities, and weapons. And always accompanied by talk of “nation building”. Nation destroying and colonial puppet building is more like it. There is so much more than soldiers needing positive attention.

It sounds like the worst of the cold war in Africa again when Volman describes: increasing U.S. military involvement in the internal affairs of African countries (including both counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations) and the direct use of U.S. combat troops to intervene in African conflicts.

In some ways it may be better if the US and Obama do not change policies too drastically too fast. Changes like that usually create backlashes that undo them. Obama’s approach, focus, and pace may be exactly right. What is needed is a long period of sustained change. I’m praying this may be the beginning, but I’m not holding my breath.

Reply
xcroc Says:

December 22, 2008 at 9:43 pm
b real @2,
Sounds like the destabilization and interference, “nation building”, have already begun. And of course we have seen it at work already, most visibly in Somalia. Based on that article it looks like the plan is to step it up.

Reply
b real Says:

January 22, 2009 at 12:14 pm
here’s another article on jones

Global Energy War: Washington’s New Kissinger

Lost amid the national and international fanfare accompanying the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States is attention to the person who is slated to be the next major foreign policy architect and executor, retired US Marine General James Jones.

In nearly identical phraseology that cannot be construed as either fortuitous or without foundation, the Washington Post of November 22, 2008 referred to the then pending selection of Jones as US National Security Adviser in these terms:

“Sources familiar with the discussions said Obama is considering expanding the scope of the job to give the adviser the kind of authority once wielded by powerful figures such as Henry A. Kissinger.”

And the following day’s Israeli Ha’aretz wrote:

“Jones is expected to play a key role in the Obama administration. According to U.S. press reports, he will be as strong as Henry Kissinger, the all-powerful national security adviser to President Richard Nixon.”

…

..Jones was the major architect of what last October 1st was officially launched as the first new US military command in over half a century, Africa Command (AFRICOM)..

Reply
xcroc Says:

January 23, 2009 at 12:10 am
Thanks for this! I got a post out tonight, didn’t really do the subject justice. But I want to keep the topic out there so at least in some small way it stays part of the discussion.

Reply
David James Vickery Says:

October 9, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Have you heard of an AFRICOM base being surreptitiously built in Tan-Tan, Morocco?
Please reply to my email.

Thanks,
d.

Reply
xcroc Says:

October 10, 2010 at 9:53 pm
David, There is a US military presence in Tan-Tan. I don’t know if they call it a base or not. There was some talk or rumor of it being a regional HQ for AFRICOM. Most of the things I read were from 2008. I haven’t heard much since, but that does not mean nothing is happening. AFRICOM has a giant presence in North Africa, and that is rarely mentioned in the US news. You can read more about it in Dark Sahara.

These posts and comments may provide some information:

M of A – OT 08-15
Apr 13, 2008 … Mary Carlin Yachts, attached commander of the Africom for civil subjects, confirmed the [s]election of [Tan Tan] and kept awake that a …
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/04/ot-08-15.html

M of A – Open Thread 08-04
Jan 19, 2008 … Morocco is about to conclude an agreement with the United States on the installation with Tan Tan from a base from the military command in …
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/01/open-thread-0-2.html

M of A – OT 08-32
Sep 21, 2008… morocco & the region over a number of months that the u.s. military is erecting new structures on its property near tan-tan. evidently, …
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/09/ot-08-32.html

Reply

Crossed Crocodiles