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US/Africa: Military Programs
AFRICA ACTION
Africa Policy E-Journal
March 7, 2003 (030307)
US/Africa: Military Programs
(Reposted from sources cited below)
This posting contains a background report from the Association of
Concerned Africa Scholars on U.S. military programs in sub-Saharan
Africa. Two other postings today contain excerpts from an interview
with the outgoing ambassador of Nigeria to the United States, and
a press release from Africa Action and TransAfrica Forum, along
with other anti-war statements.
+++++++++++++++++end summary/introduction+++++++++++++++++++++++
U.S. MILITARY PROGRAMS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, 2001-2003
Prepared by Daniel Volman, Director of the African Security
Research Project in Washington, DC [dvolman@igc.org]. Information
from the U.S. State Department, Congressional Budget Justification
for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2003, and from various U.S.
Defense Department web sites and newspaper articles. Information is
current as of 11 February 2003.
[excerpts only: full text, and PDF version with print-friendly
tables available on the website of the Association of Concerned
Africa Scholars -
http://www.prairienet.org/acas/military/military.html]
U.S. MILITARY COMMANDS FOR SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Most African countries fall within the area of responsibility of
the U.S. European Command (which also covers Europe and the former
republics of the Soviet Union). However, a number of countries in
northeast Africa (Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan,
and Kenya) and the Seychelles are within the area of responsibility
of the U.S. Central Command; the U.S. Pacific Command covers the
Comoros, Madagascar, and the Indian Ocean, including the island of
Diego Garcia. These commands (along with the U.S. Special
Operations Command and the various branches of the armed forces,
i.e. the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines) are responsible
for conducting active military operations in Africa, including
training exercises, humanitarian relief, peacekeeping, evacuating
civilians from unstable countries, and other operations.
Most arms sales are conducted through the U.S. Defense Security
Cooperation Agency, which is falls under the authority of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.
Certain military hardware (including handguns, rifles, shotguns,
electronics, police equipment and crowd control chemicals, and
explosives) is sold under a licensing program administered by the
Office of Defense Trade Controls under the authority of the U.S.
State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
U.S. MILITARY LOANS & ARMS SALES TO AFRICA
The Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program is the process used by the
U.S. government to sell weapons and other military equipment to
foreign governments through the through the U.S. Defense Security
Cooperation Agency (DSCA). The Foreign Military Financing (FMF)
program is used by the DSCA to provide low-interest loans to
foreign governments to finance arms purchases from the U.S.
government or from private U.S. companies. In the case of all
sub-Saharan recipients, the U.S. government waives the repayment of
these loans. The Commercial Sales (CS) program is the process by
which certain types of military and police equipment are sold to
foreign governments under licenses issued by the Office of Trade
Controls. Figures show the value of sales that have been licensed
or approved by the State Department Office of Defense Trade Control
in the given year. Even though these sales have been licensed or
approved, they are not always completed.
U.S. ARMS SALES AND MILITARY LOANS TO AFRICAN COUNTRIES
[table for 2001, 2002, and 2003, by country, in on-line version]
Total for sub-Saharan Africa
2001 Actual $21,151,000
2002 Est. $8,650,000
2003 Est. $7,744,000
U.S. JOINT MILITARY TRAINING EXERCISES WITH AFRICAN COUNTRIES
Countries where the U.S. has conducted joint military training
exercises in recent years:
Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria,
Senegal, Uganda
U.S. troops are deployed to African countries to conduct joint
military exercises through a variety of programs. African
Contingency Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) is the program
created by the Bush Administration in the spring of 2002 to take
the place of the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) to
provide training in peacekeeping operations and regular military
tactics in Africa to military units from selected countries. Since
1996, over 8,600 African troops from Senegal, Uganda, Malawi, Mali,
Ghana, Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, and Kenya have received training
through the ACRI program; the training is conducted in the host
country by 60-man units of U.S. Special Forces soldiers. In FY
2001, ACRI received $15.6 million in funding; during FY 2002, ACRI
will receive an estimated $15 million; and for FY 2003, the
Pentagon has requested $10 million to fund the new ACOTA program.
The same countries that participated in ACRI will be the focus of
the new program. The most significant difference between the two
programs is that ACOTA will include training for offensive military
operations, including light infantry tactics and small unit
tactics, to enhance the ability of African troops to conduct
peacekeeping operations in hostile environments; under ACOTA,
African troops will also be provided with offensive military
weaponry, including rifles, machine guns, and mortars.
The Africa Regional Peacekeeping (ARP) program is the program to
equip, train, and support troops from selected African countries
that are involved in peacekeeping operations. The main recipients
in recent years have been Nigerian, Senegalese, and Ghanaian units
serving in Sierre Leon and units of the Guinean army along the
border with Liberia; funding has also gone to support African
peacekeeping efforts in the DR Congo, Burundi, Sudan, and on the
Eritrea- Ethiopia border. The training includes offensive military
tactics and the transfer of weaponry to the forces involved. In the
future, money from the ARP program will be used to supplement
Defense Department funding of an annual U.S. European Command
regional military exercise, to be known as "Shared Accord," to
enhance the joint operating capabilities of the forces from
different African countries that might participate in peacekeeping
or disaster response operations. In FY 2001, the ARP program
received $30.9 million in funding; during FY 2002, the ARP program
will receive an estimated $41 million; and for FY 2003, the
Pentagon has requested $30 million in funding for the ARP program
Along with the training provided in Africa through the ACOTA and
ARP programs, U.S. troops also conduct joint training exercises in
other African countries on a regular basis and in special exercises
designed to prepare U.S. troops to operate in African environments
and to work with African military forces. In April and May 2002,
for example, two U.S. Navy hospital ships, the U.S.S. Dallas and
the U.S.S. Minneapolis, conducted the regular West African Training
Cruise and Medical Outreach Program mission, spending two-weeks
stationed off Togo and Ghana. In May 2002, 1,000 American troops
participated in a month-long joint amphibious assault exercise on
the Kenyan coast with Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ugandan troops. In
August 2002, U.S. military medical personnel and Special Forces
troops held a two-week medical training exercise, known as MEDFLAG
02, in Entebbe and Sorotti, Uganda. And in September 2001, 200 U.S.
U.S. Air Force personnel went to the Waterkloof Air Force Base in
South Africa to participate in the first bilateral training
exercise with South African forces.
U.S. PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF AFRICAN MILITARY OFFICERS
The International Military Education and Training (IMET) program is
used to provide professional training to African military officers
from forty-four countries at U.S. military colleges and other
military facilities in the U.S. In FY 2002, IMET expected to
provide training to more than 1,600 African officers (dollars in
thousands).
African countries that are expected to participate in IMET in FY
2003: Angola, Benin. Botswana, , Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon,
Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Cote d'Ivoire,
DR Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon,
Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar,
Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger,
Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Pr¡ncipe, Senegal,
Seychelles, Sierre Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo,
Uganda, Zambia
U.S. IMET PROGRAMS
[For full table see on-line version. Includes country-level data
for Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and South
Africa.
Africa totals for 2001-2003 are
2001 Actual: $8,833,000
2002 Est. $10,185,000
2003 Est. $11,095,000
U.S. USE OF AFRICAN MILITARY BASES
The United States maintains important military facilities at a base
on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. Although the U.S.
government established these facilities under a treaty with
Britain, which claims sovereignty over the island, the African
country of Mauritius continues to assert that Diego Garcia and
other islands of the Chagos archipelago are part of its territory.
The U.S. government uses the island to base a floating stockpile of
tanks, armored vehicles, ammunition, and other military hardware
sufficient to equip an Army brigade of up to 3,500 troops and a
division of 17,300 Marines. The U.S. Air Force also bases B-52 and
B-2 bombers at airfields on Diego Garcia. The facilities at Diego
Garcia played a significant role in the Persian Gulf War of 1991
and U.S. military operations in Afghanistan; they are certain to
play an equally significant role in the impending U.S. war with
Iraq.
The United States does not possess its own bases on the African
mainland, but relies on the agreement of African governments to use
local bases and other military facilities in times of need. The
only country that had concluded a formal agreement with Washington
for the use of local military facilities is Kenya, which signed an
agreement in February 1980. The Kenyan agreement allows U.S. troops
to use the port of Mombasa, as well as airfields at Embakasi and
Nanyuki. These facilities were used to support the American
military intervention in Somalia in 1992-1994 and have been used in
the past year to support forces from the United States and other
coalition forces involved in counter-terrorism operations in the
region.
After 11 September 2001, the Pentagon received permission from
Djibouti to establish the headquarters for the Combined Joint Task
Force-Horn of Africa (its regional counter-terrorism command
center) in that country. The principal mission of the Task Force is
to monitor and interdict possible terrorist travel routes at sea
and suspected terrorist activities in nearby countries,
particularly in Somalia. The U.S. Task Force operates in
coordination with military personnel from several European
countries that are participating in the effort. Along with the
headquarters element, 800 U.S. Special Forces troops have set up
base at Camp Lemonier outside of the city Djibouti and the
amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Mount Whitney, with 600 Marine on
board, is stationed off shore. In December 2002, 2,400 Marines from
the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based on ships off shore,
conducted military exercises in Djibouti in preparation for the
impending war with Iraq. In addition, C.I.A. operatives are working
out of Djibouti, from where they directed the flight of the
Predator drone aircraft that was used to fire the missiles that
killed an alleged al-Qaeda leader and four others in Yemen in
November 2001.
The United States has not yet asked other African countries to use
their military facilities. It is likely that other facilities, such
as the recently expanded air base in Botswana, would be available
for the use of U.S. troops if the United States wanted to use them
in the future. But this would be up to the host country on a
case-by-case basis. The West African country of S o Tom‚ and
Pr¡ncipe has attracted attention recently by offering to host an
American naval base, but the Pentagon is unlikely to take them up
on their offer because the facilities are inadequate and are not
needed by U.S. forces.
LINKS TO INFORMATION SITES ON U.S. MILITARY PROGRAMS IN AFRICA
Information on the Commercial Sales program, the U.S. government
budget for foreign operations, and U.S. policy toward Africa can be
obtained through the web site of the U.S. State Department:
http://www.state.gov Information on the Foreign Military Sales
program, military loans, military education and training programs,
military exercises, and other military issues can be obtained
through the web site of the U.S. Defense Department:
http://www.defenselink.mil
[ADDITIONAL LINKS WITH BACKGROUND ON DIEGO GARCIA
(provided by Africa Action)
Note: these diverse links include news stories, articles, and
official U.S. government sites, and are provided for background
only.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200301120001.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/200212270109.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/200210170049.html
http://www.awitness.org/news/november_2001/diego_garcia.html
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/36/index-eib.html
http://www.dg.navy.mil
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/diego-garcia.htm]
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Date distributed (ymd): 030307
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +security/peace+ +US policy focus+
The Africa Action E-Journal is a free information service
provided by Africa Action, including both original
commentary and reposted documents. Africa Action provides this
information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and
international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of
human rights.
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