http://www.frontline.in/stories/20120907291706300.htm
WORLD AFFAIRS
This time for Africa
JOHN CHERIAN
The United States makes a scramble for the African continent to set up a
string of military bases.
JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP
At a demonstration in the Kasenyi military base in Kampala on August 3, an
Ugandan soldier holds a small U.S.-made drone that the Ugandan military
uses in Somalia to fight Al Qaeda-linked militants.
It was clear by 2007 that Washington had once again turned its attention to
the African continent with renewed vigour. The decision that year by the
George W. Bush administration to set up the Africa Command (AFRICOM) was a
signal of Washington’s intent to set up a string of military bases in
Africa. American interest in the African continent had waned considerably
after the end of the Cold War.
Until the early 1990s, the United States and its Western allies tried their
best to derail the liberation movements that had come to power in countries
such as Angola and Mozambique. The West propped up authoritarian, corrupt
and racist regimes during this period. Until the very end, the Ronald
Reagan administration supported the apartheid regime in South Africa and
its occupation of Namibia. Mobutu Sese Seko, the kleptomaniac who
controlled the vast riches of the Congo, was a long-standing ally of the
West.
In the past decade, as countries such as China, Brazil and India turned
their diplomatic and trade focus on the continent, which is blessed with a
great variety of mineral resources, the U.S. decided to make its mark
forcefully. Since 2007, Washington has used the “war on terror” to extend
its military reach. Initially, its military moves were restricted to the
Horn of Africa, where Islamist militants have emerged as the main fighting
force in the long-running civil war in Somalia. Today, however, American
forces operate covertly and sometimes overtly in sub-Saharan Africa. There
were overt operations in Somalia and Libya, where U.S. Special Forces
helped tilt the balance in favour of puppet regimes.
The emergence of South Sudan as an independent “client” state of the U.S.
has come as a boost for policy planners at the Pentagon. The creation of
the new state was virtually the handiwork of the Bush administration, which
forced the central government in Sudan to agree to the dismemberment of the
country in 2005. Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti and Ethiopia are now firmly
aligned with the U.S. and are facilitating the American build-up in the
region.
The regime change in Libya has been a feather in the cap for U.S. military
planners. Slain Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi had played an important role
in convincing the African Union to protest strongly against the presence of
AFRICOM on the continent. “Operation Odyssey Dawn”, the military operation
that led to his overthrow, was led by AFRICOM. The new Libyan regime is
indebted to the West for its existence. The strategic location of the
country will be of vital importance for the U.S. military as it expands its
footprints on the continent.
Speaking at a conference in 2008, U.S. Vice Admiral Robert Moeller declared
that the setting up of AFRICOM was to preserve “the free flow of oil and
natural resources from Africa to the global market”. Two years later, in an
article in Foreign Policy magazine, he was even more explicit: “Let there
be no mistake. AFRICOM’s job is to protect American lives and promote
American interests.”
As of now, the U.S. only admits to having one formal base on the continent
– Camp Lemonnier in the small Republic of Djibouti located in the Horn of
Africa. But it is common knowledge that U.S. soldiers operate from other
countries in the region, helping the troops of client states in their
ongoing battles with various rebel groups. Ethiopia launched a full-scale
invasion of Somalia at the behest of the U.S. to dislodge a moderately
Islamist government that had briefly brought an end to the civil conflict.
Last year, it was the turn of the Kenyan army to invade Somalia, again at
the U.S’ instance, to liberate towns and areas that were under the control
of Al Shabab, the Islamist militant group that has emerged as a powerful
resistance force. American drones and planes are being used freely to
target the leaders of Al Shabab. Military drones take off on assignments in
Somalia from the U.S. base in the island nation of Seychelles.
There are reports that the Americans are now getting ready to help Ethiopia
launch another war of aggression against neighbouring Eritrea. The U.S.
describes the country as a “destabilising” force in the region. Eritrea is
among the few countries on the African continent to have refused to kowtow
to the diktats of Washington. In 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton threatened to “take action” against Eritrea for allegedly helping
Al Shabab. The United Nations’ monitors dispatched to Eritrea, however,
found no evidence of this. The U.S. then persuaded the U.N. Security
Council to impose sanctions on the impoverished country. Despite the
absence of any evidence to back the American claims, the sanctions on
Eritrea have not been lifted. The U.S. claims that the punitive sanctions
have forced the Eritrean government to stop aiding the Somali resistance,
and, therefore, they should remain.
Lily pads
The Americans admit to having “lily pads” on the African continent. Though
not formal bases, these are small facilities with a limited number of
troops and pre-positioned weapons. One such is on the island nation of Sao
Tome and Principe, just off the West African coast. U.S. officials compare
this base to the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean. Diego
Garcia has played an important role in ensuring American military
domination in the Persian Gulf region.
There has been pressure on India too from the U.S. to secure “lily pad”
facilities. “Around the world, from Djibouti to the jungles of the
Honduras, the deserts of Mauritania, the Pentagon has been pursuing as many
lily pad bases as it can, as fast as it can,” wrote David Vine of
Washington University.
There are reports of injured American soldiers being flown in from the Horn
of Africa to military hospitals in Europe. There have been many U.S.
Special Forces and commando missions inside Somalia in recent years. The
Ugandan airport in Entebbe has been increasingly used since 2009 for
surveillance missions in the African continent.
Within a month of the killing of Qaddafi in October 2011, the U.S.
announced that it would be sending troops to four African countries –
Central African Republic, Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic
of Congo. The U.S. has already deployed some 100 to 200 troops in Uganda to
help the government there defeat the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and
capture or kill its notorious leader, Joseph Kony.
JOE PENNEY/REUTERS
Members of the Senegalese army listening to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton's speech in Dakar on August 1.
The remnants of the LRA troops are mostly concentrated in neighbouring
South Sudan and Central African Republic. The U.S. is believed to have a
troop presence in these countries too. A senior U.S. military official told
Nick Turse, an American investigative reporter, that the soldiers had been
positioned in these countries at the request of the host governments.
There were reports in the American media of three Special Forces personnel
being killed in northern Mali in April. Since an American-trained military
officer led a coup in Mali in March this year, the country has been
witnessing a conflict as the northern part dominated by the Tuareg ethnic
group declared independence. Today, the dominant force in towns such as
Timbuktu and Gao are militant Islamist groups like Ansar Dine, which
Washington has deemed to be hostile to its interests.
Training exercises
Washington also conducts counterterrorism training in many African
countries and arms their armies. They include the armies of Burkina Faso,
Tunisia, Chad, Mauritania and Niger. AFRICOM is scheduled to complete 14
important training exercises in 2012 with countries such as Morocco,
Cameroon, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Senegal and Nigeria.
The U.S. has been funnelling increasing amounts of military aid to friendly
African states to fight terrorism. The Pentagon has given $82 million in
counterterrorism aid to Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and Djibouti. According to
reports in the American media, the U.S. is planning to introduce more
conventional forces into Africa next year. “Special Forces have a
particular capability in this area, but not the capacity to fulfil the
demand, and we think that we can fulfil the demand by using conventional
forces,” Col. Andrew Dennis of the U.S. Army told a reporter. The U.S.
newspaper Army Times reported that 3,000 American soldiers would be
deployed in Africa by next year.
President Barack Obama rarely mentions AFRICOM in his speeches despite
turning the continent into a military playground for the U.S. Army. Along
with his Secretary of State, he has kept on lecturing Africans that all the
problems they face are because of bad governance and corruption. The main
priority of the U.S., according to its President, is building “democratic
structures”.
Partnering the U.S. enthusiastically on this issue is the Indian
government. In many countries, especially those aligned with the U.S.,
Indian officials are actively involved in training government and civil
society members with the help of funds coming from the U.S. State
Department in many instances.
Hillary Clinton, on a tour of friendly African countries in early August,
suggested in a speech in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, that some countries
were out to exploit the natural resources of the continent while “America
stands up for democracy and universal human rights even when it might be
easier to look the other way and keep the resources flowing”.
Countries such as China and Brazil prefer to invest in infrastructure
projects in a big way while loosening their purse strings to give
developmental aid at very low interest rates.
By the way, Washington’s closest allies in the region today are
authoritarian rulers who brook no dissent. They include Paul Kagame, the
President of Rwanda; Yoweri Museveni, the long-ruling President of Uganda;
and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, who has been rigging elections
ever since ousting Mengistu Haile Merriam in the early 1990s.
Received on Tue Aug 21 2012 - 17:31:34 EDT
