Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 00:20:37 +0200
Carter Discusses Security Partnership With Leaders in Ethiopia
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, July 26, 2013 - Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter
met with senior government and military leaders here to discuss the
U.S.-Ethiopia security partnership and shared interests in East African
security challenges, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said today in a
statement.
Carter's July 23-24 visit to this Horn of Africa country was the final leg
of a three-country trip that began in Israel and included a stop in Uganda.
The deputy secretary is the highest-ranking Defense Department official to
visit Ethiopia in more than a decade, Little said.
"My visit here to Addis represents not only the increasing importance we
place on our partnership with Ethiopia, but the importance we place on the
role of the African Union also in addressing Africa's security challenges,
be it Somalia, Mali, the troubled Sudans, or the Central African Republic,"
Carter said after a meeting last night with Prime Minister Hailemariam
Desalegn.
Carter characterized the U.S.-Ethiopia partnership as an important bilateral
relationship and expressed gratitude to Hailemariam for the critical role
Ethiopia has played in addressing regional challenges in Somalia and the
Sudans.
"Ethiopia and the United States have shared interests in these countries and
we continue to explore additional ways that we can work together to tackle
East Africa's security challenges," the deputy secretary said.
"I'd like to note that my government recognizes Africa's strategic
importance," he added, "and we at the Department of Defense recognize its
strategic importance today and [for] the future."
Carter and Hailemariam also discussed next steps in response to recent
events in South Sudan and exchanged views on the African Peace and Security
Architecture, maritime security, and conflicts in Somalia, Mali, the Central
African Republic and Africa's Great Lakes region. The African Peace and
Security Architecture is an ongoing Africa-AU framework for crisis
management on the African continent.
A senior defense official said that Ethiopia is not a formal partner in the
African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, called AMISOM, it has forces
in Somalia and was the first of Somalia's neighbors to respond against
al-Shabaab, even before the African Union pulled together what now is
AMISOM. Al-Shabaab is an al-Qaida-linked militant group and U.S.-designated
foreign terrorist organization fighting to create a fundamentalist Islamic
state in Somalia.
"The Ethiopians are the No. 1 peacekeeping contributor in Africa at this
point in terms of number of forces," the official added. "They have
substantial forces involved in South Sudan and in Sudan, and they've been
involved diplomatically there as well."
Carter also met with Chief of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces Gen.
Samora Yenus to discuss the critical role Ethiopia has played in stabilizing
Somalia and providing peacekeepers along the border between Sudan and South
Sudan.
While in Addis Ababa, home of the African Union headquarters, the deputy
secretary met with Erastus Mwencha, deputy chairperson of the African Union
Commission, the most senior DOD leader ever to visit the AU. The African
Union, made up of 54 African states, this year celebrated the 50th
anniversary of its original Organization of African Unity. The AU took the
place of the OAU nearly a decade ago, and one of its objectives is to
promote peace, security and stability on the continent.
At the AU, Carter thanked Mwencha for the African Union's leadership in
tackling Africa's security challenges.
The deputy secretary also met with alumni from the Africa Center for
Strategic Studies in Addis, founded in 1999 and one of five DOD regional
centers.
The ACSS is an agency within DOD that serves as a link between military and
civilians involved in the security sector from across Africa, Europe and the
United States, according to center literature. The goal is to bring people
together to maintain a global network of professionals with a shared
commitment to addressing security-related challenges facing Africa.
At a breakfast yesterday morning, Carter met with ACSS alumni from across
the continent who offered their perspectives on Africa's progress in
addressing its security and development challenges.
"My job in the Department of Defense is to let people have the basic
security that allows everything else in life to be possible -- economic
development, political development, personal development, community
development and everything else," he told the alumni.
None of that is possible, he said, unless people can wake up every morning
and go to work and take their children to school and do all kinds of
everyday activities in a safe environment. A few places in the world are
blessed with such security, and after a while begin to take it for granted,
he added, and people who don't have it think of nothing else.
"So our job in part is to provide that security. Here in Africa, there are
so many sources of insecurity and certainly the United States military is
not the answer to them," Carter said. "We try to make contributions where we
can, where you teach us that would be a useful thing to do, and I'm very
open to that.
"We in the United States are increasingly turning our thoughts to Africa,"
he continued, "because we recognize that this is one of the places that is
going to determine its future and our future by trade and culture and many
other things."
<http://www.defense.gov/DODCMSShare/NewsStoryPhoto/2013-07/scr_130724-M-EV63
7-333c.jpg> Beschreibung: Click photo for screen-resolution image
Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter meets with Gen. Samora Yenus, chief of
staff for Ethiopia's defense forces, at the Ethiopian National Defense Force
headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, July 24, 2013. DOD photo by Marine
Corps Sgt. Aaron Hostutler
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);
<http://www.defense.gov/DODCMSShare/NewsStoryPhoto/2013-07/hrs_130724-M-EV63
7-333c.jpg> high-resolution image available.
(image/jpeg attachment: image001.jpg)