webmaster
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2011
All rights reserved
From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Mon Apr 04 2011 - 19:34:46 EDT
Libya: AFRICOM's Combat Christening
The current intervention underway in Libya is the inaugural combat mission
for the US military's AFRICOM. While the Command's professed primary
objective has been to strengthen security cooperation with African
countries, many in sub-Saharan Africa see a more ominous agenda at work.
By John CK Daly for ISN Insights
------------------------------
After World War II, the US military carved up the globe outside its borders
into a series of Unified Combatant Commands (UCC) to project military power
and safeguard interests abroad. The UCC "areas of responsibility" include
United States Pacific Command (PACOM, founded 1947 in the wake of the
Pacific War), United States European Command (EUCOM, founded the same year),
United States Southern Command (SOCOM, founded in 1963 in the wake of
deteriorating relations with Cuba) and United States Central Command
(CENTCOM, 1983), covering most of Eurasia.
In 2008 they were joined by a fifth UCC when the United States Africa
Command (AFRICOM) became operational. Except for Egypt, which remains under
CENTCOM administration, AFRICOM is responsible for overseeing US military
operations and relations across the whole African continent and the island
nations of Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, the Comoros, Madagascar,
Mauritius and the Seychelles. Prior to the establishment of AFRICOM,
responsibility for continental Africa was divided between EUCOM and CENTCOM,
while PACOM had responsibility for Madagascar, the Comoros and Mauritius.
AFRICOM was established with the stated
intention<http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/>of strengthening
"security cooperation with Africa and creating
opportunities to bolster the capabilities of our partners in Africa. Africa
Command will enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people
of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education,
democracy, and economic growth in Africa."
The Libya conflict marks AFRICOM's inaugural military combat operation. The
Africa Command joins CENTCOM military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as
the third major US combat operation in the Muslim world in the last decade.
*Promoting security - or a scramble for resources?*
Some analysts have pointed
to<http://worlddefensereview.com/pham021507.shtml>the creation of a
specific Africa Command as testimony to the growing
strategic importance of Africa to US interests. Terrorism has ranked among
Washington's chief security concerns on the continent in recent decades,
driven primarily by the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya and the post-9/11 global "war on terror".
Following 9/11, the US military undertook anti-terrorist operations in the
Sahel (the east-to-west belt between the Sahara to the north and the
Sudanian Savanna to the south) and established a military presence in
Djibouti. US troops have also helped train anti-terrorism forces in Algeria,
Chad, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda among
other countries.
AFRICOM detractors have remained
skeptical<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/17/think_again_africom>about
the Command's true intentions, arguing that furthering access to
Africa's vast natural resources, particularly oil, and offsetting China's
expansive investment in the continent over the last decade are among the US'
chief strategic interests there. Indeed, Africa contains tremendous mineral
wealth, huge hydro-electrical power reserves and significantly
underdeveloped offshore resources. The majority of the world's diamonds,
gold and chromium are produced in countries at the southern end of the
continent. Africa's mineral riches include copper, bauxite, phosphate,
uranium, tin, iron ore, cobalt and titanium.
Of these myriad resources, however, nothing has captured foreign interests
as much as oil. By 2013, African oil production is projected to
rise<http://www.africa-union.org/root/AU/Conferences/Past/2006/November/infrastructure/doc/en/AU_EXP_OG_5_Fuelling_Eng.doc>to
10.7-11.4 million barrels per day (bpd), and by 2018 to 12.4-14.5
million
bpd. The US is currently Nigeria's biggest oil importer, and the National
Intelligence Council
predicts<http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2011/01/10/AFRICOMs-Gen-Ward-visits-Rwanda/UPI-20811294691533/>that
imports from the Gulf of Guinea will increase to more than 25 percent
of all US imports by 2015.
The US, however, is in increasing competition with China for access to
Africa's vast natural resource holdings. In fact, China has overtaken the US
to become Africa's largest trading partner, particularly in oil, accounting
for 73 percent of African exports. In 1995, Chinese imports from Africa were
worth <http://www.tralac.org/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?c=1694> $1.4 billion; 11 years
later, their value had
soared<tp://www.tralac.org/pdf/20070220_China_Africa_top20s2007.xls>to
$28.7 billion, a 2,000 percent increase.
*Regional perceptions*
>From its founding, African perceptions about AFRICOM's ultimate intentions
were mixed, and opinion was largely bifurcated - like the continent itself -
by the Sahara desert. The Arabic Maghreb, bordering the southern shore of
the Mediterranean, came out largely in support of AFRICOM; detractors were
mostly from black Africa to the south. African governments, along with many
observers in the West, expressed their concerns that AFRICOM was actually a
stealth operation to extend US military control across the continent with an
eye toward dominating its resources and keeping a closer eye on key
competitors like China.
A 2007 US Congressional Research Service
report<http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34003.pdf>on the creation
of AFRICOM laid bare the concerns of many African
governments:
*There has been considerable apprehension over US motivations for creating*
*AFRICOM, and some Africans worry that the move represents a neocolonial
effort to dominate the region militarily. US military efforts on the
continent have been seen as episodic, leading some to question a more
sustained focus from DOD [the US Department of Defense] now. Reports of US
air strikes in Somalia in recent years and US support for Ethiopia's
military intervention there have added to those concerns. Many view US
counter-terrorism efforts in Africa with skepticism, and there appears to be
a widespread belief that the new command's primary goals will be to hunt
terrorists and to secure US access to African oil. US foreign policy
analysts have focused increased attention on China's role in Africa in
recent years, and such attention has led some to question whether an Africa
Command might be part of a new contest for influence on the continent. *
In the intervening years, not much seems to have changed: In the "frequently
asked questions" section of its website, AFRICOM is almost too quick to ask
and answer inquries about an alleged agenda to control Africa's resources,
replying to queries like, "Is this [AFRICOM] an effort by the United States
to gain access to natural resources (e.g. petroleum)? Is this [AFRICOM] in
response to Chinese activities in Africa?" with a simple "No." But African
countries apparently remain unconvinced: Liberia is the only
one<http://allafrica.com/stories/201101240437.html>of the 53 countries
covered by AFRICOM's mandate to publicly offer to host
the Command - until now, its headquarters have been in Stuttgart, Germany.
The ongoing operation in Libya only seems to be reinforcing the notion that
AFRICOM is intent on promoting US strategic interests - not bringing "peace
and security to the people of Africa" as per its mission statement.
The Nigerian Foreign Minister Odein Ajumogobia pointed
to<http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE72L0J320110322>what he
viewed as the capriciousness of the Libyan mission: "The
contradictions between principle and national interest ... have enabled the
international community to impose a no-fly zone over Libya ostensibly to
protect innocent civilians from slaughter, but to watch seemingly helplessly
(in Ivory Coast) as ...men, women and children are slaughtered in equally,
even if less egregious, violence."
South African President Jacob Zuma stated
<http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Several-African-Leaders-Criticize-Air-Attacks-in-Libya-118435599.html>firmly
that his country said "no to the killing of civilians, no to the
regime-change doctrine and no to the foreign occupation of Libya or any
other sovereign state." This, even as his country, one of the non-permanent
members of the UN Security Council, voted for the resolution to impose a
no-fly zone over Libya.
It appears, then, that AFRICOM's inaugural mission - to help establish a
no-fly zone over Libya - has not only failed to convince sub-Saharan Africa
of its stated intentions to help promote peace and stability across the
region, but may actually serve to enhance resistance to US military presence
on the continent.
------------------------------
Dr John CK Daly is a non-resident Fellow at Johns Hopkins Central
Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington, DC. He received his PhD in Russian
and Middle Eastern studies from the University of London.
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----