Precious resources in need of protection

By Pierre Abramovici, Le Monde diplomatique, July 2004

United States: the new scramble for Africa

The United States is turning its diplomatic and military attention to Africa, not just to the continent's oil and natural gas supplies (although these represent an important future contribution to US energy supplies) but to its metal and industrial diamond resources. It is quietly establishing military training and equipment links with a number of countries to secure future supply lines.

THE United States, under the pretext of the war on terrorism, has boosted its presence in Africa. Washington has realised that it is dependent on strategic raw materials and is increasing political and military accords with the majority of African countries in an effort to secure its supply lines. The US army, oil companies and US security companies are winning. Despite this active encroachment on its former preserve, France seems to be adopting a passive stance.

On 23–24 March 2004 the chiefs of staff of Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal and Tunisia took part, for the first time, in a little publicised meeting at the headquarters of the US army's European command (US-Eucom) in Stuttgart. The meeting was described as unprecedented and its proceedings have remained secret: it dealt with military cooperation in the war on terrorism and focused on the Sahel, a buffer zone between the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa, between the oil fields of the north and those of the Gulf of Guinea.

The US political and military interest in Africa has increased significantly in recent years. That is clear from Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Gabon and Angola in September 2002 (he spent just one hour in each) and from President George Bush's tour of Senegal, Nigeria, Botswana, Uganda and South Africa in July 2003, as well as the tour of Ghana, Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, Namibia, Gabon, Sao Tomé, Niger and Tunisia by the deputy commander of US-Eucom, General Charles Wald, two weeks before the Stuttgart meeting.

More important was Washington's indirect involvement this March in a military operation by Sahel countries Mali, Chad, Niger and Algeria against the Salafist Group for preaching and combat (GSPC). The GSPC second in command, Ammari Safi, known as “Abderrazak the para”, is said to have been arrested in Chad in May (1). In June the Algerian army announced that it had killed Nabil Sahraoui, the GSPC's main leader. Like the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is on the US list of terrorist organisations, and is suspected by Washington of having links with al-Qaida. It came to public attention when it kidnapped 32 European tourists in the Algerian Sahara in early 2003. This year's operation was a first in Africa and confirmed the close cooperation between the US and Algeria.

Since January the US army has used substantial resources to support local troops in their struggle against the GSPC. This was organised as part of the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI), a military assistance programme which has run since November 2003 and has $6.5m funding for 2004. It is designed to help Mali, Chad, Niger and Mauritania combat smuggling, international crime and terrorism.

Some 250 tonnes of equipment and 350 soldiers were airlifted to the region over two weeks from the Rota airbase in Spain. Once troops and equipment arrived, air defence resources were made available from Royal Air Force bases in Mildenhall and Lakenheath in Britain.

Elements of the 32nd Special Operations Group, a unit linked to the CIA, were mobilised to protect the operation. In the weeks before, elements of the 10th Special Forces Group, based in Stuttgart, were sent to supervise training of Malian troops.

Colonel Victor Nelson, who oversees the programme for the US Defence Department's Office of International Security Affairs, explained that “the PSI is an important tool in the war on terrorism and has gone a long way to open doors and strengthen relationships, notably between Algeria and Mali, Niger and Chad, in a region we have largely ignored in the past. We have said for a long time that if you squeeze the terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other places, they will find new places to operate, and one of those places is the Sahel/Maghreb” (2).

In just nine months, from Bush's Africa visit to the Stuttgart conference, the US military commitment in Africa has clearly been intensified after being at a standstill during the post-cold war era. Washington has realised that it is dependent on raw materials from Africa: manganese (for steel production), cobalt and chrome vital for alloys (particularly in aeronautics), vanadium, gold, antimony, fluorspar and germanium—and for industrial diamonds.

Zaire and Zambia possess 50% of world cobalt reserves, and 98% of the world's chrome reserves are in Zimbabwe and South Africa. South Africa also accounts for 90% of reserves of metals in the platinum group (platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium). US thirst for oil will boost the importance of countries such as Angola and Nigeria.

After the failure of the US intervention in Somalia, from 9 December 1992 to 31 March 1994, President Bill Clinton relaunched US policy on Africa. The revived US interest was apparent when it hosted the first meeting between the heads of eight African regional organisations, plus 83 African ministers and their US counterparts in March 1999. The aim of the meeting in Washington was to strengthen the partnership between the US and Africa and encourage increased economic development, trade, investment, political reform and mutual economic growth (3).

Although terrorism was on the agenda because of the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, for which al-Qaida was held responsible, the main outcome of the meeting was the adoption of the African growth and opportunity Act, giving African products greater access to the US market.

A coherent system of military assistance

Less obvious was the gradual introduction, from the mid-1990s, of a coherent system of military assistance. In 1996 Washington created an African crisis response force, which was soon replaced by the African crisis response initiative (Acri) (4). Acri's official mandate is to provide both training for peace-keeping and humanitarian aid; “non-lethal” equipment was supplied. Acri was actually designed to modernise local armed forces and bring them into line with US norms, particularly in response to emerging terrorism in Africa. Its other purpose is to avoid a repeat of the Somalia disaster.

Although Acri is the creation of the US State Department, it is the US army's European Command that coordinates military resources, particularly the use of special forces. Private companies specialising in the sector, such as Logicon from the Northrop-Grumman group or Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI) provide logistical support, including equipment or specialist civilian personnel. MPRI is a private security consultancy whose directors include former US officers; it works for governments the world over, including in Iraq.

Although Acri claims to have humanitarian objectives, its programme coordinator is Colonel Nestor Pino-Marina, a former US officer with an impressive record. He is a Cuban exile who took part in the 1961 failed US landing in the Bay of Pigs. He is also a former special forces officer who served in Vietnam and Laos. During the Reagan era he belonged to the Inter-American Defence Board and, in the 1990s, he took part in clandestine operations against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, alongside the Contras. He was accused of having been involved in drug trafficking to fund arms sent to Central America.

The Acri training programme is designed to develop basic military capabilities, strengthen combat formations and boost headquarters organisation. The programme revolves around using the minimum equipment for the maximum training. It is based on six keys: standardisation, inter-operability, training the trainers, transparency, support and team working. There are plans to extend the training standards to programmes run by other countries such as France, Britain and Belgium, and to cooperate with them.

Between July 1997 and May 2000 Acri organised training for battalions (800-1,000 soldiers) in Senegal, Uganda, Malawi, Mali, Ghana, Benin and Ivory Coast. The US State Department provided some 8,000 soldiers with light equipment—electric generators, vehicles, mine detectors, night-vision gear—and especially with communications. In 2001–02 the programme received funds of $30m.

Acri is extending selective military or civilian assistance programmes, developed by the US since the early 1990s and managed by the Defence Department. That is the case in Mali.

In July 2001, 400 Senegalese soldiers were trained in psychological warfare as part of the Acri programme. According to Colonel Nestor Pino-Marina, “accepted doctrine commonly used in Nato is being absorbed” (5). Political and military seminars were arranged for 65 officers to enable them to understand how best to prepare for peacekeeping operations. The exercise culminated in the computer simulation, using satellite technology, of a crisis. Logicon devised the Janus programme on which the exercise was based. The objective is to bring integration and operability into line with Pentagon norms and to install US equipment over the long term.

The Pentagon moves in

But Acri is just one aspect of the US expanding its military commitment in Africa.The Africa centre for strategic studies, established in 1999, is a branch of the Pentagon's National Defence University, which trains high-level military personnel and civilian leaders (political leaders or the heads of associations and company bosses). The programmes cover civilian-military relations, national security and defence budgets. In May 2003 Mali was chosen to host a seminar on combating terrorism in the region. Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal took part. France and Germany were represented.

After the attacks of 11 September 2001, the US boosted military investment in Africa. The war on terrorism gave it the necessary pretext. As Bush made clear during his African tour in July 2003, “we will not allow terrorists to threaten African peoples, or to use Africa as a base to threaten the world” (6).

In spring 2002 the Bush administration transformed (or “reorganised”, as the Pentagon put it) Acri into Acota (Africa contingency operations training assistance). As well as peacekeeping and humanitarian aid, Acota includes offensive training, particularly for regular infantry units and small units modelled on special forces, as well as training for hostile environments. The African forces now have standardised attack equipment (assault rifles, machine guns and mortars). In Washington the talk is no longer of non-lethal weapons, as it was with Acri—the emphasis is on “offensive” cooperation.

While the forces deployed within the Acri framework were never placed in a situation in which their security was threatened, those in the Acota framework will have to be prepared to face danger, since they will be responsible for restoring peace (7). Acota is linked to the training centres of the joint combined arms training system (JCATS). Described as “indispensable”, they make it pos sible to maintain levels of qualification and military preparation; the first was opened in Abuja, in Nigeria, on 25 November 2003.

The JCATS are run by MPRI and are based on the use of sophisticated simulation software that mimics battlefield conditions. Nigeria and Canada are the only countries with JCATS software (8). According to Colonel Victor Nelson, former US military attaché to Nigeria and responsible for overseeing the Pan Sahel Initiative, this is an inexpensive way of providing officer training. Even countries with few resources can use JCATS. It involves bringing people together for a couple of weeks for war exercises, which the US military is already doing (9).

Besides Acota, 44 African countries are taking part in a programme specifically for officers. The international military education and training programme (Imet) provided training for more than 1,500 officers in 2002. For the main countries involved, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa, the total cost of Imet increased from $8m in 2001 to $11m in 2003. The Africa regional peacekeeping programme includes training in offensive tactics and the transfer of military technology. Between 2001 and 2003, it received funding estimated at $100m.

Markets and communication channels

US strategy in Africa has two main axes. The first is unlimited access to the key markets, energy and other strategic resources, and the second the military securing of communication channels, particularly to allow the transport of raw materials to the US. According to a former secretary of state for energy, James Schlesinger, at the 15th World Energy Council in September 1992, what the American people learned from the Gulf war was that it was far easier to kick people in the Middle East into line than to make sacrifices to limit US dependence on oil imports.

Clearly African oil interests the US (10). On 5 September 2002 Colin Powell travelled from Johannesburg, where he had been at the Earth Summit, to Luanda (Angola) and Libreville (Gabon), both oil-producing countries. Experts agree that over the next 10 years Africa will become the US's second-most important supplier of oil, and possibly natural gas, after the Middle East. At least until things calm down.

Two strategic routes are at the centre of US thought: in the west, the Chad-Cameroon pipeline and, in the east, the Higleig-Port Sudan pipeline. There is talk of building a pipeline linking Chad and Sudan.

In July 2003 an attempted coup in São Tomé and Principe, a small state rich in oil reserves and associated with Nigeria, triggered US intervention in the archipelago. Three months later, oil companies, mostly US ones, offered more than $500m to explore the deep waters of the Gulf of Guinea, shared by Nigeria and São Tomé and Principe. That was double what the countries had hoped for.

Shortly after, the US army announced a programme of aid to small local security forces. There is said to be the possibility of setting up a military base. The US Congress and Bush administration have formally declared the region of vital interest for the US. Washington has prepared the ground well, using the State and Defence Departments: the commander-in-chief of US-Eucom, General Carlton Fulford, went to São Tomé in October 2002 to look into the possibility of establishing a regional mandate in West Africa and MPRI is training coastguards in Guinea and Angola.

In Africa the US is trying to establish partnerships with all countries, using a range of pretexts. The US claims, for example, that the South African army would be incapable of conducting a large-scale operation because a large proportion of South African soldiers are infected with HIV, and further claims that Pretoria would need massive support from Washington to reinforce those unreliable elements. As a result, South Africa is preparing to rejoin the Acota programme. (Although not all South African soldiers can be afflicted since thousands of them are employed by private companies in Iraq as civilian back-up.)

In reality, it is South Africa's strategic position that is of interest to the US. During the cold war, Pretoria opened its bases to US armed forces, enabling Washington to control the Indian Ocean between Africa and the Diego Garcia naval base. It was also a vital element in the battle against African liberation movements that were suspected of attachment to Moscow. In 2001 US Ambassador Cameron Hume claimed that South African and the US shared a similar attachment to democracy, market economy and the search for a better future for all (11).

US military interventionism in Africa is encroaching on traditional zones of influence of the former colonial powers, including France. That competition is evident in Djibouti, one of the poorest countries in the world, a desert without resources, a country of no apparent interest were it not for its strategic position. It juts out into a maritime zone through which a quarter of world oil production passes (the Sudanese pipeline is nearby), and is also on the strategic strip between the Sahel and the Horn of Africa that Washington is trying to secure. Although France retains its main foreign military base, Camp Lemonier, in Djibouti, it has now become a permanent US base (12).

US-Eucom deputy commander General Charles Wald spends a lot of time in Africa. In March 2004 he travelled in a week to Morocco, Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, Namibia, Gabon, São Tomé, Ghana, Niger and Tunisia. At a press conference held in Washington for African journalists, he stressed that the US and France had many interests in common: “They’re francophile countries that obviously have strong lineage and history with France. The French would be involved in that respect” (13). Not the most stylish way of allocating responsibilities and establishing a US political presence in Africa.

Notes

(1) Announced by Chad on 18 May, the arrest was confirmed only by Germany relying on sources in Chad.

(2) Jim Fisher-Thompson, “US-African partnership helps counter terrorists in Sahel region”, Washington File, US Department of State Information Service.

(3) US-Africa Ministerial Conference: A partnership for the 21st century. http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/af…

(4) See Philippe Leymarie, “Washington sets out to conquer “virgin territory””, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, March 1998.

(5) Charles Cobb Jr, “Brigade Level Peacekeeping Exercise Begins”, www.All.Africa.com, 10 July 2001.

(6) Washington File, US Department of State Information Service, 16 July 2003.

(7) Jim Fisher-Thompson, Washington File, US Department of State Information Service, 3 December 2002.

(8) Jim Fisher-Thompson, op cit.

(9) International Information Program, State Department, Washington, 26 March 2004.

(10) See Jean-Christophe Servant, “The new Gulf oil states”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, January 2003.

(11) Washington File, US Department of State Information Service, 1 November 2001.

(12) See Philippe Leymarie, “Djibouti: a new army behind the wire”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, February 2003.

(13) Washington File, US Department of State Information Service, 8 March 2004