Africa - Week in Review April 4, 2014 Share This /

This week the United States conducted several trainings, U.S. Africa Command held a detailed press briefing, and a high delegation travelled to Central Africa. Read about these and other news in our week in review:

U.S. Policy in Africa this week

• The United States trained several African security forces this week, including forces from Mauritania, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. See our post on U.S. training in Africa for more information about these trainings and others.   
• U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) Commander General David M. Rodriguez and Deputy Assistant Secretary Of Defense For African Affairs Amanda J. Dory gave a press conference on Tuesday. Some noteworthy statements:
  • General Rodriguez on U.S. troops on the ground: “Day to day [the U.S. has] between 5,000 and 6,000 [forces in Africa.] And it fluctuates based on exercises and training and, you know, the time of year.”

General Rodriguez also affirmed that the United States is in the process of establishing a base like the one in Djibouti in West Africa.

• Deputy Assistant Secretary Dory on the need for more civic engagement:

The resources that State Department and USAID use for their democracy and governance programs… those resources are minuscule. These are the types of resources that help in terms of promoting civic action, freedom of the press, independent electoral commissions in various countries…

And I think from a DOD perspective, we understand that elections, good elections, serve as a conflict prevention mechanism….

I would be advocating for additional resources for the democracy and governance accounts.

• The White House announced sanctions against individuals who threaten peace or commit human rights violations in South Sudan. Leading Senators and U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power welcomed the move. Neither side of the ongoing conflict in South Sudan expressed concern, as neither saw its party as the one responsible for the bloodshed and atrocities.
• April 7, 2014 marked the 20^th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide. U.S. President Barack Obama commemorated the event in Washington D.C., while a high-level U.S. delegation traveled to the country.  The U.S. government released several statements of solidarity, including from President Obama, Secretary Kerry and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Samantha Power.
• Samantha Power visited Burundi this week, where she lauded the country’s progress in building interethnic relations. Power also addressed U.S. concerns with recent violence around electioneering events and promised $7.5 million in assistance for the Burundian electoral process.
• Todd David Robinson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of International Narcotics and Enforcement Affairs of the U.S. State Department, praised police reform during his visit to Liberia this week. According to Front Page Africa, the United States delivered  $14,000 worth of counternarcotic assistance and equipment to support the country’s efforts against drug trafficking this week as well.
• Chief of Defense for the Ghana Armed Forces visited the headquarters of AFRICOM to discuss U.S. security assistance and training.
• The U.S. Senate passed a resolution (S.Res.470) calling on reinforced international engagement to find resolutions to the ongoing conflicts in Chad, Central African Republic and Sudan.
• The U.S. Coast Guard delivered the cutter Gallatin to the Nigerian Navy.

Security News from Across Africa

• Kenya started rounding up over a thousand Somali residents in Nairobi. The government detained them incommunicado and started deporting at least some of them to Somalia. Experts in the Horn of Africa warned that such heavy-handed counterterrorism tactics might radicalize Somali refugees. U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, Robert Godec, called on Kenyan security forces to respect human rights during security operations.
• With U.S. support, the UN Security Council approved a new 12,000-strong Peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic to take over operations from the current African Union peacekeeping force, known as MISCA, by September 15.  This week, the United States delivered over a dozen vehicles to MISCA and promised another 200.
• After recent Amnesty International allegations that the Nigerian military killed hundreds of unarmed detainees, Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission accused security forces of extrajudicial killings in a raid conducted last September in Abuja, the capital. Nigeria’s primary Muslim civil society organization, the Jama'atu Nasril Islam, accused the military of regularly conducting extrajudicial killings “on a mere whim of unsubstantiated suspicion.” The military denies these charges.
• During an attack on the Puntland airport in Somalia, two employees of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime died. The United States strongly condemned the killings and called for an investigation.
• Somalia analyst Paul D. Williams examined the state of Somalia’s army. He noted the difficulty of building a centralized army in a state with no legitimate central government as well as the disconnect between the short-term security focused build-up of the army, and the long-term need for a sustainable security sector with a smaller army and a more efficient police force.