Africa Week in Review – March 14th, 2014 Share This /

Two major and several smaller U.S. military trainings are ongoing in Africa, while the United States condemned human rights abuses by security forces in Sudan and Burundi. Read about this and other security related news in Africa in the past week:

Updates regarding U.S. military deployment in Africa

• U.S. naval forces trained African and European maritime partners in the fourth annual multinational exercise, Saharan Express 2014. The exercise, located off the coast of Cape Verde and Senegal, focused on maritime cooperation and expertise. According to U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), Saharan Express has grown steadily every year in size and complexity.
• U.S. Africa Command provided an update from Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, stating that the joint task force model represents the “new normal” of U.S. Department of Defense operations. The joint task force builds a network across the military, which works to “enable [the U.S. military and partners] to neutralize the extremist network” in Africa. (Video)
• The Los Angeles Times reported the U.S. sent 50 special operations troops to a remote base in western Tunisia in order to train Tunisian troops in counter-terrorism tactics. This deployment, the LA Times noted, represents how the U.S. presence is growing in a multitude of small ways, which include troops in remote forward operating bases and an increasing drone presence.
•  AFRICOM commander General David Rodriguez made a case that AFRICOM is lacking surveillance aircraft and reconnaissance capabilities, with only eleven percent of the command’s needs being met.
• General Rodriguez confirmed that the U.S. has at least three senior military trainers in Somalia in an effort to train the Somali national forces.
• U.S. military training exercise, Flintlock 2014, which trains 1,000 different troops from across Africa and Europe, finished this week in Niger.  See Reuters’ photo-coverage.

Quick news hits from across Africa:

• The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a Resolution on the crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR) introduced by U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), which condemns the violence, applauds international peacekeeping efforts in the country and calls on President Obama to design a strategy for post-conflict stabilization.
• U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay visited Nigeria for the first time, where the conflict with Boko Haram is amounting to a “state of war” (see Foreign Policy’s new data driven violence map). Commissioner Pillay accused the Nigerian security forces of human rights violations, which  “create fertile ground for Boko Haram to cultivate new recruits.”
• According to Nigeria’s Daily Trust, the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency will partner with the U.S. office of Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) to strengthen the country’s disaster and pandemic emergency capacities.
• The U.S. and the United Nations condemned the Burundi government for political violence ahead of elections, including using police to violently break up peaceful gatherings of civil society groups.
• Fighting resumed in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the government is conducting attacks on resistance forces and civilians in Darfur. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Powers joined the UN in condemning the Sudanese government’s attack on civilians. Powers further criticized the Sudanese government for obstructing the peacekeeping work of the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), and called on UNAMID to “carry out its mandate more aggressively.”
• The U.S. Department of State praised the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali and stated its continued support: “As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the largest financial contributor to peacekeeping missions, the United States has a major stake in their success.”
• The U.S. Department of State published its World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT) report, which covers the years 2000 through 2010.
• Economist William Easterly wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that criticizes U.S. willingness to support regimes with dire human rights records, using Ethiopia as one example. Despite the fact that the country “ranks near the bottom of rights and freedom measures,” it received significant security assistance up until 2010 and continues to receive economic assistance.
• The South African Daily Maverick ran an exposé analyzing how al-Shabab is changing and what factors are driving the change.
• Britain announced that it would station drones being withdrawn from Afghanistan in Africa.