As mentioned in my previous blog, over 25 Members of Congress (MoC) are traveling across Sub-Saharan Africa this month. Countries visited will include Ethiopia, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, and Liberia. The trips provides the chance for MoCs – many of them for the first time – to see first-hand the programs and activities being implemented on the ground through the security assistance funding that they appropriate.
In...
The following is a round-up of some of the top articles and news highlights from around the region over the past week.
U.S. policy
Haiti travel warning
- The U.S. Department of State issued a new Haiti travel advisory on August 13 that warned ...
Adam looks at the Secretary of State's visit to Colombia and Brazil, the early release of a Mexican drug-trafficker who killed a U.S. agent, and some recent episodes pointing to worsening political polarization in Venezuela.
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On August 11, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, IRIN, published an article arguing that military training in Democratic Republic of the Congo cannot occur in the absence of larger security sector and governance reform. The piece,Can the DRC army stop abusing human rights?, contended “Stamping out human rights abuses by the army in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) entails more than classroom training sessions.”
IRIN noted...
Amid deteriorating relations between the United States and Russia, one project has stood out as a remarkable example of cooperation: Russia’s help in transiting U.S. and NATO non-lethal military goods to and from Afghanistan. Russia is a key part of the “Northern Distribution Network,” the system of transit routes that coalition countries in Afghanistan, led by the U.S., have set up to facilitate the supply of their forces in Afghanistan. And a year ago, Russia did what had been nearly unthinkable: it allowed NATO to set up a transit facility in the Volga River city of Ulyanovsk....
- According to Defense News, the U.S. Department of Defense is considering dissolving the Africa Command, in response to budget pressures. The article notes that “the plans for combatant command realignment and consolidation are still nominal,” but one option includes moving the responsibility of Africa to Central and European Command. A defense official told Defense News that “Combining combatant commands is certainly not something that we want to do, but something that we have to consider because all cuts have to be on the table.” Read more ...