OLITICS-UN: Africa Seeks Help for Training in Peacekeeping

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 31 1999 (IPS) - African countries, distressed by a rash of new conflicts across the continent, are looking for international financial and logistical aid to develop their own peacekeeping forces.

Ugandan Foreign Minister Amama Mbabazi told reporters that his country welcomed U.S. military training currently being provided to strengthen African military forces in peacekeeping roles. “Uganda fully supported that idea,” he added.

For years, he said, African states looked to the outside world for assistance in resolving their problems. “It’s high time we develop the military capacity to sort out our own problems.”

This year, Washington was providing about 8.1 million dollars in outright grants to 39 of the 52 African countries for military education and training – about the same as last year but up from 7.1 million dollars in 1997.

U.S. military grants this year went to: South Africa (800,000 dollars), Senegal (735,000 dollars), Ethiopia (575,000 dollars), Botswana (450,000 dollars) and Eritrea (425,000 dollars). Additionally, Uganda, Ghana, and Kenya are receiving about 400,000 dollars each.

In its 1999 “Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations”, the U.S. State Department said that one of the key impediments to development in Africa had been the persistence of conflict.

“We seek to strengthen institutions and mechanisms for conflict resolution in Africa and to build African peacekeeping capacity,” the report said.

The only African peacekeeping force currently active in Africa remained the 15,000-strong Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) which is trying to prop up the besieged government of Sierra Leone.

ECOMOG troops came from Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Gambia and Mali while countries providing financial and logistical support to ECOMOG included the United States Netherlands, Canada and britain.

Currently, Nigeria is the largest single contributor of troops and funding for ECOMOG.

Last month Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to the international community to provide both funding and military equipment to save ECOMOG from collapsing for want of support.

Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari of Nigeria told the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations last week that since it was impossible for the United Nations to singlehandedly meet its Charter obligations in the areas of international peace and security, it needed the assistance of regional organisations and arrangements to manage crises in different parts of the world.

“That is why there is great wisdom in improving the cooperation between the United Nations and regional organisations,” he said.

Gambari pointed out to “the tremendous success achieved by ECOMOG in solving the Liberian crisis” and its current involvement in helping to restore the democratically elected government in Sierra Leone.

“My country lost over 200 soldiers there, while over 3.0 billion dollars was spent to finance the operation,” he added.

In ECOMOG, the West African region had “an effective mechanism which has proved itself” regional peacekeeping efforts could succeed only with concrete financial and logistical support from the international community, Gamari said.

He called on the United nations to promote and support similar efforts in other regions so as to fulfil the shared goal of the maintenance of international peace and security.

Ambassador Michel Kafando of Burkina Faso said one way of remedying the situation in Africa is to entrust crisis management to regional and subregional organisations. “Africa has matured and proven its capacity in that regard,” he said.

Kafando said that at least three regional organisations – ECOMOG, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – were playing important roles in conflict resolution and peacekeeping in the region. Only the OAU includes all 52 African states.

South African delegate Leslie Gumbi told the Committee that his government planned to establish a National Office for the Coordination of Peace Missions within the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Some 6,000 South African military personnel and 15 foreign ministry officials had undergone training in peacekeeping, conflict resolution and civil/military relations over the last three years, he said.

Gumbi said that a number of humanitarian peacekeepers had also received special training. Additionally, some 2,000 South African troops, police officers and civilians are expected to participate in a military exercise codenamed Blue Crane. The exercise, scheduled for April 19-26, would involve 14 SADC countries, 10 non-SADC countries and and about 10 non-African partner countries.

Speaking on behalf of the 15-member European Union, Ambassador Dieter Kastrup of Germany said that, while it was important to strengthen African peacekeeping capacity, “this does not mean that the international community can be relieved of its collective responsibility in the maintenance of peace and security.”

Kastrup pointed out that in its 50-year history of peacekeeping missions, the United Nations has deployed more operations in Africa than in any other single region. These include UN operations in the Congo, Somalia, Eritrea, Uganda-Rwanda, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola and Liberia. Currently, there are 22 African states contributing about 2,500 troops to UN peacekeeping operations.

In a report of African peacekeeping capacity released last week, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that a major problem facing efficient deployment of African peacekeeping operations has been the availability of logistical capacity.

“Effective measures would need sustained and coordinated partnerships between African and non-African states,” he concluded.