United States Africa Command

Public Affairs Office

23 March 2010

USAFRICOM - related news stories

TOP NEWS RELATED TO U.S. AFRICA COMMAND AND AFRICA

U.S. contractor flies AU peacekeepers to Somalia (Stars and Stripes)

STUTTGART, Germany — U.S.-contracted flights, working under the NATO banner,
ferried some 1,700 Ugandan troops into Mogadishu, Somalia, last week in response to
an African Union request for transportation support, alliance officials said in a news
release.

AFRICA: The Mother of All PMC (Huffington Post)

With all the attention being paid to private military and security contractors working in
Iraq and Afghanistan it is easy to forget they operate in other parts of the world. But it
would be wrong to do so. While PMCs are to the best of my knowledge not, at least not
yet, operating in the Arctic, they are just about everywhere else.

Angola police officers jailed for 24 years for killings (BBC)

Seven Angola police officers have been sentenced to 24 years in jail each for killing eight
men - in a rare case of police brutality being punished.

Sudan's Omar al-Bashir 'will expel poll observers' (BBC)

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has threatened to kick out foreign election monitors,
after they suggested next month's vote should be delayed.

Sudan police surround Khartoum camp-residents (Reuters)

KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudanese police demolished the homes and surrounded the
residents of a refugee camp in the outskirts of Khartoum on Monday, just three weeks
ahead of the first multi-party polls in 24 years, residents said.

Kenya: Terror Suspect Might Have Fled to Uganda (Daily Nation)

NAIROBI - A terror suspect who escaped from police custody in Busia is believed to
have fled to Uganda, while three police officers suspected to have let him escape have
been suspended.

Nigeria: Cabinet Change - 21 Ministers to Return (This Day)

ABUJA, Nigeria — The federal cabinet may roar back to life this week as Acting
President Goodluck Jonathan is set to retain 21 of the 42 ministers relieved of their jobs
last week following the dissolution of the Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF).

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website

• In Darfur, UN blue helmets support school project with delivery of water

• Sierra Leone takes steps to combat drug trafficking and corruption – UN
official
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

WHEN/WHERE: Wednesday, March 24; 2:30 p.m.; Washington, D.C.

WHAT: Senate Armed Services Hearing
WHO: Admiral Robert F. Willard, U.S. Pacific Command; General Kevin P. Chilton,
U.S. Strategic Command; General Walter L. Sharp, Commander, United Nations
Command/Combined Forces Command/U.S. Forces Korea.
Info: http://armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=4483

WHEN/WHERE: Wednesday, March 24; 3:30 p.m.; Washington, D.C.

WHAT: Hearing on "An Overview of U.S. Policy in Africa" - House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health
WHO: Honorable Johnnie Carson, Department of State; Mr. Earl Gast, U.S. Agency for
International Development; Panel II, Princeton N. Lyman, Council on Foreign Relations;
Mr. Almami Cyllah, International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
Info: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing_notice.asp?id=1168

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FULL ARTICLE TEXT

U.S. contractor flies AU peacekeepers to Somalia (Stars and Stripes)

STUTTGART, Germany — U.S.-contracted flights, working under the NATO banner,
ferried some 1,700 Ugandan troops into Mogadishu, Somalia, last week in response to
an African Union request for transportation support, alliance officials said in a news
release.

The troop movements were made as government officials in the Somali capital are
preparing to launch a military offensive to reclaim parts of the city from al-Shabaab —
an extremist group with al-Qaida links.

The airlift, which ran from March 5 through March 16, was conducted by the U.S.-
contracted DynCorp International. In addition to shuttling troops into Somalia, the
airlift also flew 850 Ugandan troops out of Mogadishu, NATO said.
Tensions have been on the rise in Mogadishu as the fragile Somali transitional
government has been unable to turn the tide against Islamic extremist groups that seek
to seize control of the country and impose a harsh form of Sharia law. And as AU forces
dig in for the upcoming fight, a March 10 report by the U.N. Monitoring Group of
Somalia raises questions about whether Somalia’s weak security forces and
dysfunctional government are capable of achieving any significant gains.

“The military stalemate is less a reflection of opposition strength than of the weakness
of the Transitional Federal Government. Despite infusions of foreign training and
assistance, government security forces remain ineffective, disorganized and corrupt,”
the report stated. “The government owes its survival to the small African Union peace
support operation, AMISOM, rather than to its own troops.”

NATO has a standing agreement to provide strategic sealift and airlift support for AU
troop-contributing countries that deploy to Somalia. Currently, there are more than
5,000 AU troops operating in there.

There also has been widespread speculation that the U.S. military could become more
involved in the conflict, supporting the Somali government by planting military
advisers in the country and conducting surgical special operations forces strikes against
the extremists. But earlier this month, Johnnie Carson, U.S. assistant secretary of state
for African affairs, told reporters that there were no plans for the U.S. military to
become directly engaged in Somalia.

“The United States does not plan, does not direct, and it does not coordinate the
military operations of the (Transitional Federal Government), and we have not and will
not be providing direct support for any potential military offensives,” Carson said.
“Further, we are not providing nor paying for military advisers for the TFG. There is no
desire to Americanize the conflict in Somalia.”

So far, U.S. Africa Command’s work in the region has mainly been in the form of
providing training to AU peacekeepers, who then deploy to Somalia.

Meanwhile, NATO’s last significant airlift contribution to the AU effort in Somalia was
in 2008 when a battalion of Burundian peacekeepers were transported to Mogadishu,
according to NATO.

NATO also has five warships operating in the region as part of its counterpiracy
mission.
-----------------------
AFRICA: The Mother of All PMC (Huffington Post)
With all the attention being paid to private military and security contractors working in
Iraq and Afghanistan it is easy to forget they operate in other parts of the world. But it
would be wrong to do so. While PMCs are to the best of my knowledge not, at least not
yet, operating in the Arctic, they are just about everywhere else.

And one region where they are increasingly prominent is Africa, the region most closely
identified with the modern private security contractor. This is the region that produced
the now disbanded Executive Outcomes, the most famous PMC in modern history. Just
as Africa is the birthplace of humanity it is also the birthplace of the modern PMC.

While EO no longer exists the use of PMC by the U.S. and commercial firms has steadily
increased.

One impetus for the growth of PMC there was the Pentagon's October 2007
establishment of AFRICOM (United States African Command), the U.S. military's most
recent unified command. To its credit, unlike other unified commands, AFRICOM,
responsible for military relations with 53 African nations, focuses on war-prevention,
rather than war-fighting. But because the U.S. military deliberately chooses to keep a
small military presence in Africa it must rely to a greater degree on private contractors.

As Aviation Week reported on March 17:

The prospect of a mass deployment of U.S. contractors is worrisome to more than a few
observers outside of Africom. Contractors have generally performed creditably in Iraq
and Afghanistan, but their presence raises issues pertaining to control of their activities,
which authority--U.S. or local--has legal responsibility for them and, of course, their
cost. Many observers argue that the money spent on contractors is excessive and would
be better invested in local economies.

But where Africom might not have the capacity to perform these missions across the
continent (it has a staff of about 1,200 spread over 53 countries), the State Dept. is
spending almost $100 million a year to pay military contractors to train local forces
through its African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program. In the
Fiscal 2010 State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, the Obama administration is
asking for $96.8 million in funding for the program, which, since 2005, has trained more
than 77,000 from about two dozen African nations. But the program is not without
critics. A June 2008 Government Accountability Office report found that the State Dept.
has had trouble "assessing the proficiency of trained peacekeepers against standard
skills taught in training and accounting for the activities of trained instructors."

It is not hard to find examples of PMC doing work for AFRICOM. In January the State
Department awarded DynCorp International a task order for operations and
maintenance support in Liberia, under the AFRICAP contract.
AFRICAP is a State Dept. program that uses contractors to provide military training,
perform advisory missions and provide logistical support and construction services for
State's programs across Africa. In September 2009, the department awarded a 5-year,
multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to three companies:
PAE Government Services; DynCorp International and Protection Strategies Inc., with
the ceiling for each coming in at $375 million.

The task order, with a value of $5.2 million for the initial 6 month base period, has a
potential total value of $20 million over two years if all options are exercised. Under the
task order, DynCorp will provide operations and maintenance support for facilities of
the Armed Forces of Liberia at Edward B. Kesselly Barracks and Camp Ware in Liberia.
Services provided will include electrical power generation, water supply, waste
disposal, and vehicle maintenance.

In 2008 I noted that DynCorp has previously provided logistical support and training
for peacekeepers in Liberia and Somalia.

In Liberia DynCorp and PAE worked together in the Security Sector Reform program,
funded by the State Department. DynCorp was contracted to provide basic facilities and
basic training for the Armed Forces of Liberia, while PAE won the contract for building
some bases, forming and structuring the AFL and its component units, and for
providing specialized and advanced training, including mentoring the AFL's fledgling
officer and non-commissioned officer corps. DynCorp's job was essentially to "recruit
and make soldiers," while PAE is employed to "mentor and develop" them into a fully
operational force.

MPRI has also provided training for the militaries of Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya,
Mali, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal under the State Department's African
Contingency Operations and Assistance Program, (formerly the African Crisis Response
Initiative), and separately provided training and analysis to the South African military.

Northrop Grumman also operated under a $75 million contract to support the ACOAP
program, which aimed to train 40,000 African peacekeepers over five years.

KBR provided services to at least three bases in Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia used by
the U.S. Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

Just last week NATO reported that in response to the African Union request for
strategic airlift support to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the United
States used DynCorp to conduct airlift missions under the NATO banner in support of
the Ugandan troop rotations. The airlift, which commenced on 5 Mar 2010 and was
completed on 16 Mar 2010, transported 1700 Ugandan troops from Uganda into
Mogadishu and re-deploying 850 Ugandan troops out of Mogadishu.
Back in January Gen William Ward, the head of AFRICOM, in an interview with Radio
France said, that AFRICOM does not use PMC. But the AFRICOM public affairs office
later clarified his statement to indicate that he referred only to security contractors.
More importantly, State Department AFRICAP and ACOTA contracts do use security
companies.

While, to date, Western PMCs, are thought to have conducted themselves reasonably
well and fulfilled their contracts competently they are still viewed by many as being on
probation. Last year Eeben Barlow, who founded Executive Outcomes, wrote on his
blog:

A number of PMCs/PSCs are sponsored by Western governments who have motives

that are not always obvious. These PMCs become their favoured companies to use - and
they act on behalf of the sponsoring government's foreign policy and also act as
intelligence fronts. They are not there to help clients but rather to advance their
government's agendas - usually to the detriment of the client-government.
---------------------
Angola police officers jailed for 24 years for killings (BBC)
Seven Angola police officers have been sentenced to 24 years in jail each for killing eight
men - in a rare case of police brutality being punished.

After being told the men in the Sambizanga township were criminal suspects, the
officers told them to lie down and then shot them in the back.

One of those shot managed to identify two of the plain clothes officers before dying of
his injuries.

A US government report says police in Angola killed 23 people in 2009.

The weekly newspaper Novo Jornal said it was the first time that Angolan police had
ever been convicted of such a serious crime, reports the AFP news agency.

But analysts say it is not clear whether this case marks a new determination from the
government to tackle police brutality.

"Although the defendants may have believed that the young men were criminals, their
actions are unjustifiable," said Judge Salomao Filipe.

He said the sentence of 24 years was the maximum he could pass.

Reuters news agency reports that some family members demanded a tougher sentence
and refused to leave the court.

"They took my son's life. They should be locked away for life," one woman shouted.
--------------------------
Sudan's Omar al-Bashir 'will expel poll observers' (BBC)
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has threatened to kick out foreign election monitors,
after they suggested next month's vote should be delayed.

Mr Bashir said if the observers intervened in Sudan's affairs, "we will cut off their
fingers and crush them under our shoes".

The US-funded Carter Center recently suggested the 11 April election should be
postponed amid security concerns.

The poll will be the first genuinely multi-party vote since 1986.

But opposition politicians have repeatedly suggested that the election should be put
back amid chronic instability in the south and a continuing refugee crisis in the Darfur
region.

Recovery from war

The Carter Center, which runs the only long-term monitoring mission in the country,
said last week that the poll was "at risk on multiple fronts".

"Logistical preparations are straining the limited capacity of the NEC [National Election
Commission]," the centre said.

"With a series of delays and changes in polling procedures, a minor delay in polling for
operational purposes may be required."

Human Rights Watch said on Sunday that government repression of its opponents was
and its tight control of the media was threatening the chances of holding a credible
election.

However, the NEC said on Monday that the election would go ahead as planned.

And Mr Bashir told his supporters in the eastern town of Port Sudan: "We have
accepted the arrival of foreign observers for the elections, but if they ask that the vote be
postponed, we will expel them.

"We expect observers to say whether the elections are free and fair, but if they intervene
in our affairs, then we will cut off their fingers and crush them under our shoes."

The general election will be the first since the end of a two decade civil war in 2005.
The 22-year conflict between the mainly Muslim north and the Christian and animist
south claimed the lives of some 1.5 million people.

Violence between rival ethnic group continues to claim hundreds of lives each year in
the south, making it difficult to ensure security during the election.

In Darfur, hundreds of thousands of people still live in refugee camps after a separate
conflict.

Mr Bashir, who is wanted by international prosecutors for war crimes in Darfur, seized
power in a bloodless coup in 1989.

He has been elected as president twice in polls which were boycotted by most
opposition parties.

He remains popular in the north of the country and is expected to be re-elected as

president.
--------------------
Sudan police surround Khartoum camp-residents (Reuters)
KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudanese police demolished the homes and surrounded the
residents of a refugee camp in the outskirts of Khartoum on Monday, just three weeks
ahead of the first multi-party polls in 24 years, residents said.

After U.N. condemnations, Sudan had largely stopped forcibly relocating and
demolishing homes in the slums surrounding the capital, filled with millions of people
who fled conflict and hardship in the east, south and western Darfur regions.

But on Sunday night residents of Soba al-Shahanat, mostly from the troubled Darfur
region, said they saw dozens of their homes and shops demolished by bulldozers.

They refused to move and on Monday a Reuters witness said they were surrounded by
a police cordon and barbed wire fence hindering the delivery of food and water.

"We cannot allow this kind of barbaric behaviour to happen in Khartoum," said Edward
Lino, the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement's electoral
candidate for Khartoum governor during a visit to the camp.

April's first multi-party elections in 24 years have raised tensions in Africa's largest
country with youth activists complaining of harassment and the opposition accusing
the ruling party of anti-constitutional restrictions on freedom of expression and
association.

At least one journalist was arrested and beaten by authorities for trying to film the
operation, a Reuters witness said.
"They put up barbed wire around the area," said one female resident from Darfur who
did not give her name. "We can't eat or drink or stay, we are all just sitting around in the
sun."

"FENCING AND DESTRUCTION"

Sudan's governor was not immediately available to comment but the authorities have
previously said they always give residents notice and provide them with adequate
compensation and alternative land before moving them.

"The agreement was that they were to prepare for us a different place with everything --
infrastructure, streets, electricity, water -- then they give us our land and five months to
move," said Abdallah Mohamed Ahmed, an independent candidate for the area in April
elections.

"(But) until now they did not give us our land and as you can see -- the fencing and
destruction."

The move is likely to be unpopular in the politicised camps surrounding the capital.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir threatened to expel the international observers of

Sudan's presidential and legislative elections on Monday, which opposition candidates
said showed he was worried he may not win.

The polls are a key benchmark of a 2005 peace deal ending more than two decades of
north-south civil war which destabilized much of east Africa and claimed an estimated
2 million lives.

It is quickly followed by a January, 2011 southern referendum on secession, which

many analysts believe will create Africa's newest nation state.
--------------------------
Kenya: Terror Suspect Might Have Fled to Uganda (Daily Nation)
NAIROBI - A terror suspect who escaped from police custody in Busia is believed to
have fled to Uganda, while three police officers suspected to have let him escape have
been suspended.

Mr Hashi Hussein Farah, who holds an Australian passport, is alleged to have links
with the al Shabaab rebels in Somalia and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

Sources at Busia police station said his escape was well planned.

Two area businessmen who visited him at the station and the police officers have been
arrested.
"That's the first step then they will be taken to court and charged," said Police
Commissioner Mathew Iteere.

In a major operation on Monday morning, police arrested a man they believed was
Farah only to realise later that he was a Kenyan businessman.

Busia police boss Micheni Muthamia declined to divulge more information on the
operation, only saying that Farah had not been recaptured.

It is alleged that the terror suspect claimed that he was asthmatic and was put in an
isolated room where he met the two businessmen, who had brought him food.

Police found Farah missing when they went to fetch him so he could be transferred to
Nairobi for interrogation by anti-terrorism unit officers.
--------------------------
Nigeria: Cabinet Change - 21 Ministers to Return (This Day)
ABUJA, Nigeria — The federal cabinet may roar back to life this week as Acting
President Goodluck Jonathan is set to retain 21 of the 42 ministers relieved of their jobs
last week following the dissolution of the Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF).

THISDAY learnt the list of the 21 nominees to be retained will be forwarded to the
Senate anytime from now for confirmation.

The upper legislative chamber may screen the nominees by Thursday, it was further
learnt.

Among those to return are former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Odein
Ajumogobia; former Attorney-General of the Federation and Justice Minister
Adetokunbo Kayode (SAN); Chief Ojo Maduekwe who took charge of Foreign Affairs
in the dissolved cabinet; Prof. Dora Akunyili who earlier manned the Information
Ministry; and Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke who was in the Ministry of Solid Minerals.

Others are former Minister of Finance Mansur Muhtar; and his former Minister of State
Remi Babalola; former Minister of Sports and Chairman, National Sports Commission
(NSC) Sani Ndanusa; Godsday Orubebe formerly Minister of State for Niger Delta; and
Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin who was Minister of Health in the dissolved cabinet.

Allison-Madueke and Orubebe are said to be the only nominees of Jonathan in the
dissolved cabinet of ailing President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.

Some of the retained ministers may retain their portfolios in the dissolved cabinet while
others may take on new assignments.
The former ministers are facing fresh screening because the blanket dissolution of the
EXCOF meant that all the nominees are to begin afresh.

THISDAY checks revealed that among those that may not return are Dr. Sayyadi Abba
Ruma, who was Minister of Agriculture; former Minister of Federal Capital Territory,
Senator Adamu Aliero; former Minister of Power Lanre Babalola; and Hajiya Aishatu
Dukku who was Minister of State for Education.

The ministerial nominees will be in batches with the first batch being that of the 21
nominees from the dissolved cabinet.

THISDAY learnt that the acting president is in consultation with political stakeholders
and will soon forward the list of the remaining prospective ministers to the Senate.

Jonathan had surprisingly dissolved the entire cabinet last Wednesday in a bid to
rejuvenate the EXCOF, which had been badly divided.

The newspaper had exclusively reported that at least five ministries which are key to
the focus of the acting president might be manned by new persons.

Among ministers in the dissolved cabinet who may not return are those of Petroleum
Resources, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman; Works, Dr. Hassan Lawal; Chief Ufot Ekaette who
was minister of Niger Delta and Ruma.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria First Forum (NFF), a pressure group in the House of
Representatives, has dismissed the threats by some critics and interest groups to
challenge the dissolution of EXCOF by the acting president, describing the criticisms as
coming from the camp of retrogressive elements who want the country to remain at
standstill.

A member of the Board of Trustees of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Alhaji
Tanko Yakassai, had described the dissolution of the federal cabinet as an illegal action
that has neither a bearing with the 1999 Constitution nor the backing of any subsisting
pronouncement of a court of law.

Yakassai had in the wake of the dissolution of the cabinet last Wednesday said the
action was arbitrary and unlawful, "taken on the basis of a pertinently illegal resolution
passed by the two chambers of the National Assembly that conferred on him the title of
acting president".

But spokesman of the NFF, Hon. Dino Melaye, dismissed the argument of Yakassai as
"the handiwork of a commercialised mind with ulterior motives".
Melaye lamented that at this time in the nation's history when all hands ought to be on
deck to steer the ship of state out of troubled waters, some elements in the society still
want to create unnecessary divisions in the polity.

He said Yakassai must be living in the past for him to describe the resolution of the
Senate and House which brought to an end the power vacuum saga as illegal.

"It is obvious that he (Yakassai) is talking his age and living in the past era. For
everyone that wishes Nigeria well, the resolution by both chambers of the National
Assembly was a political solution that averted a national disaster and for him to
describe that resolution in such a malicious manner is an indication that he harbours
some ulterior motives which cannot be in the best interest of this country.

"We, as a group, declare our unparallel support for Acting President Goodluck Jonathan
in his current efforts to stabilise the country through constitutional means and we will
not relent in our support until the struggle to build a new Nigeria where justice, equity
and egalitarianism becomes the order of the day. It is a battle of no retreat, no
surrender," he said.
--------------------------------
UN News Service Africa Briefs
Full Articles on UN Website

In Darfur, UN blue helmets support school project with delivery of water

22 March – With a large delivery of water in a region often deprived of the precious
resource, peacekeepers serving with the joint African Union-United Nations mission in
Darfur (UNAMID) today helped with the building of a new school in the conflict-
affected region in western Sudan.

Sierra Leone takes steps to combat drug trafficking and corruption – UN official
22 March – Sierra Leone has made considerable progress in its efforts to combat the
problems of illicit drug trafficking and corruption, but little has been done to implement
programmes to create employment for the youth in the West African country, a senior
United Nations official said