US Military Scramble for Africa
Secret wars, secret bases and the Pentagon’s “new spice route” in Africa
They call it the New Spice Route, an homage to the medieval trade
network that connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, even if today’s “spice
road” has nothing to do with cinnamon, cloves, or silks. Instead, it’s a
superpower’s superhighway, on which trucks and ships shuttle fuel, food
and military equipment through a growing maritime and ground
transportation infrastructure to a network of supply depots, tiny camps,
and airfields meant to service a fast-growing US military presence in
Africa.
Few in the United States know about this superhighway, or about the
dozens of training missions and joint military exercises being carried
out in nations that most Americans couldn’t locate on a map. Even fewer
have any idea that military officials are invoking the names of Marco
Polo and the Queen of Sheba as they build a bigger military footprint in
Africa. It’s all happening in the shadows of what in a previous
imperial age was known as “the Dark Continent.”
In East African ports, huge metal shipping containers arrive with the
everyday necessities for a military on the make. They’re then loaded
onto trucks that set off down rutted roads toward dusty bases and
distant outposts.
On the highway from Djibouti to Ethiopia, for example, one can see
the bare outlines of this shadow war at the truck stops where local
drivers take a break from their long-haul routes. The same is true in
other African countries. The nodes of the network tell part of the
story: Manda Bay, Garissa, and Mombasa in Kenya; Kampala and Entebbe in
Uganda; Bangui and Djema in the Central African Republic; Nzara in South
Sudan; Dire Dawa in Ethiopia; and the Pentagon’s showpiece African
base, Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti on the coast of the Gulf of Aden,
among others.
According to Pat Barnes, a spokesman for US Africa Command (AFRICOM),
Camp Lemonnier serves as the only official US base on the continent.
“There are more than 2,000 U.S. personnel stationed there,” he told
TomDispatch recently by email. “The primary AFRICOM organization at Camp
Lemonnier is Combined Joint Task Force—Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA).
CJTF-HOA's efforts are focused in East Africa and they work with partner
nations to assist them in strengthening their defense capabilities.”
Barnes also noted that Department of Defense personnel are assigned
to US embassies across Africa, including twenty-one individual Offices
of Security Cooperation responsible for facilitating
military-to-military activities with “partner nations.” He characterized
the forces involved as small teams carrying out pinpoint missions.
Barnes did admit that in “several locations in Africa, AFRICOM has a
small and temporary presence of personnel. In all cases, these military
personnel are guests within host-nation facilities, and work alongside
or coordinate with host-nation personnel.”
Shadow Wars
In 2003, when CJTF-HOA was first set up
there, it was indeed true that the only major US outpost in Africa was
Camp Lemonnier. In the ensuing years, in quiet and largely unnoticed
ways, the Pentagon and the CIA have been spreading their forces across
the continent. Today—official designations aside—the United States
maintains a surprising number of bases in Africa. And “strengthening”
African armies turns out to be a truly elastic rubric for what’s going
on.
Under President Obama, in fact, operations in Africa have accelerated
far beyond the more limited interventions of the Bush years: last
year’s war in Libya; a regional drone campaign with missions run out of
airports and bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and the Indian Ocean
archipelago nation of Seychelles; a flotilla of thirty ships in that
ocean supporting regional operations; a multi-pronged military and CIA
campaign against militants in Somalia, including intelligence
operations, training for Somali agents, a secret prison, helicopter
attacks, and US commando raids; a massive influx of cash for
counterterrorism operations across East Africa; a possible old-fashioned
air war, carried out on the sly in the region using manned aircraft;
tens of millions of dollars in arms for allied mercenaries and African
troops; and a special ops expeditionary force (bolstered by State
Department experts) dispatched to help capture or kill Lord’s Resistance
Army leader Joseph Kony and his senior commanders. And this only begins
to scratch the surface of Washington’s fast-expanding plans and
activities in the region.
To support these mushrooming missions, near-constant training
operations, and alliance-building joint exercises, outposts of all sorts
are sprouting continent-wide, connected by a sprawling shadow logistics
network. Most American bases in Africa are still small and austere, but
growing ever larger and more permanent in appearance. For example,
photographs from last year of Ethiopia’s Camp Gilbert, examined by
TomDispatch, show a base filled with air-conditioned tents, metal
shipping containers, and fifty-five-gallon drums and other gear strapped
to pallets, but also recreation facilities with TVs and videogames, and
a well-appointed gym filled with stationary bikes, free weights, and
other equipment.
Continental Drift
After 9/11, the US military moved into three major regions in significant ways: South Asia (primarily Afghanistan),
the Middle East (primarily Iraq), and the Horn of Africa. Today, the
United States is drawing down in Afghanistan and has largely left Iraq.
Africa, however, remains a growth opportunity for the Pentagon.
The United States is now involved, directly and by proxy, in military
and surveillance operations against an expanding list of regional
enemies. They include al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in North Africa;
the Islamist movement Boko Haram in Nigeria; possible al-Qaeda-linked militants
in post-Qaddafi Libya; Joseph Kony’s murderous Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA) in the Central African Republic, Congo, and South Sudan; Mali’s
Islamist Rebels of the Ansar Dine, al-Shabaab in Somalia; and guerrillas from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen.
A recent investigation by the Washington Post
revealed that contractor-operated surveillance aircraft based out of
Entebbe, Uganda, are scouring the territory used by Kony’s LRA at the
Pentagon’s behest, and that 100 to 200 US commandos share a base with
the Kenyan military at Manda Bay. Additionally, US drones are being
flown out of Arba Minch airport in Ethiopia and from the Seychelles
Islands in the Indian Ocean, while drones and F-15 fighter-bombers
have been operating out of Camp Lemonnier as part of the shadow wars
being waged by the US military and the CIA in Yemen and Somalia.
Surveillance planes used for spy missions over Mali, Mauritania, and
the Sahara desert are also flying missions from Ouagadougou in Burkina
Faso, and plans are reportedly in the works for a similar base in the
newborn nation of South Sudan.
US special operations forces are stationed at a string of even more shadowy forward operating posts on the continent, including
one in Djema in the Central Africa Republic and others in Nzara in
South Sudan and Dungu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The United
States also has had troops deployed in Mali, despite having officially suspended military relations with that country following a coup.
According to research by TomDispatch, the US Navy also has a forward
operating location, manned mostly by Seabees, Civil Affairs personnel,
and force-protection troops, known as Camp Gilbert in Dire Dawa,
Ethiopia. US military documents indicate that there may be other even
lower-profile US facilities in the country. In addition to Camp
Lemonnier, the US military also maintains another hole-and-corner
outpost in Djibouti—a Navy port facility that lacks even a name. AFRICOM
did not respond to requests for further information on these posts
before this article went to press.
Additionally, US Special Operations Forces are engaged in missions
against the Lord’s Resistance Army from a rugged camp in Obo in the
Central African Republic, but little is said about that base either. “US
military personnel working with regional militaries in the hunt for
Joseph Kony are guests of the African security forces comprising the
regional counter-LRA effort,” Barnes told me. “Specifically in Obo, the
troops live in a small camp and work with partner nation troops at a
Ugandan facility that operates at the invitation of the government of
the Central African Republic.”
And that’s still just part of the story. UStroops are also working at
bases inside Uganda. Earlier this year, elite Force Recon Marines from
the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force 12 (SPMAGTF-12) trained
soldiers from the Uganda People's Defense Force, which not only runs
missions in the Central African Republic, but also acts as a proxy force
for the United States in Somalia in the battle against the Islamist
militants known as al-Shabaab. They now supply the majority of the
troops to the African Union Mission protecting the US-supported
government in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
In the spring, Marines from SPMAGTF-12 also trained soldiers from the
Burundi National Defense Force (BNDF), the second-largest contingent in
Somalia. In April and May,
members of Task Force Raptor, 3rd Squadron, 124th Cavalry Regiment, of
the Texas National Guard took part in a training mission with the BNDF
in Mudubugu, Burundi.
In February, SPMAGTF-12 sent trainers to Djibouti to work with an
elite local army unit, while other Marines traveled to Liberia to focus
on teaching riot-control techniques to Liberia’s military as part of
what is otherwise a State Department-directed effort to rebuild that
force.
In addition, the United States is conducting counterterrorism
training and equipping militaries in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad,
Mauritania, Niger and Tunisia. AFRICOM also has fourteen major
joint-training exercises planned for 2012, including operations in
Morocco, Cameroon, Gabon, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Senegal, and
Nigeria.
The size of US forces conducting these joint exercises and training
missions fluctuates, but Barnes told me that, “on an average basis,
there are approximately 5,000 US Military and DoD personnel working
across the continent” at any one time. Next year, even more American
troops are likely to be on hand as units from the 2nd Brigade Combat
Team, 1st Infantry Division, known as the “Dagger Brigade,” are scheduled to deploy to the region. The roughly 3,000 soldiers
in the brigade will be involved in, among other activities, training
missions while acquiring regional expertise. "Special Forces have a
particular capability in this area, but not the capacity to fulfill the
demand; and we think we will be able to fulfill the demand by using
conventional forces," Colonel Andrew Dennis told a reporter about the
deployment.
Air Africa
Last month, the Washington Post revealed
that, since at least 2009, the “practice of hiring private companies to
spy on huge expanses of African territory… has been a cornerstone of
the US military’s secret activities on the continent.” Dubbed Tusker
Sand, the project consists of contractors flying from Entebbe airport in
Uganda and a handful of other airfields. They pilot turbo-prop planes
that look innocuous but are packed with sophisticated surveillance gear.
America’s mercenary spies in Africa are, however, just part of the story.
While the Pentagon canceled an analogous drone surveillance program
dubbed Tusker Wing, it has spent millions of dollars to upgrade the
civilian airport atArba Minch, Ethiopia,
to enable drone missions to be flown from it. Infrastructure to support
such operations has been relatively cheap and easy to construct, but a
much more daunting problem looms—one intimately connected to the New
Spice Route.
“Marco Polo wasn't just an explorer,” Army planner Chris Zahner explained
at a conference in Djibouti last year. “[H]e was also a logistician
developing logistics nodes along the Silk Road. Now let's do something
similar where the Queen of Sheba traveled." Paeans to bygone luminaries
aside, the reasons for pouring resources into sea and ground supply
networks have less to do with history than with Africa’s airport
infrastructure.
Of the 3,300 airfields on the continent identified in a National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency review, the Air Force has surveyed only
303 of them and just 158 of those surveys are current. Of those
airfields that have been checked out, half won’t support the weight of
the C-130 cargo planes that the US military leans heavily on to
transport troops and materiel. These limitations were driven home during
Natural Fire 2010, one of that year’s joint training exercises hosted
by AFRICOM. When C-130s were unable to use an airfield in Gulu, Uganda,
an extra $3 million was spent instead to send in Chinook helicopters.
In addition, diplomatic clearances and airfield restrictions on
US military aircraft cost the Pentagon time and money, while often
raising local suspicion and ire. In a recent article in the military
trade publication Army Sustainment, Air Force Major Joseph Gaddis
touts an emerging solution: outsourcing. The concept was tested last
year, during another AFRICOM training operation, Atlas Drop 2011.
“Instead of using military airlift to move equipment to and from the
exercise, planners used commercial freight vendors,” writes Gadddis.
“This provided exercise participants with door-to-door delivery service
and eliminated the need for extra personnel to channel the equipment
through freight and customs areas.” Using mercenary cargo carriers to
skirt diplomatic clearance issues and move cargo to airports that can’t
support US C-130s is, however, just one avenue the Pentagon is pursuing
to support its expanding operations in Africa.
Another is construction.
The Great Build-Up
Military contracting documents reveal plans for an investment of up
to $180 million or more in construction at Camp Lemonnier alone. Chief
among the projects will be the laying of 54,500 square meters of
taxiways “to support medium-load aircraft” and the construction of a
185,000 square meter Combat Aircraft Loading Area. In addition, plans
are in the works to erect modular maintenance structures, hangers, and
ammunition storage facilities, all needed for an expanding set of secret
wars in Africa.
Other contracting documents suggest that, in the years to come, the
Pentagon will be investing up to $50 million in new projects at that
base, Kenya’s Camp Simba, and additional unspecified locations in
Africa. Still other solicitation materials suggest future military
construction in Egypt, where the Pentagon already maintains a medical research facility, and still more work in Djibouti.
No less telling are contracting documents indicating a coming influx
of “emergency troop housing” at Camp Lemonnier, including almost 300
additional Containerized Living Units (CLUs), stackable, air-conditioned living quarters, as well as latrines and laundry facilities.
Military documents also indicate that a nearly $450,000 exercise
facility was installed at the US base in Entebbe, Uganda, last year. All
of this indicates that, for the Pentagon, its African build-up has only
begun.
The Scramble for Africa
In a recent speech
in Arlington, Virginia, AFRICOM Commander General Carter Ham explained
the reasoning behind US operations on the continent: “The absolute
imperative for the United States military [is] to protect America,
Americans, and American interests; in our case, in my case, [to] protect
us from threats that may emerge from the African continent.” As an
example, Ham named the Somali-based al-Shabaab as a prime threat. “Why
do we care about that?” he asked rhetorically. “Well, al-Qaeda is a
global enterprise... we think they very clearly do present, as an
al-Qaeda affiliate... a threat to America and Americans.”
Fighting them over there, so we don’t need to fight them here
has been a core tenet of American foreign policy for decades,
especially since 9/11. But trying to apply military solutions to complex
political and social problems has regularly led to unforeseen
consequences. For example, last year’s US-supported war in Libya
resulted in masses of well-armed Tuareg mercenaries, who had been
fighting for Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi, heading back to Mali where
they helped destabilize that country. So far, the result has been a
military coup by an American-trained
officer; a takeover of some areas by Tuareg fighters of the National
Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, who had previously raided Libyan
arms depots; and other parts of the country being seized by the
irregulars of Ansar Dine, the latest al-Qaeda “affiliate” on the
American radar. One military intervention, in other words, led to three
major instances of blowback in a neighboring country in just a year.
With the Obama administration clearly engaged in a twenty-first
century scramble for Africa, the possibility of successive waves of
overlapping blowback grows exponentially. Mali may only be the beginning
and there’s no telling how any of it will end. In the meantime, keep
your eye on Africa. The US military is going to make news there for
years to come
Source: The nation newspaper
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