Africa: No Butter But Lots of Guns

Dispatches From The Edge

Conn Hallinan
Published by Portside
July 9, 2010

The developed world has a message for Africa: "Sorry,
but we are reneging on our aid pledges made at the G8
summit at Gleneagles, Scotland back in 2005, but we do
have something for you-lots and lots of expensive
things that go `bang' and kill people."

And that was indeed the message that came out of the
G8-G20 meetings in Canada last month. The promise to
add an extra $25 billion to a $50 billion aid package
for the continent went a glimmering. Instead, the G8
will cut the $25 billion to $11 billion and the $50
billion to $38 billion. And don't hold your breath that
Africa will get even that much.

The G-8 consists of Britain, the U.S., Germany, France,
Italy, Japan, France, and Russia, although Moscow is
not part of the aid pledge.

Canada's Muskoka summit hailed "significant progress
toward the millennium development goals"-the United
Nations' target of reducing poverty by 2015-but when it
came time to ante up, everyone but the United Kingdom
bailed. The Gleneagles pledge was to direct 0.51
percent of the G-8's gross national income to aid
programs by 2010. The UK came up to 0.56 percent, but
the U.S. is at 0.2, Italy at 0.16, Canada at 0.3,
Germany at 0.35, and France at 0.47. Rumor has it that
France and Italy led the charge to water down the 2005
goals.

The shortfall, says Oxfam spokesman Mark Fried, is not
just a matter of "numbers." The aid figures "represent
vital medicines, kids in school, help for women living
in poverty and food for the hungry."

AIDS activists are particularly incensed. "I see no
point in beating around the bush," said AIDS-Free World
spokesman Stephen Lewis at a Toronto press conference.
He charged that Obama Administration's Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief "is being flat-lined for at least the
next two years." Lewis said AIDS groups were treating
five million patients, but that another nine million
needed to be in programs. "There are AIDS projects, run
by other NGOs [non-governmental organizations], where
new patients cannot be enrolled unless someone dies."

But ifthe poor, sick, and hungry are going begging,
not so Africa's militaries.

According to Daniel Volman, director of the African
Security Research Project, the White House is following
the same policies as the Bush Administration vis-à-vis
Africa. "Indeed, the Obama Administration is seeking to
expand U.S. military activities on the continent even
further," says Volman.

In its 2011 budget, the White House asked for over $80
million in military programs for Africa, while freezing
or reducing aid packages aimed at civilians.

The major vehicle for this is the U.S.'s African
Command (AFRICOM) founded in 2008. Through the Trans-
Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative, AFRICOM is
training troops from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,
Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Chad. The supposed
target of all this is the group al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Meghreb (AQIM), but while AQIM is certainly
troublesome-it sets off bombs and kidnaps people- it is
small, scattered, and doesn't pose a serious threat to
any of the countries involved.

The worry is that the various militaries being trained
by AFRICOM could end up being used against internal
dissidents. Tuaregs, for instance, are engaged in a
long-running, low-level insurgency against the Mali
government, which is backing a French plan to mine
uranium in the Sahara. Might Morocco use the training
to attack the Polisario Front in the disputed Western
Sahara? Mauritanians complain that the "terrorist"
label has been used to jail political opponents of the
government.

In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson
said the U.S. was seeking to bolster Nigeria's "ability
to combat violent extremism within its borders." That
might put AFRICOM in the middle of a civil war between
ruling elites in Lagos and their transnational oil
company allies, and the Movement for the Emancipation
of the Delta, which is demanding an end to massive
pollution and a fair cut of oil revenues.

The National Energy Policy Development Groups estimates
that by 2015 as much as 25 percent of U.S. oil imports
will come from Africa.

So far, AFRICOM's track record has been one disaster
after another. It supported Ethiopia's intervention in
the Somalia civil war, and helped to overthrow the
moderate Islamic Courts Union. It is now fighting a
desperate rear-guard action against a far more
extremist grouping, the al-Shabaab. AFRICOM also helped
coordinate a Ugandan Army attack on the Lord's
Resistance Army in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo-Operation Lightning Thunder- that ended up
killing thousands of civilians.

The U.S. has been careful to keep a low profile in all
this. "We don't want to see our guys going in and
getting whacked," Volman quotes one U.S. AFRICOM
officer, "We want Africans to go in."

And presumably get "whacked."

AFRICOM's Operation Flintlock 2010, which ran from May
3-22, was based in Burkina Faso. Besides the militaries
of 10 African nations, it included 600 U.S. Special
Forces and elite units from France, the Netherlands,
and Spain. Yes, there are other arms pushers out there,
and the list reads like an economic who's who: France,
the United Kingdom, China, Russia, Sweden, and Israel.
Some 70 percent of the world's arms trade is aimed at
developing countries.

So, is AFRICOM about fighting terrorism, or oil, gas
and uranium? Nicole Lee, the executive director of
Trans Africa, the leading African American organization
focusing on Africa has no doubts: "This [AFRICOM] is
nothing short of a sovereignty and resource grab."

And who actually benefits from this militarization of
the continent? As Nigerian journalist Dulue Mbachu
warns, "Increased U.S. military presence in Africa may
simply serve to protect unpopular regimes that are
friendly to its interests, as was the case during the
Cold War, while Africa slips further into poverty."

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