March 9, 2006 by Salih Booker & Ann-Louise Colgan "2006 will help clarify whether the compassionate concern for the African continent, worn like a badge by western leaders last year, is a true determinant of Africa policy, or whether it merely masked other, more 'strategic' and less 'benevolent' impulses and interests." In 2006, Africa will witness a new wave of U.S. soldiers landing on the continent for training and other missions, as Washington takes aim at reshaping Africa to better serve America’s security interests. The trend in the Bush Administration’s Africa policy is toward an even greater focus on the so-called War on Terrorism, with emphasis on intelligence gathering, securing "ungoverned spaces" on the vast continent, and pre-positioning soldiers and equipment to project force globally and to deter Al-Qaeda in Africa. But American involvement in actual peacemaking or peacekeeping missions in Africa is far less likely, even as genocide continues in Darfur, Sudan. The same Africa policy is equally intended to secure access to West African oil, which the Bush Administration now views as a strategic national interest. Imports of African oil are projected to grow from their current 15% of the U.S. total to 25% by 2015. The U.S. already imports more oil from Africa than Saudi Arabia, and within a decade it could become a greater source of oil imports than the whole of the Persian Gulf. This year, when it comes to U.S. relations with Africa, the pre-occupation of U.S. officials with oil and guns will stand in stark contrast to the expressed concern of the American people regarding the ongoing genocide in Darfur and global health challenges like HIV/AIDS and the bird flu. The Bush Administration’s policy also fails to address Africans’ own concerns with human development, still an urgent priority despite last year’s proclaimed Africa focus. From Live 8 to LIVE X: Assessing the Aftermath of "Africa’s Year" If 2005 was the "year for Africa", 2006 is likely to offer a different picture of U.S. designs on the continent. Last year, rich country governments fell over one another making new promises to double aid, relieve debts, treat more people living with HIV/AIDS, and support African initiatives. The promises made were wholly inadequate, but they now provide African governments, civil society and international activists with specific measures to hold rich country leaders and institutions accountable in 2006. The Group of Eight (G-8) rich country leaders last year promised to increase aid to Africa by $25 billion annually by 2010. This year will be the first opportunity to measure progress towards this commitment. While European Union countries have committed to provide 0.7% of their Gross National Product (GNP) in development assistance for impoverished countries by 2015 [1], the U.S. still refuses to embrace that longstanding goal. The Bush Administration claims that it has tripled aid to Africa since 2000, but the reality is that U.S. development aid to Africa has not even doubled. The total of all forms of U.S. aid to Africa increased by only 56% during President Bush’s first term, and over half of the increase consisted of emergency food aid rather than development assistance. In his new budget for 2007, the President has requested only $3 billion for the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which he had initially promised would reach a budget of $5 billion per year by 2006. In successive years, the amount requested and ultimately appropriated has fallen far short of the President’s promise. Only 3 African countries have received any money from the MCA to date - Benin, Cape Verde and Madagascar. Last September, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank approved a G-8 plan to cancel the debts of 18 countries, 14 in Africa, beginning in 2006. This move by the G-8 and the financial institutions set an important precedent for 100% debt cancellation, but it excludes the majority of African countries. It also continues the precedent of future debt relief being tied to harmful economic conditions. At present, there are still 20 African countries burdened with such conditions in the queue for possible future debt cancellation. The debt deal equally fails to acknowledge the illegitimate nature of these debts, most of which resulted from irresponsible loans to former unrepresentative regimes and did not benefit the people that must now pay them. Contrary to popular perceptions, more money continues to flow out of Africa than trickles in from donors. There are also real concerns that additional nations now in line for debt cancellation will have to wait at a minimum until mid-2007 - a full two years after the G-8 Summit in Scotland - for their debts to be cancelled to the World Bank, and that these countries will have to continue paying their debts in the meantime even after they have met all the onerous creditor conditions. On HIV/AIDS, the G-8 promised last year to make treatment available to all who need it by the year 2010. But these rich countries failed to say how they would reach this goal and how much it will cost. Last year, the deadline passed for the "Three by Five" initiative of the World Health Organization, which was intended to put 3 million additional people living with HIV/AIDS on life-saving therapy by the end of 2005. The goal was not met: only an additional 1 million people had been given access to anti-retroviral treatment by the end of the year, and the death toll from the pandemic still surpassed 3 million people in 2005. This year, the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on HIV/AIDS will review progress and challenges in meeting the goals set by the 2001 UNGASS, and will discuss the new universal access targets for HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support to be achieved by 2010. But without a significant new political and financial commitment from the U.S. to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and other important multilateral initiatives, little change is anticipated in the course of this pandemic and new targets will likely remain elusive. At best, one in ten Africans in need of antiretroviral treatment is now receiving it. While last year was marked by the "Live 8" concerts, this year will feature the "LIVE X" military maneuvers in West Africa. This ‘live exercise’ will see 6,500 troops of the NATO Response Force sweep in on the 10 islands that constitute Cape Verde for 14 self-sustaining days of make-believe missions. LIVE X is a large-scale military exercise to be run out of the Netherlands with forces coming from bases in Germany, Spain and France. Sadly, the nearly 3 million people internally displaced in Darfur and threatened by continuing violence cannot expect to see a ‘live exercise’ of a Response Force to provide them protection and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The LIVE X and other training exercises, such as operation "Africa Endeavor 06" scheduled for Pretoria in July, along with military sales programs and military officers training, are indicative of the higher priorities of U.S. policy in Africa. Testifying before Congress in 2005, General James L. Jones, Supreme Allied Commander of the U.S. European command, said, "the breeding grounds of terrorism and illicit activity on the continent of Africa require our attention." He said that a more pro-active U.S. approach would offer a "powerful inoculation" against future terrorist activity. Jones stated that U.S. military programs in Africa, "support the long-term strategic objectives of the Global War on Terrorism by building understanding and consensus on the terrorist threat; laying foundations for future ‘coalitions of the willing;’ and extending our country’s security perimeter."[2] General Jones described dozens of current U.S. initiatives on the continent designed to develop effective security structures in Africa and boost African governments’ counter-terrorism efforts - from NATO action on the Mediterranean in North Africa, to the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative, which is the long-term interagency plan to combat terrorism on the continent. These initiatives are the framework through which the U.S. envisions engaging future threats on the African continent. With 1,500 U.S. troops of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa based in Djibouti since 2002, an increase in training exercises across the continent and an explosion in Africa-focused anti-terrorism training programs, what is now unfolding is the most significant U.S. military engagement in Africa since 25,000 troops went to Somalia in 1992. More importantly, this ongoing expansion of U.S. military assets and interests in Africa reflects a growing bias toward African militaries as the key institutions through which to promote security in the region, a security defined differently than that presently preoccupying most African governments and their people. Africa’s "New" Strategic Value: The U.S. Quest for Energy Security At present, conventional wisdom holds that African oil will occupy a position of even greater strategic importance to the U.S., Europe and Asia (principally China) over the next decade. Africa has always been considered of strategic importance to U.S. global interests because of its enormous resources and its expansive geography. Now, it is estimated that the U.S. will invest over $10 billion per year in oil activities in the region in the coming decade. According to the latest trade statistics (2004), oil imports account for more than 70% of all U.S. imports from Africa. The principal motivation for the U.S. focus on African oil is uncertainty over Middle East oil supplies and the consideration of petroleum imports as a matter of national security. According to observers, West African oil is advantageous for western countries because it is high-quality and low sulphur (therefore easier to refine) and closer to markets in the U.S. It is also assumed, incorrectly, that because this oil is mostly extracted from offshore fields it is somehow removed from political instability and conflicts in the producing countries and can more easily be protected from turmoil. As is obvious from recent headlines, hostage-taking and takeovers of oil platforms in the Niger Delta are becoming almost routine and are increasingly the defining strategy for marginalized communities demanding justice and economic compensation from foreign oil companies and the Nigerian government. In fact, the projected increase in U.S. investments in Nigeria’s oil industry and the subsequent U.S. - Nigeria security deal on the Niger Delta, point toward a further militarization of a longstanding conflict over economic compensation for environmental damage and economic injustice. In early 2006, a court in Nigeria ordered Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company to pay US$1.5 billion in compensation to the ethnic Ijaw inhabitants of the Niger Delta, where clashes over the control of the region’s oil wealth have intensified. The Ijaw community took the case to court after Shell refused to pay compensation ordered by the country’s parliament. These demands for compensation for decades of environmental damage are increasingly part of the rallying cry of armed groups in the Niger Delta threatening Nigeria’s oil industry. Some in the U.S. foreign policy establishment argue for a "geopolitical shift in U.S. energy policy" by replacing the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Guinea as America’s main foreign spigot for oil. However, a failure to understand that Africa’s oil wealth is itself a source of violent conflict and instability is likely to aggravate the situation further and make U.S. operators a target in local battles. ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤