U.S. Seeks Counterterrorism Expansion in Africa

The Pentagon is looking for an African country to call home for its newest unified command, AFRICOM. Although U.S. AFRICOM was announced by President Bush in February 2007 in standard government issue language focused on health, development, education, democracy and growth, counterterrorism is one of the major goals of the command.

As of this week, Algeria has said No to the Pentagon request. Morocco and Botswana, however, have both indicated their interest in housing the US base.

Africa Defines Terrorism

Terrorism in African countries has a long indigenous history, and terrorism has meant different things at different points in time. South Africa during the Apartheid era, to take one example, enacted a Terrorism Act in 1967 which permitted the state to detain people perceived to be internal security threats indefinitely. Under the apartheid system, such threats were likely to be people who challenged the country's enforced racial segregation. In the post-apartheid era, yesterday's terrorists are likely to be thought of as freedom fighters.

These days, "terrorism" is most likely to refer to the Islamist or Al Qaeda inspired attacks, such as Al Qaeda's simultaneous attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. For the U.S., those attacks represented a new threat against American security by jihadist groups aimed at harming the West. For Africans, the attacks represented a distinct form of imported terrorism whose primary threat was to African civilians.

In 1999, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) created the first African definition of terrorism. Called the OAU Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism (the Algiers Convention), the legal instrument distinguishes between violent struggles for self-determination and terrorism.

AFRICOM Faces Sensitivity about its Goals

Given the history of foreign intrusion in African nations, it's no surprise that AFRICOM is facing some resistance. The U.S., for its part, has marketed the Command to Africans as a more of a clearinghouse for security cooperation, within different parts of the U.S. government, and between U.S. and African institutions. Others are more cynical. A China's People Daily editorial in March, 2007, argued that:

Some analysts hold that the destabilization of the situation in the Middle East region has beefed up the US's dependence on African oil resources. To protect its potential oil interests in Africa is precisely a major reason for the U.S. to set up its African Command.

Even as the Americans asserted their US military forces have come to Africa to combat terrorist activities, African countries are still concerned that the US African Command could become an destabilizing factor in their countries instead of helping to uproot terrorism. In both Afghanistan and the whole Middle East region, the US military forces, hoisting high the banner of anti-terrorism, only plunged these areas into a prolonged turmoil, with their followers enduring repeated terrorist attacks.

(for interesting comments on how the US DoD should handle the Chinese rebuff, see the commentary from the Mountainrunner blog on public diplomacy, warfare and related issues.

Under the current unified command system, which is how the U.S. Department of Defense assigns itself different areas of responsibility, military and related operations in Africa fall under three different Commands: European Command (EUCOM), Central Command (CENTCOM) and Pacific Command (PACOM). AFRICOM would treat Africa as one unit (with the exception of Egypt, which would remain in CENTCOM's domain, with other Middle Eastern countries). AFRICOM is temporarily housed in Stuttgart, Germany, and is expected to relocate in Africa in September, 2008.

About the photo: A pararescueman jumps from an HC-130 during a training mission recently. The Airman is from the 131st Rescue Squadron, which works hand in hand with the 449th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron. The training occurred while deployed in support of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa in Djibouti, Africa. (U.S. Air Force photo by 2nd Lt. Shannon Collins)