Category: Briefs

On 6 February 2007, President Bush announced that the United States would create a new military command for Africa, to be known as Africa Command or Africom. Throughout the Cold War and for more than a decade afterwards, the U.S. did not have a military command for Africa; instead, U.S. military activities on the African continent were conducted by three separate military commands: the European Command, which had responsibility for most of the continent; the Central Command, which oversaw Egypt and the Horn of Africa region along with the Middle East and Central Asia; and the Pacific Command, which administered military ties with Madagascar and other islands in the Indian Ocean.

Until the creation of Africom, the administration of U.S.-African military relations was conducted through three different commands. All three were primarily concerned with other regions of the world that were of great importance to the United States on their own and had only a few middle-rank staff members dedicated to Africa. This reflected the fact that Africa was chiefly viewed as a regional theater in the global Cold War, or as an adjunct to U.S.-European relations, or—as in the immediate post-Cold War period—as a region of little concern to the United States. But when the Bush administration declared that access to Africa’s oil supplies would henceforth be defined as a “strategic national interest” of the United States and proclaimed that America was engaged in a Global War on Terrorism following the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, Africa’s status in U.S. national security policy and military affairs rose dramatically (Volman, 2003, Klare and Volman, 2006).

According to Theresa Whelan, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs—the highest ranking Defense Department official with principal responsibility for Africa at the Pentagon, who has supervised U.S. military policy toward Africa for the Bush administration—Africom will attain the status of a sub-unified command under the European Command by 1 October 2007, and is scheduled to be fully operational as a separate unified command no later than 1 October 2008 (Whelan, 2007). The process of creating the new command will be conducted by a special transition team—which will include officers from both the State Department and the Defense Department—that will carry out its work in Stuttgart, Germany, in coordination with the European Command (Whelan, 2007).

Africom will not look like traditional unified commands. In particular, there is no intention, at least at present, to assign the new command control over large military units. This is in line with ongoing efforts to reduce the presence of large numbers of American troops overseas in order to consolidate or eliminate expensive bases and bring as many troops as possible back to the United States where they will be available for deployment anywhere in the world that Washington wants to send them. Since there is no way to anticipate where troops will be sent and the Pentagon has the ability to deploy sizable forces over long distances in a very short time, Washington plans to keep as many troops as possible in the United States and send them abroad only when it judges it necessary. This, however, was exactly the intention when the Clinton and Reagan administrations created the Central Command and based it in Tampa, Florida; and now the Central Command is running two major wars in southwest Asia from headquarters in Qatar.

Africom will also be composed of both military and civilian personnel, including officers from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the commander of the new command will have both a military and a civilian deputy. On 10 July 2007, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the President had nominated four-star General William E. “Kip” Ward to be the commander of Africom. General Ward, an African-American who was commissioned into the infantry in 1971, is currently serving as the deputy commander of the European Command. Previously he served as the commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) in Mogadishu, Somalia during “Operation Restore Hope” in 1992-1994, commander of the NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia during “Operation Joint Forge” in 2002-2003, and chief of the U.S. Office of Military Cooperation at the American Embassy in Cairo, Egypt. The novel structure of the new command reflects the fact that Africom will be charged with overseeing both traditional military activities and programs that are funded through the State Department budget (see below for details on these programs).

The Bush administration has emphasized the uniqueness of this hybrid structure as evidence that the new command has only benign purposes and that and that, in the words of Theresa Whelan, while “there are fears that Africom represents a militarization of U.S. foreign policy in Africa and that Africom will somehow become the lead U.S. Government interlocutor with Africa. This fear is unfounded” (Whelan, 2007). Therefore, Bush administration officials insist that the purpose of Africom is misunderstood. As Theresa Whelan (Whelan, 2007) put it in her congressional testimony,

Some people believe that we are establishing Africom solely to fight terrorism, or to secure oil resources, or to discourage China. This is not true. Violent extremism is cause for concern, and needs to be addressed, but this is not Africom’s singular mission. Natural resources represent Africa’s current and future wealth, but in a fair market environment, many benefit. Ironically, the U.S., China and other countries share a common interest—that of a secure environment. Africom is about helping Africans build greater capacity to assure their own security.

DoD recognizes and applauds the leadership role that individual African countries and multi-lateral African organizations are taking in the promotion of peace, security and stability on the continent. For example, Africom can provide effective training, advisory and technical support to the development of the African Standby Force. This is exactly the type of initiative and leadership needed to address the diverse and unpredictable global security challenges the world currently faces. The purpose of Africom is to encourage and support such African leadership and initiative, not to compete with it or discourage it. U.S. security is enhanced when African nations themselves endeavor to successfully address and resolve emergent security issues before they become so serious that they require considerable international resources and intervention to resolve.

On closer examination, however, the difference between Africom and other commands—and the allegedly “unfounded” nature of its implications for the militarization of the continent—are not as real or genuine as the Bush administration officials would have us believe. Of course Washington has other interests in Africa besides making it into another front in its Global War on Terrorism, maintaining and extending access to energy supplies and other strategic raw material, and competing with China and other rising economic powers for control over the continent’s resources; these include helping Africans deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other emerging diseases, strengthening and assisting peacekeeping and conflict resolution efforts, and responding to humanitarian disasters. But it is simply disingenuous to suggest that accomplishing these three objectives is not the main reason that Washington is now devoting so much effort and attention to the continent. And of course Washington would prefer that selected friendly regimes take the lead in meeting these objects, so that the United States can avoid direct military involvement in Africa, particularly at a time when the U.S. military is so deeply committed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and preparing for possible attacks on Iran. The hope that the Pentagon can build up African surrogates who can act on behalf of the United States is precisely why Washington is providing so much security assistance to these regimes and why it would like to provide even more in the future. Indeed, as argued below, this is actually one of the main reasons that Africom is being created at this time.

So why is Africom being created and why now? I would argue that the answer to this question is twofold. First, the Bush administration would like to significantly expand its security assistance programs for regimes that are willing to act as surrogates, for friendly regimes—particularly in countries with abundant oil and natural gas supplies—and for efforts to increase its options for more direct military involvement in the future; but it has had difficulty getting the U.S. Congress and the Pentagon to provide the required funding or to devoting the necessary attention and energy to accomplish these tasks. The creation of Africom will allow the administration to go to the U.S. Congress and argue that the establishment of Africom demonstrates the importance of Africa for U.S. national security and the administration’s commitment to give the continent the attention that it deserves. If Africa is so important and if the administration’s actions show that it really wants to do all sorts of good things for Africa, it hopes to be in a much stronger position to make a convincing case that the legislature must appropriate substantially greater amounts of money to fund the new command’s operations. And within the Pentagon, the establishment of Africom as a unified command under the authority of a high-ranking officer with direct access to the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff will put the new command in a much stronger position to compete with other command for resources, manpower, and influence over policymaking.

Secondly, key members of the Bush administration, a small, but growing and increasingly vocal group of legislators, and influential think tanks have become more and more alarmed by the growing efforts of China to expand its access to energy supplies and other resources from Africa and to enhance its political and economic influence throughout the continent. These “alarmists” point to the considerable resources that China is devoting to the achievement of these goals and to the engagement of Chinese officials at the highest level—including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, both of who have made tours of the continent and have hosted high-level meetings in Beijing with African heads of state—as evidence of a “grand strategy” on the part of China that jeopardizes U.S. national security interests and that is aimed, ultimately, at usurping the West’s position on the continent. The creation of Africom, therefore, should be seen as one element of a broad effort to develop a “grand strategy” on the part of the United States that will counter, and eventually defeat, China’s efforts. It should also be understood as a measure that is intended to demonstrate to Beijing that Washington will match China’s actions, thus serving as a warning to the Chinese leadership that they should restrain themselves or face possible consequences to their relationship with America as well as to their interests in Africa.

So, what will Africom actually do when it becomes fully operational? Basically, it will take over the implementation of a host of military, security cooperation, and security assistance programs, which are funded through either the State Department or the Defense Department. These include the following:

African Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS)

This academic institution was created by the Defense Department in 1999 to conduct research, analysis, and education on issues of African security and defense activities. Based at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, the ACSS opened an annex at the U.S. embassy in Ethiopia in 2006 and is planning to establish other annexes elsewhere on the continent.

Africa Clearinghouse

This agency was created by the Defense Department within the European Command in 2004 to coordinate U.S. activities with those of other countries engaged in security cooperation and assistance in Africa, particularly with France and the United Kingdom.

Bilateral and Multilateral Joint Training Programs and Military Exercises

The United States provides military training to African military personnel through a wide variety of training and education programs. In addition, it conducts military exercises in Africa jointly with African troops and also with the troops of its European allies to provide training to others and also to train its own forces for possible deployment to Africa in the future. These include the following:

Flintlock 2005 and 2007

These are Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) exercises conducted by units of the U.S. Army Special Forces and the U.S. Army Rangers, along with contingents from other units, to provide training experience both for American troops and for the troops of African countries (small numbers of European troops are also involved in these exercises). Flintlock 2005 was held in June 2005, when more than one thousand U.S. personnel were sent to North and West Africa for counter-terrorism exercises in Algeria, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad that involved more than three thousand local service members. In April 2007, U.S. Army Special Forces went to Niger for the first part of Flintlock 2007 and in late August 2007, some 350 American troops arrived in Mali for three weeks of Flintlock 2007 exercises with forces from Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Both Flintlock exercises were conducted as part of Operation Enduring Freedom—Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP) which now links the United States with eight African countries: Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. In 2004, the TSCTP was created to replace the Pan-Sahel Counter-Terrorism Initiative, which was initiated in 2002. The TSCTP also involves smaller, regular training exercises conducted by U.S. Army Special Forces throughout the region. Although changing budgetary methodology makes it difficult to be certain, it appears that the TSCTP received some $31 million in FY 2006, nearly $82 million in FY 2007, and is expected to receive approximately $100 million annually from FY 2008 through FY 2013 (Daly, 2007).

Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance Program (ACOTA)

This program, which began operating in 2002, replaces the African Crisis Response Initiative launched in 1997 by the Clinton administration. In 2004, it became part of the Global Peace Operations Initiative. ACOTA is officially designed to provide training to African military forces to improve their ability to conduct peacekeeping operations, even if they take place in hostile environments. But since the training includes both defensive and offensive military operations, it also enhances the ability of participating forces to engage in police operations against unarmed civilians, counter-insurgency operations, and even conventional military operations against the military forces of other countries. By FY 2007, nineteen African countries were participating in the ACOTA program (Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia). New budgetary methodology makes it impossible to ascertain the levels of funding for ACOTA, since the program’s funding is subsumed within the budget for the Global Peace Operations Initiative.

International Military Education and Training Program (IMET)

The IMET program brings African military officers to military academies and other military educational institutions in the United States for professional training. Nearly all African countries participate in the program—including Libya for the first time in FY 2008—and in FY 2006 (the last year for which country figures are available—it trained 14,731 students from the African continent (excluding Egypt) at a cost of $14.7 million.

Foreign Military Sales Program (FMS)

This program sells U.S. military equipment to African countries; such sales are conducted by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency of the Defense Department. The U.S. government provides loans to finance the purchase of virtually all of this equipment through the Foreign Military Financing Program (FMF), but repayment of these loans by African governments is almost always waived, so that they amount to free grants. In FY 2006, sub-Saharan African countries received a total of nearly $14 million in FMF funding, and the Maghrebi countries of Morocco and Tunisia received almost another $21 million; for FY 2007, the Bush administration requested nearly $15 million for sub-Saharan Africa and $21 million for the Morocco and Tunisia; and for FY 2008, the administration requested nearly $8 million for sub-Saharan Africa and nearly $6 million for the Maghreb.

African Coastal and Border Security Program (ACBS Program)

This program provides specialized equipment (such as patrol vessels and vehicles, communications equipment, night vision devices, and electronic monitors and sensors) to African countries to improve their ability to patrol and defend their own coastal waters and borders from terrorist operations, smuggling, and other illicit activities. In some cases, airborne surveillance and intelligence training also may be provided. In FY 2006, the ACBS Program received nearly $4 million in FMF funding, and Bush administration requested $4 million in FMF funding for the program in FY 2007. No dedicated funding was requested for FY 2008, but the program may be revived in the future.

Excess Defense Articles Program (EDA)

This program is designed to conduct ad hoc transfers of surplus U.S. military equipment to foreign governments. Transfers to African recipients have included the transfer of C-130 transport planes to South Africa and Botswana, trucks to Uganda, M-16 rifles to Senegal, and coastal patrol vessels to Nigeria.

Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA)

In October 2002, the U.S. Central Command played the leading role in the creation of this joint task force that was designed to conduct naval and aerial patrols in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the eastern Indian Ocean as part of the effort to detect and counter the activities of terrorist groups in the region. Based at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, long the site of a major French military base, the CJTF-HOA is made up of approximate 1,400 U.S. military personnel—primarily sailors, Marines, and Special Forces troops—that works with a multi-national naval force composed of American naval vessels along with ships from the navies of France, Italy, and Germany, and other NATO allies. The CJTF-FOA provided intelligence to Ethiopia in support of its invasion of Somalia in January 2007 and used military facilities in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya to launch its own attacks against alleged al-Qaeda members involved in the Council of Islamic Courts in Somalia in January and June of 2007 (Gordon and Massetti, 2007). The command authority for CJTF-HOA, currently under the U.S. Central Command, will be transferred to Africom by 2008.

Joint Task Force Aztec Silence (JTFAS)

In December 2003, the U.S. European Command created this joint task force under the commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet (Europe) to carry out counter-terrorism operations in North and West Africa and to coordinate U.S. operations with those of countries in those regions. Specifically, JTFAS was charged with conducting surveillance operations using the assets of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and to share information, along with intelligence collected by U.S. intelligence agencies, with local military forces. The primary assets employed in this effort are a squadron of U.S. Navy P-3 “Orion” based in Sigonella, Sicily. In March 2004, P-3 aircraft from this squadron and reportedly operating from the southern Algerian base at Tamanrasset were deployed to monitor and gather intelligence on the movements of Algerian Salafist guerrillas operating in Chad and to provide this intelligence to Chadian forces engaged in combat against the guerrillas (Jane’s Islamic, 2004; Jane’s Defense, 2004; Hunt, 2007).

Naval Operations in the Gulf of Guinea

Although American naval forces operating in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea and other areas along Africa’s shores are formally under the command of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, based in the Mediterranean, and other U.S. Navy commands, Africom will also help coordinate naval operations along the African coastline. As U.S. Navy Admiral Henry G. Ulrich III, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces (Europe) put it to reporters at Fort McNair in Washington, DC, in June 2007, “we hope, as they [Africom] stand up, to fold into their intentions and their planning,” and his command “will adjust, as necessary” as Africom becomes operational (Gilmore, 2007). In a significant expansion of U.S. Navy operations in Africa, the U.S.S. Fort McHenry amphibious assault ship will begin a six-month deployment to the Gulf of Guinea in November 2007. The ship will carry 200-300 sailors and U.S. Coast Guard personnel and will call at ports in eleven countries (Angola, Benin, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, and Togo). Its mission will be to serve as a “floating schoolhouse” to train local forces in port and oil-platform security, search-and rescue missions, and medical and humanitarian assistance. According to Admiral Ulrich, the deployment matches up perfectly with the work of the new Africa Command. “If you look at the direction that the Africa Command has been given and the purpose of standing up the Africom, you’ll see that the (Gulf of Guinea) mission is closely aligned,” he told reporters (Gilmore, 2007).

Base Access Agreements for Cooperative Security Locations and Forward Operating Sites

Over the past few years, the Bush administration has negotiated base access agreements with the governments of Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia. Under these agreements, the United States gains access to local military bases and other facilities so that they can be used by American forces as transit bases or as forward operating bases for combat, surveillance, and other military operations. They remain the property of the host African government and are not American bases in a legal sense, so that U.S. government officials are, technically, telling the truth when they deny that the United States has bases in these countries. To date, the United States has done little to improve the capabilities of these facilities, so that there is little or no evidence of an American military presence at these locations.

In addition to these publicly acknowledged base access agreements, the Pentagon was granted permission to deploy P-3 “Orion” aerial surveillance aircraft at the airfield at Tamanrasset in southern Algeria under an agreement reportedly signed in during Algerian President Aldelaziz Bouteflika’s visit to Washington in July 2003 (Jane’s Islamic, 2004; Jane’s Defense, 2004; Hunt, 2007). The Brown and Root-Condor, a joint venture between a subsidiary of the American company, Halliburton, and the Algerian state-owned oil company, Sonatrach, is currently under contract to enlarge military air bases at Tamanrasset and at Bou Saada. In December 2006, Salafist forces used an improvised mine and small arms to attack a convoy of Brown and Root-Condor employees who were returning to their hotel in the Algerian town of Bouchaaoui, killing an Algerian driver and wounding nine workers, including four Britons and one American (Smith, 2006).

Over the course of the next eighteen months, there is one major issue related to the new command that remains to be resolved: whether and where in Africa will Africom establish a regional headquarters. A series of consultations with the governments of a number of African countries—including Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Djibouti, Kenya—following the announcement of Africom found than none of them were willing to commit to hosting the new command. As a result, the Pentagon has been forced to reconsider its plans and in June 2007 Ryan Henry, the Principal Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy told reporters that the Bush administration now intended to establish what he called “a distributed command” that would be “networked” in several countries in different regions of the continent (Tisdall, 2007; Whitlock, 2007). Under questioning before the Senate Africa Subcommittee on 1 August 2007, Assistant Secretary Whelan said that Liberia, Botswana, Senegal, and Djibouti were among the countries that had expressed support for Africom—although only Liberia has publicly expressed a willingness to play host to Africom personnel—which clearly suggests that these countries are likely to accommodate elements of Africom’s headquarters staff when they eventually establish a presence on the continent sometime after October 2008 (Tate, 2007).

Bibliography

Daly, J. (2007), “Questioning AFRICOM’s Intentions,” ISN Security Watch, 5 September 2007, International Relations and Security Network, Center for Security Studies, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland, electronic version accessed 5 September 2007.

Gilmore, G. (2007), “U.S. Naval Forces Europe Prepares for AFRICOM Stand Up,” American Forces Press Service, 1 June 2007, electronic version accessed 4 September 2007.

Gordon, M. and Mazzetti, M. (2007), “U.S. Used Base in Ethiopia to Hunt Al Qaeda,” New York Times, 23 February 2007, electronic version accessed 24 February 2007.

Hunt, E. (2007), Islamist Terrorism in Northwestern Africa: A ‘Thorn in the Neck’ of the United States, Policy Focus No. 65, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, February 2007, pp. 14-15.

Jane’s Defense (2004), “U.S. to bolster counter-terrorism assistance to Africa,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, 6 October 2004, electronic version accessed 24 October 2004.

Jane’s Islamic (2004), “U.S. deploys further forces in Africa,” Jane’s IslamicAffairs Analyst, 4 August 2004, electronic version accessed 24 October 2004.

Klare, M. and Volman, D. (2006), “America, China and the Scramble for Africa’s Oil,” Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 33, No. 108: 297-309.

Smith, C. (2006), “Qaeda-Linked Group Claims Algerian Attack,” New York Times, 13 December 2006, electronic version accessed 13 December 2006.

Tate, D. (2007), “U.S. Officials Brief Congress on New Military Command for Africa,” Voice of America News, 1 August 2007, electronic version accessed 30 August 2007.

Tisdall, S. (2007), “Africa united in rejecting U.S. request for military HQ,” Guardian, 26 June 2007, electronic version accessed 30 August 2007.

Volman, D. (2003), “The Bush Administration and African Oil: The Security Implications of US Energy Policy,” Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 30, No. 98: 573-584.

Whelan, T. (2007), Exploring the U.S. Africa Command and a New Strategic Relationship with Africa, Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on African Affairs, Washington, DC, 1 August 2007, electronic version accessed 6 August 2007.

Whitlock, C. (2007), “North Africa Reluctant to Host U.S. Command,” Washington Post, 24 June 2007, electronic version accessed 24 June 2007.

COPYRIGHT © 2007 THE REVIEW OF AFRICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY,
Vol. 34, No. 114 (December 2007)

*Daniel Volman is the director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and the author of numerous articles on U.S. military policy toward Africa and African security issues.

Virtually unnoticed, American troops are marching into Africa. On 1 May 2008, U.S. naval forces launched the latest in a series of missile strikes on Somali insurgents and last September U.S. Air Force personnel came under fire while ferrying supplies to counter-insurgency forces in Mali. Now the Pentagon is hard at work creating a new U.S. military command for Africa—the Africa Command or Africom—to direct America’s rapidly expanding military involvement in Africa. And yet few people in the United States are even aware of America’s dangerous new military adventure on the African continent.

So what exactly is Africom and what exactly is the Pentagon up to in Africa? Africom—which is scheduled to become operational on 1 October 2008—is a new independent combatant command that will manage U.S. military activities on the entire African continent (with the exception of Egypt) which up until now has been handled by three separate U.S. commands: European Command, Central Command, and Pacific Command. It will oversee U.S. military operations including arms sales, military training programs, the implementation of base access agreements with nearly a dozen African countries that have agreed to host American troops in times of crisis, and U.S. naval operations in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea. It will also take over control of the forces stationed at the new U.S. base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, the headquarters for the U.S. Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. These are the troops that have conducted five attacks on Somalia since January 2007, culminating in the cruise missile strike on 1 May. Indeed, according to General “Kip” Ward, the African-American general who runs Africom, the Pentagon sees the U.S. Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa as the “model” for the kind of operations that Africom will be conducting all over Africa.

The chief purpose of the new command, according to General Ward and other U.S. military officers, is to protect the flow of oil and other resources to the United States—which now depends upon Africa for more than 20% of its oil imports, more than we get from the Middle East and which expects to get more than 25% by 2015—to bolster the military capabilities of friendly governments—particularly repressive and undemocratic regimes in oil-rich countries like Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Chad, and Equatorial Guinea—and to counter the growing economic and political involvement of China. It is the clearest indication yet that Washington has come to rely almost solely on the unilateral use of military force to advance U.S. interests in Africa.

This strategy is inherently self-destructive and profoundly un-American. It will provoke greater political repression, violence, and economic chaos in Africa, particularly in the oil-rich states that the United States depends upon to fuel its economy, thus jeopardizing the oil supplies that it is supposed to protect. And when oil supplies are disrupted, it will condemn the men and women who serve in America’s armed services to fighting and dying in a futile effort to pacify oil-producing areas throughout the continent.

If the American people want to ensure that they will continue to get oil from Africa, we need to pursue a very different strategy toward Africa. Instead of encouraging repression, violence, and the plundering of Africa’s resources by corrupt and dictatorial regimes, the United States should be giving strong and consistent support to the people of Africa who are fighting with incredible bravery and courage for democratic and accountable government, economic equity, and the rule of law.

Repression and military intervention may keep the oil flowing for a time. But in the end they always fail and—when they fail—vital oil production will be cut off and America will face a real energy crisis. As the American military occupation of Iraq has clearly shown, military adventurism does not bring security, protect oil production, or create democratic government. Only a strategy that is based on a genuine partnership with the people of Africa and that respects their needs and interests will build a stable, dependable, and mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and the countries of Africa. Ultimately, this is our only hope of keeping the oil flowing.

* Daniel Volman is the Director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. He is a specialist on U.S. military activities in Africa and the author of numerous articles and research reports.

Read the document here (pdf): https://concernedafricascholars.org/docs/asrp2008_us_mil_programs.pdf

The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
July 19, 1999

Africa Growth and Opportunity Act Passes House
Efforts to Oppose Economic Conditionality Defeated
Opponents Focus on Senate

The House of Representatives in mid-July approved the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (H.R. 2489), legislation that if it became law would link new trade preferences for Africa to structural adjustment reforms and IMF style conditionalities. The ACAS Executive Committee believes the legislation approved by the House is worse than no bill at all and we recommend members urge their Senators to vote against the bill when it comes for a vote in that body.

Supporters of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), including the Clinton administration, most business groups, Africare, the African American Institute, a majority of the Black Caucus and the entire African diplomatic corps in Washington, argue the legislation is a long overdue recognition of U.S. interests in Africa and an important first step in promoting U.S. trade and investment. The conditionalities in the legislation, argue supporters, are modest and in most cases are subject to the presidential discretion. But opponents such as Representatives Jesse Jackson, Jr., Maxine Waters and 12 other members of the Black caucus as well as the 13 million member AFL-CIO trade union federation, TransAfrica, the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, COSATU and a coalition of African NGOs argue the legislation imposes economic policy prescriptions without providing meaningful development for the poorest continent in the world. (For a full list of opponents see the Public Citizen web site at http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/Africa/opponents.htm). Although the South African government now supports the legislation, Nelson Mandela’s first reaction to the legislation was to call it “unacceptable.” An alternative trade bill proposed by Rep. Jesse Jackson (and cosponsored by 75 other members of Congress), that would expand trade preference, call for debt cancellation and insist on minimal levels of continuing development aid, was not even brought to a vote. Its provisions should be reconsidered by the House and Senate.

What AGOA Does

The legislation approved by the House offers African countries a series of rewards, including expanded duty free access to American markets for certain products, equity and infrastructure funds to support U.S. investment, and establishment of a mechanism to promote and review U.S. trade policy toward Africa. Yet to receive these benefits, African governments must remove restrictions on foreign investment, reduce corporate taxes and privatize state owned companies.

The benefits of these programs are, moreover, minimal. The House bill would in theory allow duty free imports of textiles, primarily from Kenya and Mauritius, if the textile imports do not damage U.S. companies. But a March 1999 Congressional Budget Office study suggested that in reality 90 percent of African textiles would probably be declared “import sensitive” and denied access to U.S. markets. The Senate version of the bill, which has been approved by the Senate Finance Committee but not by the full Senate, allows imports only of textiles made with U.S. cloth and thread.

The legislation also provides authority for the president to provide “duty free” access to U.S. markets for certain African goods under a trade provision known as GSP. Yet according to the Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, more than 29 African countries already have GSP trade status and the real effect of this provision is simply to encourage the president to consider allowing “enhanced GSP” status for certain African products if they will not damage U.S. manufacturers. Each decision on each product would have to first be reviewed by both the U.S. Trade Representative and the International Trade Commission.

Supporters argue the real value of the bill is not so much in the specific lifting of trade restrictions, but in the framework it establishes for promoting trade with Africa including the call for a free trade agreement between the U.S. and Africa and the establishment of annual forums at which trade and finance ministers from Africa and the U.S. meet. Efforts to strengthen U.S. ties with Africa are indeed welcome, and the Clinton administration has already established a special trade office for Africa and the first ever meeting of African and U.S. trade and finance ministers was held in Washington in early 1999. But what are the benefits to those who do not attend meetings of government officials and other elites?

The Wrong Framework, the Wrong Symbolism

A closer examination reveals that the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act approved by the House establishes the wrong framework and is a step in the wrong direction. The legislation passed by the House establishes a framework that might at best help a few more economically advanced countries-but will bring few if any benefits to the majority of people in Africa. Indeed at its core are policies now proven to increase poverty and decrease the provision of public goods such as health care and education.

At the core of the Act is another attempt to force African governments to prioritize a series of free market principles, including cuts in government expenditures, privatization of government corporations, new rights for foreign investors to buy African natural resources and state firms without limits, deep cuts in tariffs, and membership in the World Trade Organization. (See the attached excerpts from the bill for a list of the conditions.)

Labor advocates did manage to force the sponsors to add a provision raising the issue of labor rights and there is a reference to the importance of respect for “internationally recognized human rights,” but eleven of the twelve items on the checklist used to determine “eligibility” for benefits under the legislation are designed to open markets for U.S. investment and trade.

Such priorities were made starkly clear in the debate on the House floor in mid-July, when the sponsors of this legislation used a parliamentary maneuver to defeat an attempt that would have allowed countries to import generic, lower cost drugs to deal with national emergencies such as the HIV/AIDS crisis. At the moment, the U.S. is vigorously threatening South Africa with trade sanctions in retaliation for the South African government’s efforts to obtain low cost, generic alternatives to drugs necessary for combating AIDS.

These policies are not new. The World Bank and IMF have been imposing these policies on poorer countries in the world for decades, but even the multilateral institutions have acknowledged that these policies have not improved conditions for the poorest segment of the world’s population. In fact, according to a new report by the United Nations Development Program, the poorest countries have actually gotten poorer in the last decade and that same report notes that 29 of the 34 poorest countries in the world are in Africa.

In summary: the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act passed by the House is a step in the wrong direction. This legislation is an attempt to force African countries to prioritize macroeconomic policies that are not appropriate for the level of development in Africa.

An Alternative Vision

Congressman Jesse Jackson, with the assistance of labor, citizen and environment groups, drafted an alternative piece of legislation-the HOPE for Africa Act (H.R. 772)–that sought to focus U.S. Africa policy on debt relief, development assistance and social programs. That legislation, however, was never brought to the floor for a full debate. (For a full comparison of that legislation with the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, see the Public Citizen comparison on the web).

Defeat AGOA in the Senate

The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act must now be approved by the Senate. The ACAS Executive urges members to write to your senators and express your opposition to this legislation, and urge a new, fairer deal for Africa-as proposed in key provisions of the Hope Act.

July 19, 1999
The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars