[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
COORDINATING AFRICA POLICY ON SECURITY,
COUNTERTERRORISM, HUMANITARIAN
OPERATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
AND HUMAN RIGHTS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 26, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-100
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
______
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
RON PAUL, Texas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
CONNIE MACK, Florida GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
TED POE, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DAVID RIVERA, Florida FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
VACANT
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
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Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Donald Y. Yamamoto, Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State. 6
The Honorable Vicki Huddleston, Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense, Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of
Defense........................................................ 12
Ms. Sharon Cromer, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau
for Africa, U.S. Agency for International Development.......... 20
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Donald Y. Yamamoto: Prepared statement............. 9
The Honorable Vicki Huddleston: Prepared statement............... 16
Ms. Sharon Cromer: Prepared statement............................ 23
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 46
Hearing minutes.................................................. 47
The Honorable Russ Carnahan, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Missouri: Prepared statement...................... 48
The Honorable Vicki Huddleston:
Written responses to questions asked during the hearing by the
Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights...................... 49
Written responses to questions asked for the record by the
Honorable Rus Carnahan....................................... 60
COORDINATING AFRICA POLICY ON SECURITY, COUNTERTERRORISM, HUMANITARIAN
OPERATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT
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TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
and Human Rights
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock
p.m., in room 2255 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon.
Christopher H. Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order. And good
afternoon to everybody. Sorry for the delay. We did have a
series of votes on the House floor so we're a little bit late,
not too late, but a little bit.
We are meeting today to examine how the United States'
policies are being coordinated in Africa from the security,
counterterrorism, humanitarian, and development perspectives
since the establishment of the U.S. Africa Command in 2008.
For decades, despite the wave of African independence in
the 1950s through the 1970s, many American policy makers did
not believe Africa held strategic importance to the United
States. According to one defense analyst, ``During the Cold
War, the United States' foreign policy toward sub-Saharan
Africa had little to do with Africa.''
After the fall of the Soviet Union many U.S. policy makers
continue to consider the U.S. military's role and
responsibilities on the continent to be minimal. In 1995, the
Department of Defense asserted in its U.S. security strategy
for sub-Saharan Africa that ``ultimately we see very little
traditional strategic interest in Africa.'' Oh, how they were
wrong.
A look at current statistics amply demonstrates that the
United States does have a strategic and a very strong one in
sub-Saharan Africa. Over 90 percent of U.S. trade with African
nations centers on American imports of African oil. Imports
from Africa comprise of nearly a quarter of all American oil
imports and promises to increase as new sources of oil continue
to be found throughout Africa.
Similarly, African nations have abundant minerals on which
our modern society depends. In recent years, the mineral
coltan, largely from Africa, has enabled the development of
computers, cell phones, and electronic devices. We would be
hard pressed to construct jet aircraft, automobile catalytic
converters, or iPods, without the minerals found in Africa and,
in some cases, almost nowhere else to be found in the world.
Since the 1998 bombings of the American Embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania, it has become clear that terrorism can strike the
United States even in Africa. In fact, the presence of Africans
on the list of planners of the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center
attacks demonstrates that terrorism in Africa is not confined
to Africa itself and can reach out and strike us even in our
homeland.
In a hearing that I chaired on March 12, 1999, on U.S.
embassy security, Admiral William Crowe, then chairman of the
Accountability Review Board, said the Kenya and Tanzania
bombings demonstrated the inadequacy of resources to provide
security against terrorist attacks as demonstrated by the lack
of resources devoted to U.S. security at U.S. posts abroad.
That resulted in what we then called the Embassy Security Act
of 1999, and I offered it. It became known when it was finally
enacted as the Admiral Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations
Act of 2000.
When I visited Sudan in 2005, government officials in
Khartoum admitted they had harbored al-Qaeda in the past and
Security Chief Salah Gosh bragged to me about how close his
government was to the late Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda at one
time. Clearly, we must remain vigilant concerning the existence
of terrorist organizations that threaten our interests in
Africa and of course, Africa's people.
As we have learned during our hearings on Somalia on July
7th, we are currently in the midst of a huge famine in the Horn
of Africa as a result of severe drought that is affecting the
entire eastern Africa region. The drought, said to be the worst
in 60 years, has caused a severe crisis across Somalia,
Ethiopia, and Kenya that threatens the livelihood of more than
12 million people. Other countries in and around the Horn of
Africa including Djibouti, Sudan, South Sudan, and parts of
Uganda also are affected by a food crisis.
Our Government certainly now realizes the importance of
Africa, but remnants of our policy neglect remain. One example
of the previous underestimation of Africa's significance was
the division of American interests in Africa among three
different combatant commands: The European Command, the Central
Command and the Pacific Command. Because of their differing
strategic objectives and goals, Africa was hardly ever a
primary concern. The creation of the African Command or AFRICOM
demonstrates the current awareness of the strategic importance
of Africa, not only for the United States, but for the world in
general.
During our country's growing engagement with the nations of
Africa, our policy toward the continent has been managed by two
civilian agencies, the Department of State and the U.S. Agency
for International Development. It is therefore reasonable that
AFRICOM contains a larger non-DoD civilian staff than has been
the tradition with other combatant commands, but questions
remain concerning whether an expanded military presence will
overshadow the so-called soft power of diplomacy and
humanitarian developmental assistance.
DoD officials emphasize that AFRICOM remains under
development. Some details regarding the command structure and
footprint are still being reviewed. For example, a decision on
AFRICOM's final headquarters' location has been postponed until
2012 and a move to the continent may not occur for several
years, if at all. This new coordination during the past 3 years
among the State Department, USAID, and Defense Department, and
its implications for U.S. policy in Africa as a whole, will be
the focus of this hearing.
A former EUCOM commander suggested that the Africa Command,
with the interagency coordination, would be the pioneer for a
new approach that other commands might adopt later. We look
forward to examining the challenges and the success of this
approach with our very distinguished witnesses.
I'd like to now yield such time as it may consume to my
good friend and colleague, Don Payne.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and let me
commend you for calling this very important hearing. Today, I
look forward to the hearing about the recent developments in
AFRICOM and its mission to collaborate with state and USAID. I
think that Africa has had its problems as it moved out of
decolonization following World War II as it started to move for
independence, but as that occurred, of course, the Cold War
began. And countries then were judged on what side are you on,
on the Warsaw Pact nations with the USSR or are you with
democracy as we were fighting against the Iron Curtain
countries. And so unfortunately, because of that, dictators
were put into power not on how they govern, but where they
stood. And we've seen people like Mobutu in Zaire and Santos in
Angola and we can go on, so-called constructive engagement in
South Africa with P. W. Botha, where we looked the other way
because our main concern was where do you stand against the
USSR. So unfortunately as democratization came about many
countries felt all they had to do was to satisfy either the USA
or the USSR and move along with brutal dictators, mostly
military persons.
And so we have seen the difficult transition. We did see a
wave of democracy move through in the '70s and '80s and '90s
where countries had excellent elections and we saw the military
people move out of the leadership of countries and
democratically elected leaders. Of course, we know AFRICOM was
first established in 2007, made operational in 2008 to promote
the U.S. national security objectives in Africa and its
surrounding areas. Prior to AFRICOM's creation there were, as
we know, three Department of Defense combatant commands
covering Africa, U.S. European Command, the U.S. Central
Command and the U.S. Pacific Command. At that time, current
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, then a Senior Fellow at Brookings
Institute criticized the three command approach by stating that
Africa had been the poor stepchild in each of these different
commands and that it deserved full attention of a U.S. Command.
Given Africa's strategic importance and the prevalence of
civil violence and the development challenges on the continent,
it was felt that it was appropriate for the Department of
Defense, State Department and USAID to have a coordinated
approach to addressing security in the region. AFRICOM must
also adhere to its stated purpose to work with African nations
and African organizations to build regional security and crisis
response capacity.
When AFRICOM was first launched, I voiced concern regarding
the role it would be playing and the motivation behind its
creation and much of that came from African leaders. You may
recall when AFRICOM was announced, General Ward, who we have so
much respect for him as he recently retired, Four Star General,
was appointed to lead AFRICOM and did visit a number of African
countries to inform them about this new command.
Unfortunately, not much previous announcement was given.
Meetings were short and quick. Had to do one or two countries
every other day and I think that it was handled totally poorly.
And therefore, Africa countries wondered what is this all
about? And secondly, our Department of Defense, in my opinion,
did a very poor job of introducing it. African Presidents with
a number of them wondered well, what is this new thing? Is it
just because U.S. has interests? Is it watch the Gulf of
Guinea's oil? Is it fight al-Qaeda? All of these things are
very positive for the United States of America, but well,
secondly, what does it mean for us? It's great for you, but
what about us?
And so I think that the debacle of the poor manner in which
the introduction of AFRICOM to African nations was a setback.
Every single country said thanks, but no thanks except Liberia
who, as you know, is one of our staunchest allies. And of
course, the President was looking for the AFRICOM to come to
Liberia because they need to have additional income. I believe
that was the main reason.
So it was handled poorly and it was a setback.
My primary concern was like I said, it was hastily created,
although Department of Defense was thinking about it for a long
time. However, they didn't let others know. Unclear mission and
the potential of militarizing foreign aid. And that was one of
the other misconceptions. You had to see the General to see
whether you were going to get aid or not.
And as we talk about democracy all through the '70s and
'80s and '90s and said do away with the generals, they
shouldn't be in charge of government. They shouldn't be the
ones you go to for assistance and for jobs and we looked like
we were putting a general in charge of what agency should get
the aid or the food or should the children get it or the
adults? So it was just poorly conceived in my opinion. Of
course, people in the Department of Defense tell me I'm all
wrong. The State Department said it, too. However, that's just
the way it is.
So we are where we are.
Another concern was that African nations have expressed
unwillingness to house the Command with the notable exception,
as I mentioned, of Liberia. In fact, just last month, Liberia's
President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, met with me and other Members
of Congress and stated her desire once again to have AFRICOM
headquartered in Liberia. I'm interested as we move along about
whether the operations will move to Africa, will stay in
Europe, and if Liberia is one of the countries that would be
considered. Many others also questioned the Bush
administration's intentions for AFRICOM and worried about the
increased military presence and whether this was a reaction to
China's growing investment in the region and ways of securing
Africa's valuable natural resources.
There is no doubt that the Department of Defense have
resources and capabilities, that's for sure. If used in a
collaborative way with the Department of State, USAID, as well
as African military partners, can serve as a valuable
contribution to the continent. Indeed, there are good examples
for such collaboration. For example, AFRICOM has utilized
USAID's conflict analysis of Southern Sudan to inform its
planning efforts and is assisting in the interagency in
determining the appropriate approach to supporting South
Sudan's security sector reform and conflict mitigation
activities.
In the DRC, AFRICOM collaborated with State and USAID to
address sexual and gender-based violence issues which, as we
know, is very prominent there. The Command used its resources
to construct or renovate buildings where the government, the
U.N. or local and international nongovernmental organizations
delivered services. AFRICOM also oversaw training on preventing
sexual and gender-based violence for the Congolese Army.
These successful interventions and training initiatives are
good examples of how interagency cooperation on security
assistance in Africa can be very effective and AFRICOM has the
resources to be a valuable player on the continent. It is
important, however, that AFRICOM seek to maintain equal
partnership and does not over reach its mandate and attempt to
become a leader in the U.S. diplomacy and development.
While I remain somewhat hesitant about aspects of AFRICOM
with foreign assistance funds at a risk for significant cuts as
we move to the next Congresses, I welcome AFRICOM as a partner
to State and USAID since the Department of Defense is the only
Department that seems to be able to not have serious cuts.
I hope to learn about, more about the interagency
coordination between AFRICOM, USAID, and State Department and
how this collaboration is benefitting African citizens while
also advancing American interests. So I certainly look forward
to the testimony and I yield back the balance of my time, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. Mr. Marino.
Mr. Marino. Mr. Chairman, I have no comment at this time.
Mr. Smith. Ms. Bass?
Ms. Bass. Thank you. Once again, thank you, Chairman Smith
and Ranking Member Payne for convening this important hearing
to discuss AFRICOM and its role in Africa. I'd also like to
thank our witnesses who will present testimony today. I look
forward to hearing more about the inter-departmental
collaborations and coordinations between AFRICOM and USAID.
Throughout the hearing, I also look forward to hearing more
about direct interaction and relationship between AFRICOM and
African countries. I do understand, as Mr. Payne was
describing, that many African leaders are concerned and some
resistant to the idea of AFRICOM headquartered within the
continent. And I'm interested in assessing the value of
relocating AFRICOM to the continent both for Americans and
Africans.
I would appreciate some additional information about the
general posture of African leaders and the African Union toward
AFRICOM at this time. So thank you very much for the taking the
time out today.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. Ms. Buerkle.
Ms. Buerkle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to thank
you and the ranking member, Mr. Payne, for calling this very
important hearing and I look forward to hearing the testimony
from our witnesses, this afternoon.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Ms. Buerkle. Without
objection, a full biography of each of our very distinguished
witnesses will be made a part of the record, but I will just
briefly introduce them to the panel, beginning--although none
of you are strangers--beginning with Ambassador Donald Yamamoto
who has testified before us as recently as March at a hearing
on the DRC and another hearing just a few weeks ago on Somalia.
He has served since 2009 as the Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary for the Bureau for African Affairs of the U.S.
Department of State. His prior assignments included serving as
U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia from November 2006 to July 2009,
and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau for
African Affairs from '03 to '06.
We'll then hear from Ambassador Vicki Huddleston who
currently serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Africa in
the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Ambassador Huddleston
began her public service career as a Peace Corps volunteer and
has held a number of positions in the State Department
including several in Africa where she served as Acting
Ambassador to Ethiopia and Ambassador to Madagascar and Mali.
Throughout her career in the State Department, Ambassador
Huddleston has worked to advance democracy and to build peace.
Prior to joining the DoD, she was a visiting scholar at the
Brookings Institution.
And finally we'll hear from Sharon Cromer who is currently
serving as Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Africa
Bureau for USAID, a position she has held since May 2010. Ms.
Cromer is a Senior USAID Foreign Service Officer with more than
20 years of experience in the international humanitarian and
development assistance area. Upon her return to Washington in
2009, Ms. Cromer served as Assistant Administrator for the
Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance on a
temporary basis before assuming the position of Deputy
Administrator in the Bureau of Management.
Ambassador Yamamoto, if you would proceed.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DONALD Y. YAMAMOTO, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY
ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF AFRICAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF STATE
Ambassador Yamamoto. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith
and Ranking Member Payne and distinguished members of this
committee. I extend our deep appreciation to this committee for
this hearing on AFRICOM's partnership with USAID and the
Department of State in facing the challenges in Africa and
forming important alliances with Africa's leaders and people.
AFRICOM's role is a paradigm shift, a new way of doing
business that makes sense, promotes our national strategic
interests, and accomplishes our goals and objectives by
bringing the interagency closer as a team in the most effective
and innovative manner.
First, AFRICOM provides greater unity of command on a
continent that DoD previously split between geographic
combatant commands, a multiple, functional commands. Further,
AFRICOM provides a command structure capable of coordinating
and commanding a multitude of U.S. military components engaged
in programs in Africa, enhancing DoD's operational
effectiveness in cooperation with our Embassies, Ambassadors,
and USAID mission directors.
In the past several years, DoD components have grown to
become the largest non-State Department presence in several of
our missions.
Second, AFRICOM is an important partner for USAID and
State, as we seek to tackle problems, pursue solutions and
expand partnerships in Africa. General Ward, and now General
Ham, do not merely meet with their military counterparts, but
also with national leaders, civilian policy makers and play an
integral part in how we approach Africa, how we develop policy
and how we execute programs.
Third, AFRICOM has a civilian Department of State official
as its deputy commander, as well as other State and USAID
officers directly integrated into its headquarter structures
which improves coordinations between agencies which is a unique
organizational arrangement, not commonly found in military
formations. Duplicated in other commands, AFRICOM's unique
approach is directly relevant to Secretary Clinton's launching
of the QDDR process through which we are rethinking how we do
business and integrate the interagency in achieving our common
national goals and objectives.
AFRICOM, with USAID and State are working together to
address a multitude of challenges including the conflict in
Libya; implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement in
Sudan; stabilization, piracy challenges in Somalia; addressing
violence in Congo; development in Liberia; promoting training
and infrastructure development throughout Africa and
transnational challenges.
In addition, we are directly collaborating on issues such
as military professionalization, building counterterrorism
capacity, disaster management, peacekeeping capacity building,
humanitarian operations coordinated with USAID, de-mining
ammunition handling training, nonproliferation of weapons and
mass destruction, destruction of excess small arms, light
weapons and ammunition, defense sector reform, maritime safety,
a whole slew of activities that goes on and on.
If there's a downside to the level of engagement we have
seen from AFRICOM, it is that the large number of AFRICOM's
temporary assignment personnel deployed to the continent often
present significant logistical challenges for our U.S. missions
which sometimes find it difficult to maintain full visibility
and provide adequate support given their own very limited
staffing levels.
Additionally, the constant turnover of temporary military
personnel working on 3 or 6 months' rotations can cause
significant confusion with both a country team and the host
nation it carefully manages. Nonetheless, we will continue to
work together and coordinate closely in order to mitigate and
manage these challenges which are far outweighed by the
positive gains that AFRICOM has made in the past 3 years.
I can report to you today that cooperation between AFRICOM
and our African partners is at an all-time high, despite the
lingering wariness toward AFRICOM on the part of some African
nations.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you again
for this opportunity to appear before this committee. And I
submit a longer version for the record.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Yamamoto follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Without objection, it will be made a part of the
record and thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
Ambassador Huddleston?
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE VICKI HUDDLESTON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Ambassador Huddleston. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member
Payne, thank you, first of all, for your remarks. We very much
appreciated them. And honorable members of the committee, thank
you for the invitation to talk with you today about cooperation
between the U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, the State Department,
and the USAID on the African continent.
I also want to extend my thanks to my colleagues from State
and USAID and other witnesses today.
Since its standup in 2008, AFRICOM has brought long-needed
integration to the security dimension of our Africa policy. Up
to that time, DoD had partitioned Africa among three co-COMs,
EUCOM, CENTCOM, AND PACOM. As a result, Africa did not receive
the attention it needed. The lack of one command focused
exclusively on the continent meant that DoD lacked a coherent,
consistent approach to and an understanding of the region's
vast complexities. And both the chairman and the ranking
member, mentioned that.
One immediate and fully expected outcome of the creation of
AFRICOM has been the expanded DoD engagement in the U.S. Africa
policy making and implementation policy. This should have come
as no surprise. Secretary Clinton has spelled out the three
legs of national security: Diplomacy, development, and defense.
Strong diplomacy and robust development programs have served as
hallmarks of U.S. Africa policy for a half century since the
end of colonialism.
Less prominent, however, in that formulation was the third
leg, defense. The Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam
and 9/11 brought home to all of us that we could no longer
afford to place Africa on the periphery of national security.
Today, Africa is part of a struggle against violent
extremism, notably against al-Shabaab in Somalia and al-Qaeda
in Maghreb in the north and west of the African continent.
Instability on the continent affects the U.S. homeland directly
whether threats of terrorism, economic disruption, refugee
flows or any host of other ways. We now all recognize the need
to focus equally on the third D of Secretary Clinton's
formulation.
We at the Pentagon work closely with AFRICOM and our
interagency partners at the State Department and USAID to
ensure that our nation's goals in Africa are well defined and
our activities are closely coordinated from planning through
implementation. And just as an aside, I can assure you that
that has been my highest priority.
This close coordination occurs at all levels. I meet weekly
via secure video link with my counterparts on the Joint Staff
and with senior generals at AFRICOM including J2 Intelligence,
J5 Strategy and J3 Operations and Logistics. And we meet bi-
weekly with the State Department's Africa Bureau to coordinate
our policies in security cooperation and our activities. And I
attend, along with Assistant Secretary of State and my
colleague, Sharon Cromer on my left, a weekly meeting at the
National Security Council chaired by the Senior Director.
Coordination extends much deeper, however, than myself and
senior staff. Every day action officers in my office, colonels,
lieutenants, lieutenant colonels, commanders, and the civilians
are on the phone, emailing and attending meetings on both sides
of the Potomac River. Such is the frequency of these
interactions that they are on a first-name basis with their
State and USAID colleagues. There's extensive cross
fertilization among agencies, the concrete result of years of
planning. I have a permanent State
Department position on my staff and it is currently held by
a veteran Foreign Service Officer. Likewise, the Regional
Security Affairs Division of the Africa Bureau has two active
military colonels on its staff.
DoD works closely with the State Department to implement
broad security cooperation efforts, leveraging the
complementary authorities and funding streams available to each
department. And this, I think, is really the heart of the
matter. The State Department, under its Title 2 authority,
manages security assistance programs to promote U.S. foreign
policy through diplomacy by building professional militaries
that respect international law and human rights. These programs
include the well-known examples of Foreign Military Financing,
International Military Education and Training, IMET, Regional
Security Initiatives, and Peacekeeping Operations capacity
building. DoD plays a crucial role in all those programs in
their implementation, through our U.S. AFRICOM personnel who
are on the continent and also through our defense attaches that
are assigned to the Embassies that are under the authority of
the United States Ambassadors.
DoD's Title 10 activities expand and complement these Title
22 activities of the State Department, thereby furthering USG
policy objectives set by the Department of State and the
National Security Council. Title 10 programs fund exercises
that give African militaries the opportunity to work together
and often to provide assistance to their citizens. In addition,
Section 1206 authority allows State and DoD to build
counterterrorism capacity of our African partners.
These Title 10 activities reflect our over-arching goals of
assisting African militaries to protect and defend their
borders and their citizens. The proposed new Global Security
Contingency Fund would further this collaborative approach by
allowing DoD and State to pool resources, thereby facilitating
our national response to complex crises that require a range of
military and diplomatic assistance.
AFRICOM's security sector strategy ensures that our
national interests are protected from potential threats on the
African continent while contributing to the stability and
security for the people of Africa. Ranking Member Payne
mentioned what is in it for the people of Africa. AFRICOM
achieves these objectives by building partner nation capacity
so that our partners can counter extremism and provide for the
security of their citizens and contribute to peacekeeping.
In the Horn of Africa, AFRICOM builds capacity of local
militaries so they can effectively counter extremist threats.
The State Department's regional program, Partnership for
Regional East African Counterterrorism, PREACT, provides the
framework under which AFRICOM's activities are carried out in
the Horn of Africa. AFRICOM provides military trainers to the
State Department's African Contingency Operation and Training
and Assistance Program, ACOTA, that trains Ugandan and
Burundian contingents that make up the bulk of AMISON
peacekeepers in Somalia.
In West Africa, AFRICOM's Special Forces are building the
capacity of Malian and Mauritanian forces to counter al-Qaeda
in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM. These efforts are
conducted under the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership,
TSCTP, that the State Department is responsible for and is in
coordination with USAID as well. AFRICOM enhances the capacity
of our key African partners to provide a secure environment for
democracy, governance, and development. State contractors and
USAFRICOM trained a battalion in the Democratic Republic of
Congo and the new army of Liberia. By training professional
military units that respect civilian control, these militaries
become important contributors to stability and respect for the
rule of law. AFRICOM's exercises provide opportunities for our
African partners to continue perfecting their professional
abilities.
The State Department and DoD are committed to helping
African armed forces prevent and deter tragedies that result in
humanitarian disasters. In response to congressional
legislation, State, DoD, and USAID have developed a strategy to
assist the governments and the armed forces in Uganda,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African
Republic to counter the atrocities that are being committed by
the Lord's Resistance Army. AFRICOM's activities will improve
the regional armed forces' ability to defeat the LRA. In
parallel, USAID and State are working with local NGOs.
Today, we are facing a vast humanitarian crisis that you
mentioned, Mr. Chairman, as a result of the severe drought in
the Horn of Africa. While State and USAID are leading a
significant humanitarian response on behalf of the U.S.
Government, USAFRICOM has set up a task force and is prepared
to assist in any appropriate way when requested.
In Libya, USAFRICOM worked closely with State and USAID to
return thousands of Egyptians stranded in Tunisia to their
homes. This air bridge complemented AFRICOM's leadership of
Odyssey Dawn, a coalition of 10 nations that, in accordance
with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, stopped
the advance of the Libyan Army on defenseless civilians in
Benghazi, and put into place a no-fly zone, and a sea embargo.
Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member, for the
opportunity to discuss interagency security cooperation efforts
in Africa. I believe that AFRICOM's success as a command will
depend on its ability to coordinate its activities with State
and USAID and indeed with its African partners and we have much
improved, AFRICOM has much improved its initial roll-out which
Ranking Member Payne pointed out was not as successful as we
would have liked.
Over the past 2 years as AFRICOM has matured as a Command,
this cooperation and communication with Africa, and indeed with
my colleagues here, has improved AFRICOM's ability to build
partner capacity, respond to the needs of the continent, and
defend our nation's interests. USAFRICOM is proving the wisdom
of establishing a single command for Africa that can provide
rapid and appropriate assistance for a continent with many
challenges and great possibilities.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Huddleston follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Ambassador Huddleston, thank you so very much
for your testimony.
Ms. Cromer.
STATEMENT OF MS. SHARON CROMER, SENIOR DEPUTY ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR AFRICA, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Ms. Cromer. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Smith,
Ranking Member Payne, and distinguished members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for the invitation to speak with you
today about how USAID works with AFRICOM to achieve common U.S.
foreign policy goals. I would like to also thank Ambassadors
Yamamoto and Huddleston for their work in collaboration. We
really do meet on a bi-weekly basis and we see a lot of each
other.
With the chairman's permission, I will submit my testimony
in full for the record, but today I will make three brief
points. The first point is that USAID and AFRICOM engagement is
mutually supportive of U.S. foreign policy objectives. In other
words, we have found common ground. Today's world is more
interconnected and complex than ever. Instability, poverty, and
disease travel with ease across oceans and borders. Problems
abroad all too quickly become problems at home. A peaceful,
healthy, and prosperous Africa benefits us all.
The link between security and development is as essential
in Africa as it is elsewhere. War, terrorism, and violence
threaten current progress and impede potential gains in health,
education, democracy and economic growth. But with improved
security, African nations can experience sustained economic
growth, better living conditions and improved governance.
USAID coordination with the Department of Defense must not
be perceived as contributing to specific military objectives,
but rather as contributing to broad U.S. foreign policy goals.
While we retain the essential humanitarian and development
mission of USAID, we have also found mutually beneficial
opportunities that support the interests of the United States
and the beneficiaries in the countries in which we work.
For example, USAFRICOM had a prominent role in helping to
stabilize Liberia following years of civil war. As a result,
USAID has worked with the Government of Liberia to develop a
long-term sustainable health program that is providing the
essential package of basic health services to the Liberian
people. This type of work is not possible amidst war and
strife. The military's logistical capabilities can be
invaluable assets in providing humanitarian assistance during
emergencies. Fortunately, we have not had an opportunity to
call upon them in recent years on the continent.
Likewise, USAID's unique skills in addressing a range of
essential civilian needs during both times of peace and war
substantially and strategically benefit the foreign policy of
the United States. Thus, USAID's coordination with the
military's assistance programs can lead to important synergies
of effort. For example, in some countries where USAID is
providing assistance and training to teachers in rural schools,
the Department of Defense's humanitarian assistance teams have
renovated school structures, including dining halls and
latrines to improve hygiene and orderliness. This combined
effort creates a learning environment in which improved reading
and math skills prevail.
The second point is that early coordination in the planning
phase between USAID and AFRICOM has vastly improved since we
established staffing structures which have been described in
earlier testimony. This structure includes three officers who--
USAID officers who work at AFRICOM's headquarters in Stuttgart,
as well as staff--AFRICOM staff who work in our Office of
Military Affairs in Washington.
Increased regular dialogue and joint planning helps us to
align activities from the start, whereas in the past,
misunderstandings and assumptions and lack of coordination
could lead to problems in the implementation phase we're now
planning from the start and avoiding some of those challenges.
USAID regularly engages with AFRICOM through ongoing
participation in a variety of strategic visioning and planning
processes and through regular briefings on particular countries
and programs. This engagement has included an unprecedented
level of USAID participation and development of AFRICOM's
current theater campaign plan which directs AFRICOM's peacetime
activities across the continent. In fact, just last week at
USAID, we reviewed this plan with AFRICOM participants,
identifying common visions and goals and objectives.
Our work in Djibouti presents an example of how strategic
alignment produces mutually beneficial results. Previously, the
Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, CJTF-HOA, proposed
projects and if USAID and the Embassy concurred, coordination
with the Government of Djibouti would follow. Under that
system, projects may or may not have been aligned with local
development needs and priorities. Under the new framework,
USAID works with the Government of Djibouti to develop a list
of needed projects first. While CJTF-HOA, taking into account
their own objectives and resources, can choose to contribute to
any such project if it has the endorsement of the Ambassador.
For example, the opening of the Guistir Clinic near the
Somali border was the first large-scale project carried out
under this framework. For years, USAID had been building and
refurbishing rural health clinics in Djibouti, at carefully
selected sites. CJTF-HOA constructed the Guistir Clinic in a
remote border area identified by the Government of Djibouti and
USAID as a remaining gap in the health care system. USAID's
assistance complemented CJTF-HOA's efforts by equipping and
staffing the clinic which today provides access to health care
for over 400 families.
The third and final point is that while USAID and AFRICOM
have notable successes working together, challenges do remain.
AFRICOM is still relatively new and so, too, is its cooperation
and collaboration with USAID and other U.S. Government actors.
USAID is able to program a sizeable amount of foreign
assistance in Africa through a relatively small number of staff
members, while AFRICOM has a smaller budget and more available
staff.
While USAID is moving to move more resources to Africa, it
is still difficult as Ambassador Yamamoto pointed out for us to
engage fully with AFRICOM on the ground, given the fact that
our staff are so stretched. Nonetheless, the payoffs that can
result from a comprehensive whole of government approach are so
important that the effort to coordinate is worthwhile.
Gains made in civil military coordination need to be
institutionalized to prevent stagnation and backsliding. We are
committed to enhancing, monitoring, and evaluation so that we
can learn from mistakes and amplify best practices.
The central point of our relationship is clear. Security,
stability, and peace are essential for economic growth, poverty
reduction and for development overall. We welcome the continued
dialogue to ensure the solutions for short-term objectives are
consistent with our shared long-term goals. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cromer follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. Let me just beginning the
questioning.
Ambassador Yamamoto, you responded to, and Ambassador
Huddleston as well, the largely negative reaction that met
AFRICOM early on. And I'm wondering how that reaction has
changed, and if so why? Was it a matter of a false impression
as to what we were up to?
And if you could perhaps, Ambassador Huddleton, you as well
answer that.
Ambassador Huddleston. I think it's changed immensely and
basically because the countries of Africa have seen AFRICOM at
work. General Ward was an amazing diplomat for AFRICOM and he
was all over the continent talking with Presidents as well as
chiefs of staff of militaries and ministers of defense. General
Ham has been absolutely the same. He is today, as we speak, in
Ethiopia. And so they, themselves, have been very, very good
Ambassadors.
But what we've done with Africa also makes a huge
difference because we've done exercises such as Natural Fire in
Uganda, where we bring the regional militaries together and
then they carry out an exercise with us that builds a school
and provides relief in a clinic. So these are things that
Africans understand. They can see how it's helping their
military not only to improve their skills, but to work with
other militaries in the region.
And then they've seen what's going on, for example, the
training of a Liberian Army battalion in Kisangani, which has
now been deployed up into the region where the LRA is active
and hopefully they'll be able to provide some additional
protection for civilians in that area.
Where AFRICOM still runs into problems is on a political
level, and in that regard, that's because some of the larger
countries in Africa are worried about is AFRICOM actually
becoming a competing military. And this is a wonderful
opportunity just to say no. AFRICOM is on the continent to
build the capacity of professional militaries under civilian
control.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that.
Ambassador Yamamoto?
Ambassador Yamamoto. I concur with Ambassador Huddleston.
You know, everyone at the roll-out, everyone was talking about
AFRICOM except AFRICOM. And until AFRICOM was able to
articulate and define what AFRICOM was about, then we were able
to engage and overcome a lot of misunderstandings. During the
questions, we can go into greater detail.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask you with regards to the constant
turnover, Ambassador Yamamoto, you mentioned in your testimony,
causing confusion for the country team and the host nation.
What are you talking about in terms of how long is the
deployment and what can be done to remedy that situation?
Ambassador Yamamoto. I think it would be very difficult
given the way we deploy forces, etcetera. My son is a first
lieutenant with the 3rd ID and he was in Iraq and he has a set
time and he has a set mission. For us in the Africa Bureau, we
have 1100 officers manning 53 Embassies and consultates in sub-
Saharan Africa. Most of us are committed to the African
continent and we're experts in the field.
When we were setting up Camp Lemonnier, as they were
setting up the camp, we were very struck by the large number of
different units, but they stayed for maybe 6 weeks or 2 months
or 3 months, but never any longer. And I think we talked to
General Franks and later General Abizaid to extend those
assignments. And that helped a lot now at CJTF, we have 1-year
assignments. So that is helping.
But again in other parts of the continent, the assignments
are very short and so it takes a lot of onus for the
Ambassador, the DMCs to work with these units to identify what
are our common goals and objectives.
Mr. Smith. Ambassador Huddleston, is that being looked at
as perhaps an area for reform, or are you happy with the way it
is today?
Ambassador Huddleston. AFRICOM is very aware of the
problem. Obviously the State Department is as well and as
Ambassador Yamamoto said, it has improved significantly in that
AFRICOM is now assigning for 1 year CJTF-HOA. But actually, one
of the main problems is that AFRICOM has no assigned forces, so
they rely on the components, they rely on the Army, they rely
on the Special Forces, they rely on the Marines to provide them
with forces to carry out the task on the continent. Obviously,
our forces are engaged in other important tasks around the
world and so they sometimes are not available for other than
short periods.
We also rely upon the National Guard. Actually, the
National Guard of Kansas in CJTF-HOA. And of course, their
families don't want them to be gone for over a year, so these
are some of the challenges involved in extending the period of
time on the continent.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Let me ask you, you've testified that
building professional militaries is a function of AFRICOM. How
has that worked out--if you could perhaps give some examples?
And in an area that is very close to my heart, human rights
training, if you could elaborate on what kind of training we do
provide to African militaries and with particular emphasis on
trafficking in persons.
As you may know, I authorized the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act of 2000 and in 2001, 1 year after that law went
into effect, a Fox News reporter from Ohio walked into my
office and said Congressman, you need to look at this. And he
showed me a videotape of women who had been trafficked from
Russia, Moldova, the Philippines, and indigenous South Koreans
who were being abused by American service members. And the
places of abuse were in absolute proximity to our military
bases.
We handed that over to Joseph Schmitz, who was then the IG
for the Department of Defense. He initiated, and we asked for,
a global assessment of U.S. complicity, wittingly or
unwittingly, in human trafficking. And he came back very, very
disturbed with a very compelling report looking first at Bosnia
and South Korea, and then the rest of the world. President Bush
for his part issued a zero tolerance policy and went even a
step further and changed the Uniform Code of Military Justice
to include prostitution as an actionable offense. And word went
out. I read them. I talk about it to other militaries all the
time and give them copies of it to see that America was serious
about combating trafficking, that we want to be part of the
solution, not part of the problem.
I went to NATO, talked to those folks, and we know Kofi
Annan did the zero tolerance policy. I think everyone is
trying, at least, to do a good job there. General LaPorte
actually testified at two hearings that I co-chaired along with
people like John McHugh and Duncan Hunter, John, obviously,
over at the Secretary of the Army. And General LaPorte had a
best practices which I know has been further refined and made
even more efficacious, but he talked about the importance of
having on-base recreation, making sure that the men are aware
of who it is that they are seeing at 4 o'clock in the morning
and that the woman is a slave. She cannot leave and if she
does, she will be beaten. She will be raped again, and we need
to be on the side of protection and not on the side of
oppression.
And I thought he did an outstanding job. Every time I talk
to a military person in any country, I bring DoD information
with me and ask them what are they doing to combat human
trafficking. The question--to make a long story short--is that
there are 10 countries in Africa, as you know, on the Tier 3
list as egregious violators of sex trafficking. There are 13
African countries on Tier 2 watch lists, that could easily drop
into Tier 3 because of on-going abuse, mostly against women and
children.
The question is: Does AFRICOM train other militaries,
especially their officer corps, on best practices, especially
those that have been developed so magnificently by the
Department of Defense so that they get it? The military should
be on the side of protection, not on the side of exploitation.
Ambassador Huddleston. Yes sir. And what I often like to
point out is when we train, when AFRICOM trains, we train to
U.S. standards and to international law standards on human
rights and on respect of civilians, whether women or men. And
what I'd like to point out particularly is when you look at
Tunisia and when you look at Egypt, both of those militaries
have significant U.S. and Western training. And both of those
militaries, as we all know in this room, stood up for the
people in their country. In Liberia, there was no training by
Western or U.S. forces and we have seen what has happened
there.
The soldiers of AFRICOM and their components only follow
the highest standards of conduct on the continent and they
expect their counterparts who are training to do the same. We
have Leahy vetting. as you're aware that that's those that we
train. In addition, we provide DILS training and human rights
training to all forces that we train on the continent.
And then you ask about what does our training do, can I
point to some good examples? I recently visited the Liberians
and I was very impressed with their discipline and also the
fact that they had formed an engineering battalion. An
engineering battalion is working with the Bangladeshi
peacekeepers to do civil military projects. We'd like to see
more of the militaries of Africa doing civil military projects.
On the more robust front, since AFRICOM trainers joined the
ACOTA trainers for the State Department who are contract and
often former military, we have been able to do COIN training
which is counter insurgency training. And by doing that
training, as you can see, the AMISOM forces have actually been
able to gain area in Mogadishu and also respect better
civilians who might come into harm's way because they're in the
conflict area.
Mr. Smith. Yes, Ms. Cromer?
Ms. Cromer. Yes. I'd just like to add that in 2009, AFRICOM
was asked to identify ways to support U.S. efforts in the
Democratic Republic of Congo to prevent sexual and gender-based
violence and support survivors. And there, AFRICOM did oversee
training, but they also in coordination with the Embassy and
USAID, determined that the facilities that were supporting the
survivors of gender-based violence was substandard and actually
put in $1 million to help build up those facilities and
otherwise support the survivors. So that's another example of
our coordination.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Ambassador Yamamoto?
Ambassador Yamamoto. Yes, and just to add. It's more than
just DoD. And DoD does a great job. The Command and Staff
College in Ethiopia does civil rights and human rights issues,
but it's also a comprehensive approach in the U.S. Government,
but also the host nations. And we share your outrage in many of
the instances and cases that we've uncovered. And we've worked
very hard with these countries on TR-3 and the other 13
countries. As you and Congressman Payne have so eloquently
articulated, we need to stand up and work with these countries
and host nations to support the development of not only legal
affairs, but also going after trafficking and righting those
wrongs.
As you know, our work in the Congo and other parts of
Africa, we've done this to the best of our ability in an
interagency process.
Mr. Smith. I'll just ask you again on trafficking, could we
be provided a copy of what it is, a curricular, if you will, of
human rights training in general, but also with a particular
emphasis on what it is that we're trying to convey to our
friends in the African militaries with regards to human
trafficking.
Ambassador Huddleston. Certainly.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that. Let me just ask one final
question and that would be in the area of crises. It's been my
experience, and I'm one of those who believes that the military
are the ultimate peacekeepers. Without that, we know what chaos
results, and how innocent victims are killed. But very often,
even in the area of providing immediate and very effective
intervention, almost like a trauma surgeon in an emergency
room, the military have the capacity, the airlift and really
the capability to go into a situation, stabilize it, pass the
baton then on to the NGOs and everyone else. I saw it provide
comfort when the Kurds literally during that first 2 to 3 weeks
that I was there--5 days after the mass exodus to the Turkish-
Iraqi border. Had it not been for Special Forces actually using
PSYOPS to put on Meals Ready To Eat so that the MREs would be
properly opened and eaten and immunizations, everywhere you
looked you saw Kurds walking around with camouflage jackets
which were essential to not dying because of the elements. They
did not have cold weather clothing.
So the same thing happened in Tbilisi. A week after the
Russians went in, it was the military that came in with food,
nutrition--all kinds of nutritional support, medicines. So the
same thing in Haiti and in the tsunami. I was on the Abraham
Lincoln briefly. We went to several places, Phuket, Banda Aceh
and Sri Lanka, but it seemed to me that the entire ship--
everyone on the ship--wanted to go on to Banda Aceh and join
with the helicopter crews and everyone else in assisting. It
was unbelievable, the esprit de corps and the sense of
humanitarianism which the military does not get the credit that
it deserves for rolling up their sleeves and jumping in and
helping to assist people who are sick or dying or at risk.
So my question is, you did mention, Ambassador Huddleston,
that AFRICOM has set up task forces and is prepared to assist
in any appropriate way when requested to do so by State or
USAID with regards to the severe drought. Is it likely that
there will be an East Africa task force? We know there's
750,000 people affected, and Ambassador Yamamoto and his team
and others all testified just a few weeks ago that this crisis
is huge and getting worse by the day. Are those plans likely to
be implemented any time soon? Can you give any indication what
it might look like in terms of airlift and the like to get food
to people who are starving?
Ambassador Huddleston. Mr. Chairman, first of all, thank
you so much for the kind remarks about all the wonderful
activities and rescue and humanitarian operations at the U.S.
military has done around the world. Let me just outline this a
little bit for you and then I'll turn to my colleagues because
they know it's a very important question.
Right now we have on our staff, as Ms. Cromer pointed out,
USAID personnel at AFRICOM and they're staying in close
coordination. In addition, AFRICOM has developed possibilities
that it could do, should it be required to do so. But what is
going on right now is that the U.N. agencies, the NGOs are
actually already expanding the capacity. There are seven
additional refugee camps for feeding and distribution in
Ethiopia. There are two additional camps that can be opened,
one already opened outside of Dadaab in Kenya.
So far, the rescue agencies, the international community,
the NGOs have been able to respond to the situation in Ethiopia
and Kenya. In Somalia, of course, as we know, that's more
complicated, but of course, that would be an area that AFRICOM
would not be welcome, but again, in that area, WFP, UNICEF are
already pushing to get in there, talking to even al-Shabaab to
see if they cannot work out ways in which they can get the food
and water and medical assistance that's so desperately needed.
So at this point, USAID, State and NSS tell us that they
have what they need and as we're here to talk about interagency
coordination, so rest assured we've been attending all those
IPCs and DCs at the National Security Council to make sure that
we stay very much informed on what is happening and are
prepared to assist should we be called upon to do so.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Would either of you like to----
Ms. Cromer. Mr. Chairman, USAID has been monitoring the
situation in the Horn of Africa since the famine early warning
system, which we support, alerted us to the onslaught of a
potential problem last summer. And we have been prepositioning
food in the region to address the situation.
To date, we're one of the largest donors in the emergency
assistance, helping more than 4.6 million people. We're working
very closely, as Ambassador Huddleston mentioned, with the U.N.
and other NGOs to address the crisis. The famine has been
announced for Somalia which is an area, a region in Somalia
that's very difficult for us, and other organizations, to
access. And that's been a challenge. At one point this was
called a traveling famine because of the number of Somalis that
are moving out of the region into Ethiopia and other regions.
But to date, we are working very closely with the U.N. and
other donors and we are coordinating in the interagency with
our colleagues in defense and if the need should arise, I'm
sure we would have the support we need.
Ambassador Yamamoto. And you're absolutely correct. There's
the short-term crisis that we need to address immediately and
the refugee flows over 2,000 or so or 1,500 a day into Dadaab,
Kenya and over 1,000 into Ethiopia. But in the long term,
because the area is chronically dry, there's not been rainfall
in 2 years and very little in 5 years in many areas, and so how
do you address a long-term problem. And those are things that
we're addressing right now, the interagency process at which
DoD, USAID and State are very much involved in that and our
task force is looking at how we can effectively address these
short-term and long-term problems.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Mr. Payne?
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. In regard to the drought,
there was some negotiations, I think, that initially the al-
Shabaab would not allow for humanitarian aid. Then they changed
and said they were saying it was over played and all that
business. Well, now that it's very clear as we knew all along
that it was very serious. They then said yes, you can come in
with food aid.
Have they changed again? I understand there may have been
some withdrawal from the agreement that humanitarian food and
supplies could come in. What is the--do you know what the
status is at this time?
Ambassador Yamamoto. From what we understand, and it's
still an evolving situation, is that we still cannot get into
the areas to deliver food. As you know, 60 percent of the
people who are at risk are still in al-Shabaab-held territories
and so feeding those areas is very difficult.
What we're seeing now is not only the flow of refugees into
Ethiopia and Kenya, but also internally displaced people. Right
now, Mogadishu, you're seeing an equal number of people going
into Mogadishu feeling from al-Shabaab-held territory. And so
that is going to continue to be a problem. So what we're doing
now is looking at how we can feed the people we have at hand in
the refugee camps and also internally displaced. Al-Shabaab
area is going to be a much more long-term problem.
Mr. Payne. What about the, as we mentioned, the Dadaab
camp? It's always been over crowded, but now it's unbelievably
over crowded. I last visited there a couple years ago, it was
busting at the seams, so I can imagine what it is now. Are we
getting food aid or working with the U.N. agencies to assist in
the Dadaab camps?
Ms. Cromer. Yes, we're getting pre-positioned food and
other resources to the camp, but this is a large-scale multi-
donor intervention which is underway and the scope is massive.
We're prioritizing our aid to make sure that the most pressing
needs are addressed. Our initial response is primarily focused
on food and water. We're also concerned with the spread of
disease in these camps as they grow and hygiene becomes an
issue. So we're addressing all of these.
Mr. Payne. There's a mass amount of awareness growing and
first page story on The Washington Post today and just
yesterday we, 2 days ago, introduced Resolution 361 that
certainly recognizes the effort that the U.S. is doing and we
look, urge long-term intervention and in just 2 days we have
over 50 co-sponsors just with it being known that it's out
there. So there's certainly a tremendous amount of support here
on Capitol Hill for what you're doing.
Just wonder in general, general, you said that the
perception of AFRICOM is better now. Is it at the point where
most of the countries are--I mean it's a reality, but what is
the attitude currently? Is it at the point where you're
comfortable that you can really move forward, full force in
what your goals are?
Ambassador Huddleston. We're quite comfortable with the
situation as of right now. And as I said, it's even getting
better because General Ham is following in the footsteps of
General Ward in making it a point to visit every country. And
even countries that have had some hesitation about AFRICOM,
have been willing to work with the components and do exercises
and development with the components.
One of the success stories is the African partnership
station which sends U.S. vessels, Navy or Coast Guard along the
coast and participates with Coast Guards and Navies in the
coastal countries to do exercises and to do training. In fact,
last year, and I forget the name of the vessel that was out
there, it had seven mariners from various West African
countries on board when we had the earthquake in Haiti and the
vessel steamed to Haiti with the permission of the countries
and that vessel with the officers from the West African
countries provided assistance to the victims of the earthquake
in Haiti.
Mr. Payne. Are there civilian or what percentage is there?
Can you count a percentage of civilians that are involved in
AFRICOM other than military or is it 100 percent military at
this time? I know that they're working with USAID and working
with State, but AFRICOM itself is strictly military without
civilians?
Ambassador Huddleston. As Ambassador Yamamoto and Ms.
Cromer mentioned, AFRICOM has a Deputy Commander. It has two
Deputy Commanders. One of the Deputy Commanders is a State
Department active duty officer. He's a former Ambassador.
AFRICOM also has a State Department officer who is the head of
their Outreach Division which is one of the major divisions of
AFRICOM.
AFRICOM also has several USAID officers embedded in their
Planning and Strategy Division to include this very excellent
USAID person that is excellent on drought and humanitarian
relief.
In addition, AFRICOM hires civilians so they have a number
of civilian advisors. So they have a significant contingent of
civilians in the command just as part, just like at DoD,
myself, we have a significant portion of our workforce that are
civilian and that is also the case for AFRICOM.
Mr. Payne. I had an opportunity to fly to Djibouti with
General Ham and do think that he's certainly an adequate
replacement although General--what was his name again, who just
retired?
Ambassador Huddleston. General Ward.
Mr. Payne. Ward, yes, he's got big feet so it's going to be
a hard act to follow, even though I was not supportive. But the
headquarters issue, how much of an issue is that? It's
currently been talked about bringing it to the United States.
Of course, the question of whether it should be on Africa soil,
how much of a question is that and how is the logistics going
as relates to its headquarters?
Ambassador Huddleston. As you know, since its inception,
AFRICOM has been stationed in Stuttgart and at this point there
would be significant budgetary implications if AFRICOM were to
pull up its roots which is to some degree in Stuttgart and
move. AFRICOM, however, is very much aware that it has a study
to complete about where would be the most appropriate location.
Mr. Payne. I think you mentioned it before, but what is the
relationship with AFRICOM and AMISOM's mission in Somalia with
the TFG and their military operation? And actually, is the
AFRICOM looking at Somaliland or Puntland as it deals with the
Horn and with Somalia, in general.
Ambassador Huddleston. Thank you, Congressman. That
actually gives me the opportunity to talk a little bit about
Title 22 and Title 10. As you're aware, AFRICOM cannot do
training or equipment with its own funds which are Title 10.
Therefore, any training that AFRICOM is doing in Africa is
being done either with 1206 which are combined funds or with
PKO or State Department Title 22 funds. In other words, all
training on the continent is with State Department funds,
therefore, everything that's done in training is authorized by
the State Department.
What we were very pleased about with AFRICOM is that State
Department invited AFRICOM trainers, some Special Forces to
come and train with the training that they were providing to
the Ugandans and the Burundians because as you know, Mogadishu
is a pretty violent place.
Mr. Payne. I know.
Ambassador Huddleston. So some of the experience--yes, I
guess you do know. I'm glad they missed you.
Mr. Payne. I am, too. I saw President Sheik Sharif in
Djibouti at the celebration of South Sudan and he did ask me
when I was coming back. I told him my send-off wasn't so hot,
but I'll take another look at it.
Ambassador Huddleston. Yes, I imagine diplomatic security
is not keen for you to return any time soon.
Mr. Payne. They didn't want me to go in the first place, as
you know.
Ambassador Huddleston. Indeed. So that's what AFRICOM has
done is to provide some trainers to work in parallel and with
their ACOTA trainers to provide additional training for the
Ugandans and Burundians that are deploying to Mogadishu.
Mr. Payne. Just a final question for you, there is a
proposed cut in our peacekeeping budget here and I wonder, you
know, how the security assistance would trickle down to what
AFRICOM is intending to do or--not AFRICOM necessarily, but as
you know, the mission in Somalia is under the U.N. and
therefore it depends on U.N. peacekeeping allotments. How do
you see some of our, and of course, the new one that we're
trying to stand up in South Sudan on the borders around Abvei
and other areas in question, South Coeur d'Enfant. How do you
see that playing out?
Ambassador Huddleston. Since these are our Title 22 funds,
I am going to ask my colleague, Ambassador Yamamoto, to answer.
Ambassador Yamamoto. Just going back on PKO funding and
others. As you know, we provide about $265 million with your
approval on PKO, IMET, and FMF and of the PKO funding about 15-
20 percent of that goes to DoD to help us send assistance
levels in training programs, etcetera for AMISON and other
programs. As you know, in the Somalia area, we have $42 million
dedicated to AMISON training programs equipping safety,
security, etcetera. And so a cut or a decrease in that amount
would affect, obviously, the operations and also stabilization
efforts.
The other issue, too, as you raise in Sudan is how do we
address the recent deployment of 1600 troops from Ethiopia into
Abyei and then the continuation of course, is in Darfur and
also anticipated what do you do in the Coeur d'Enfant area to
stabilize that area?
So right now the $265 million that we had in 2010, that's
not a very large amount of money. So if we decrease that, then
there's an ability to work with DoD and host nations and other
groups to do training, equipping and security sector reform and
stabilization will be affected.
Mr. Payne. My final question, Ms. Cromer, I think it's
great and it's certainly with these various titles what you can
do. I always felt the USAID, it would be great if they had an
opportunity to dabble in education more, some of the physical
facilities. We see that the Department of Defense can fix up a
school, however. USAID can't, you know. And of course, we've
been concerned about the educational situation in Africa, as we
know many of the countries now have moved to so-called
universal education where there may be some school fees, there
is kind of universal education in most of the countries and the
girl child, as you know, as been included which is a great step
in the right direction. We're looking now at how can we assist
in higher education which I mean secondary, of course, and
higher education as Africa develops.
I wonder how do you see the interaction between the
Department of Defense that can do things with USAID and your
restrictions. And there's a second and final part and question,
we've had some concern about the nutritional components of
USAID's food and--there are two reports that have come out
about--there's not a request for additional funds, but that
they look at the nutritional value of the--who did that? Tufts?
GAO also did a report on the nutritional values we find that
there's some excellent recommendations and I would hope that
you would take an opportunity to look at that and we would
really like to talk to you about it.
I had a resolution to say that we should do something about
it and it ended up 21 to 21, so I didn't win. Mr. Smith did
vote with me on that resolution on the food, just trying to
make it more nutritional. So if you could just answer those and
I'll yield back to the chairman.
Ms. Cromer. Thank you, Congressman Payne. We have at USAID
new education policy that we are trying to implement. The focus
of the policy is on reading with understanding, primarily at
the basic education level. This policy doesn't necessarily
prohibit renovating structures, but it's with reduced funding.
We find that we're not able to do very much of that. So we do
relish the opportunity to work with AFRICOM and identify
synergies where we have common goals and they can help us in
renovating schools.
We do see that we as some of our education programs are
diminished, due to lack of funding and a need to focus, it
would be an opportune time to have a different dialogue with
some of our African country partners about the funding they
provide in their own development planning and programming. And
taking what they do and trying to make it more efficient. We're
looking at working with some of our African partners to look at
their public financial management systems, trying to streamline
those systems, make them more transparent, make them more
robust so that all of the revenues going through our country
partners are used to address key development challenges like
education.
So if we can help those partners strengthen their own
systems so their own resources are used more effectively, then
we can see some achievement in education and the monies that we
put into those sectors will go longer and for more sustained
development objective.
On nutrition and the GAO report that you mentioned, I'm not
familiar with that particular report, but we can get a response
to you on that.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. I yield back my time.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Carnahan.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member
for this hearing and for our panelists being here and special
thanks to Ambassador Yamamoto for your hospitality in getting
to see your work really on the ground firsthand when we visited
Ethiopia a few years ago.
I want to start with really a question for all the
panelists here today. I'm particularly interested to hear about
our plans for post-conflict in Libya. I certainly want to
acknowledge the significant variations in histories and
cultures and size and scope of our recent interventions in Iraq
and Afghanistan and I believe that insufficient and disjointed
planning for post-conflict stabilization there set a poor
precedent for NATO operations in Libya.
But as different parties come together on this issue, what
is AFRICOM doing to prepare for a post revolution in Libya?
What role does AFRICOM have after any political resolution? And
finally and most importantly, how is AFRICOM working with State
and USAID on this effort? And let's start with Ambassador
Yamamoto?
Or Ambassador Huddleston, why don't you start?
Ambassador Huddleston. Mr. Carnahan, the only reason I'm
starting is because normally it would be Ambassador Yamamoto,
but he is responsible for sub-Saharan Africa and he is not
responsible for North Africa because that falls under the
Middle East Division. So ironically, I'm the only spokesperson
here among the three of us who can speak to North Africa
because AFRICOM was formed as a command for the whole
continent, except for Egypt and Egypt remains in the CENTOM or
the Middle East Command.
So I will have to apologize in that I'm sure that my State
Department colleague, Ambassador Feldman, could do a better job
of answering your question than I can, but let me give it a
try.
Mr. Carnahan. We're happy to hear from you. Thank you.
Ambassador Huddleston. Thank you very much. Let me just go
back for a moment to the beginning because I'd like very much
to point out what President Obama said. President Obama said
that we had an international mandate. We had a broad coalition.
We had the support of the Arab League. And we had the pleas of
the Libyan people to go into Libya. And we did and it was
really quite an amazing thing in that the new commander of
AFRICOM, General Ham, had only been in that position for less
than 2 weeks. And AFRICOM became the leader of a coalition of
10 nations including two Arab nations that put in place the no
fly zone, the sea embargo, and most importantly, protected
800,000 people in the city of Benghazi from certain deaths,
certainly to many of them.
Now that coalition has been handed over to NATO and that,
too, has been pretty amazing and pretty unique and impressive
in that AFRICOM began the implementation of the no fly zone and
protection of civilians on March 19th and they turned over all
four missions to NATO on the 31st of March, 14 days later.
So AFRICOM is not a major player in any way now in the on-
going NATO operation. AFRICOM has retained responsibility for
recovery, should that be necessary. So the U.S. forces that are
contributing to NATO come directly from the components, most
particularly from the dual-hatted Navy commander for Europe and
Africa and that's Admiral Locklear. And as you know, Canadian
General Bouchard is the responsible person for NATO.
So AFRICOM itself is not the major player it was at one
time, but you ask what would AFRICOM do in a post-Gaddafi?
Well, we have made it clear, as well as NATO, that we did not
envision boots on the ground in Libya. So it would in a fairly
far future post-Gaddafi Libya when the situation had returned
to normal, Embassies were reestablished, that there might be
something like a defense attache and an Office of Security
Cooperation and that with the new democratic Libyan Government,
we might have the opportunity then to do some training with our
State Department colleagues and the State Department funds of a
new and responsible and democratic Libyan Army.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you. Mr. Cromer, did you have anything
to add?
Ms. Cromer. Excuse me, like my State Department colleague,
as Ambassador Huddleston said, we focus at USAID in the Africa
Bureau on sub-Saharan Africa. So our operation doesn't cover
North Africa.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you. Also, I wanted to ask, getting
back to Ms. Cromer, about Somalia with on-going drought in the
Horn of Africa and the humanitarian crisis, the scope of which
we haven't seen for decades. Last week, the U.N. officially
declared a famine in two regions of Somalia.
Could you give me and the subcommittee an update on the
response to the crisis as well as partnerships with other key
organizations that you're working with?
Ms. Cromer. Yes. As you've stated, the scale and severity
of the famine in southern Somalia represents a most serious
food and security situation in the world today. And as a multi-
donor response that's underway, we're prioritizing our aid to
make sure that the most pressing needs are addressed. At this
point, we are primarily focused on food and water and we're, as
I mentioned earlier, concerned with the spread of disease and
so we're working to expand our health and hygiene response.
In Somalia, the World Food Program is considering
strategies to counter the deteriorating food situation. They're
looking at various options to address the nutrition situation
in southern Somalia. They're doing an in-depth food, urban food
and nutrition security assessment in 16 districts of Mogadishu.
And the assessment will seek to measure the number of food-
insecure people by district. So with this information, the
international community, particularly WFP, will be guided to
program their interventions in a more targeted fashion.
The access to the most food-insecure populations is still
an issue that's being worked out. But it is a serious concern.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Carnahan. Let me ask just a few
final questions. First, on Friday, I chaired a hearing on the
Helsinki Commission on Egypt, and I know none of you deal with
Egypt, but you'll know why I raise it in a moment, and that is
the barbaric practice that has gotten worse, according to our
witnesses, that young Coptic Christian girls are being abducted
and sold into modern-day slavery and forced marriages, again,
thousands per year. It's been largely ignored, if not under-
appreciated by many in the human rights community. We had a
very credible panel that spoke to this egregious practice. And
the women are forced to become Muslim, and then they're given
to a man and then they and the children they bear are Muslim.
And I'm wondering: In Egypt today, the military does
control that government. What kind of human rights training,
Ambassador Huddleston, I think you're the one to speak to this
when it comes to religious freedom, do the militaries get in
terms of tolerance? We know that at the core of many of these
conflicts it has been, including Sudan, the imposition of
Sharia law, particularly with the invasion of the south of
Sudan. That was a mainstay issue. It's also been a problem
obviously in Darfur, but especially in southern Sudan.
I recently met with a Catholic bishop and an imam who
couldn't make the meeting, but his representative was there
from Nigeria, who spoke how they had gone from village to
village preaching a sense of tolerance and respect for all
religions, but in this case those two major religions,
Christianity and Islam and I'm wondering if in our training on
human rights if there's a religious freedom component to
emphasize with exclamation points why all of us need to respect
the other person's faith and that forced Islamization, the
imposition of Sharia law or any creed is not following
fundamental human rights policy. Is that something that's
taught?
Ambassador Huddleston. Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry to hear
about that situation that you were explaining in Egypt. I do
not know the particulars of all the training and all the human
rights training that is performed by our soldiers overseas, but
I can get you the curriculum. And I can also say that I think
that what you will probably see is what we teach is respect for
human life, respect for human dignity, respect for the rule of
law and the constitution and the people of a country, all of
which, in essence, means respect for tolerance and different
religious beliefs, but I'll be happy to get a transcript and
provide it.
Mr. Smith. And if you could, if it's not being done, if
it's something that could have been considered when the
International Religious Freedom Act was passed in 1998, and I
chaired all the hearings on it. It was Congressman Frank Wolf's
legislation, and there was profound pushback from many in the
Department of State, including the White House, against that
legislation, and one of the components that we wrote into it
was the training of foreign service officers on religious
freedom matters.
And I say without any fear of contradiction that the
pushback was profound. The Assistant Secretary for Democracy of
Human Rights and Labor testified at our hearing saying they
were against the bill. I'm sure they're for tolerance, but they
were against this legislation. So I would hope you could get
back to us on that; it would be very helpful.
[Note:
The information referred to appears in the appendix.]
Mr. Smith. And finally, you cite, Ms. Cromer, in your
testimony a 2010 assessment that shows that of the 25 countries
having the highest instability, 22 are in Africa. And I'm
wondering if there's any--now 3 years into AFRICOM--if there's
been any improvement as a result of that combatant command
being stood up?
Ms. Cromer. Well, we can certainly cite Libya as a very
good example of the improvement in the security situation which
allows for improved economic growth and development in health
and education. I'm sure there are other examples that we can
provide, but again, having a professional military that
respects human rights and respects good governance and
democracy is a profound effort to move forward in any
development situation.
We really cannot proceed with our development interventions
in good measure if we don't have peace and security. So what
AFRICOM has done on the continent to enhance the
professionalism of militaries and support human rights and good
governance is absolutely essential to what we do in
development.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Payne?
Mr. Payne. Just one last question. The fact that the LRA
and Mr. Kony have been roaming around for 20 some years, it
just seems to me that--not that it's AFRICOM's situation, but
it would seem to me that there should be some more coordinated
effort to try to bring him to the International Court of
Justice. And I just wonder if--and Mr. Yamamoto has had a lot
of history in Africa and certainly has known about the LRA or
you Ambassador Huddleston, could give a brief synopsis of any
knowledge you have of a concerted effort to bring Mr. Kony to
justice.
Ambassador Yamamoto. And that's a very tough issue that we
have been addressing for years with you and other members.
Right now, as DoD and State Department and USAID, all the
interagencies is combined together to (a) support the UPDF in
their operations against Kony, specifically in the CAR. They
have distribution points in Obo and from there the UPDF is able
to bring their equipment and supplies into the front lines to
go after Kony's troops. We have provided on average in the last
quarter about $3 million to support for supplies, fuel, rentals
of equipment and helicopters to bring the supplies up to Obo
and from there to transport them to the UPDF forces.
We're also working with the President Bozize in CAR to look
at training troops there to form a blocking force against Kony
and then with other neighboring states particularly with
MONUSCO and DRC FARDC troops and other troops as well. It's a
very tough fight and it's going to continue until this is
brought to conclusion.
Mr. Smith. Would any of you like to conclude with any final
remarks?
Yes, Ambassador Huddleston?
Ambassador Huddleston. I didn't want to miss the
opportunity just to say that first of all we appreciate very
much that you're having the hearing, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member, and also to underline the fact because the ranking
member began with this roll-out of AFRICOM was very difficult
and really it's a great credit to our service men and women and
to the leadership of AFRICOM that they've really turned that
around because they've not only turned it around with the
African governments, but they've turned it around with our
colleagues, the State Department, and USAID as you have heard
here today.
I think AFRICOM really is making a great difference on the
continent because as we all know, it begins with security. And
there can't be democratic governments or can't be human rights
or can't be development unless there's security. And by giving
the local militaries the ability to provide for security for
their people it makes all the difference. So thank you very
much for this opportunity.
Mr. Smith. On that very encouraging note, the hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:50 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]
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