11 January 2000
U.N. Important to U.S.-Africa Peacekeeping Goals, U.S. Official Says
(ACRI chief comments on working group during "Africa Month") (710) By Jim Fisher-Thompson Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- The United Nations remains an important part of the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), the three-year-old Clinton initiative aimed at enhancing African peacekeeping skills, says ACRI Special Coordinator Aubrey Hooks. Hooks, U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Congo/Brazzaville from 1996 to 1999, said in an interview January 10 that "we have consulted with the U.N." on a consistent basis since ACRI was first established in 1997. "We have done this chiefly through the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). Since the beginning, we have informed them of what we were trying to do and to get their views" on the end-goal of training African militaries to handle their emergency crises. "When our training program was originally put together," Hooks explained, "we took the syllabus up to New York to see if it corresponded to the standards of peacekeeping training developed by the U.N. In fact, they did determine that our program training equaled or exceeded their standards." ACRI military trainers have worked with battalion-sized units in Senegal, Uganda, Malawi, Mali, Ghana, Benin, and Cote d'Ivoire in such areas as convoying, security for relief workers, and liaising with civil and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The goal, Hooks said, is to "create an interoperable African capacity of up to 12,000 troops to respond in a timely and effective manner to peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance contingencies." More than $55 million has been devoted to the U.S. training effort thus far. Hooks made his comments as the U.N. Security Council began its monthlong focus on Africa's problems under its president for January, U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke. Asked to assess the impact of the international focus on the continent vis-a-vis ACRI's goals, Hooks responded that, "first of all, any attention that is focused on Africa, particularly at that level, is very good." He added that ACRI, "of course, focuses on peacekeeping training, and if you look at the U.S.-U.N. 'Africa Month' initiative as dealing with important security issues on the continent, then it highlights our program." Hooks said, "We continue to work with the U.N., as well as with our ACRI European partners, to focus on the universality of the program because, after all, our goal is to enhance an African peacekeeping capability that can be employed worldwide, not just in Africa." As part of ACRI's plan to expand into brigade-level training, to begin next September in Senegal, Hooks said, "We have been in touch with the U.N. on this new level of command and control training; they understand our vision" for an integrated regional approach to peacekeeping capabilities. While ACRI trains individual African nations' militaries, Hooks emphasized that one of the program's aims is to create a peacekeeping capability that can be adapted by regional and subregional organizations in Africa to address crises. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is particularly interested in "what we call security architecture or how to respond to crises like Liberia and Sierra Leone," Hooks explained. And "we hope to work with them to develop peacekeeping structures that will allow them to take a regional political mandate and translate that into a military presence on the ground." On an Africa-wide level, Hooks said, "we have been exploring with DPKO the possibility of creating an informal working group, within the framework of the U.N., where we would have an 'ideas bazaar' or opportunity to exchange information on what each of our organizations is doing in terms of peacekeeping training." The expanded ACRI training regime, emphasis on regional and subregional organization, and working group suggestions, he said, "reflect the desire" by the United States and its French and British ACRI partners to bring Africans "into the consultative process so that we can discuss the training and its objective, not only bilaterally, but also in the type of broad forum the U.N. can provide." (Note: A Web site on the U.N. Month of Africa can be accessed at the following URL: http://www.usia.gov/regional/af/unmonth/ ) (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)
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