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Wednesday, October 4, 2000

Green Berets will train
West African peacekeepers

By Jon R. Anderson
Stars and Stripes

A contingent of Special Forces soldiers will begin arriving in Nigeria over the next few days, tasked with training West African troops for a revitalized peacekeeping effort in war-torn Sierra Leone.

The first of about 300 Green Berets could begin arriving as early as Wednesday, along with millions of dollars in new military hardware earmarked for the Nigerian forces.

"Troops and equipment are moving this way," said Maj. Ed Loomis, a European Command spokesman reached by phone in Nigeria.

A few dozen U.S. military support personnel from Europe also will be dispatched to the West African nation, although exact numbers and units still are being hammered out.

Among those expected to go are air crews, maintenance personnel and medical experts — along with three UH-60 medevac helicopters — from the 30th Medical Brigade based in Heidelberg, Germany.

The bulk of the contingent, however, will come from the Fort Bragg, N.C.-based 3rd Special Forces Group. The elite unit specializes in sub-Saharan Africa and has had a 14-man "A-team" in Nigeria for more than a month preparing for the mission and laying the groundwork for training.

In what has been dubbed Operation Focus Relief, the troops will train two Nigerian battalions in peacekeeping duties. The initial units are expected to finish their work-ups by the end of the year.

"That’s our goal," Loomis said. But he added that their work won’t be finished there.

Additional Nigerian battalions are expected to follow. In fact, the country has promised up to five battalions for duty in Sierra Leone. Senegal and Ghana also have indicated they might be willing to commit forces, as well.

"This is going to be a long-term mission for us," Loomis said.

Top officials insist that while U.S. troops will work closely with the Nigerians to prepare for duty in Sierra Leone, no U.S. forces will deploy to that trouble spot.

Sierra Leone has been an epicenter of violence in Africa in recent years, with rebels clashing with government troops almost daily despite a United Nation’s force there for more than two years.

Nigeria has had its own problems, as well, blacklisted by the United States since 1993 — including a ban on military aid — amid what became an ongoing series of violent coups. Relations changed abruptly last year, however, when reform-minded President Olesegun Obasanjo assumed power in elections.

In what one top State Department official called an effort to "help Nigeria consolidate its democracy," $42 million in military hardware is being given to Nigeria’s peacekeeping battalions. The aid package includes rifles, mortars, machine guns and ammunition, as well as vehicles and medical and communications gear.

The equipment likely will come in handy. United Nations troops have clashed with rebel forces regularly, and more than a hundred were taken captive — and later released — earlier this year.

Loomis said it will be the job of the Special Forces troops to train the Nigerians on how to use the new equipment with additional training in human rights.

With Nigeria’s spotty history on that front, State Department officials in Nigeria reviewed the names of leaders down to the platoon level to ensure they had not been involved in human rights abuses in the past.

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