11 July 2003
Botswana Looking To Join Fledgling U.S. Military Partnership
Director of Botswana military training comments on U.S. initiative
By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Correspondent
Gaborone -- A fledgling U.S. military partnership initiative, the Africa Contingency Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) program, which Botswana may join, could strengthen relations between the two democracies by providing invaluable training for the Botswana Defense Forces (BDF) in peacekeeping/peace-enforcement skills, says Lt. Colonel G. Morake, director of training at BDF headquarters.
Morake spoke to the Washington File July 10 as he and other Botswanan government officials waited to greet President Bush in Gaborone for his first visit to the diamond-rich nation. During the visit, the president and Secretary of State Colin Powell held discussions with President Festus Mogae on a wide range of topics including international terrorism and security.
Pointing to Botswana's long tradition of democracy, Bush told Mogae after their meeting, "I want to commend you for your leadership. I appreciate your commitment to democracy and freedom, to rule of law and transparency. I want to congratulate you for serving your country so well."
As for Bush's visit, Morake said, "I think we're very privileged to see the President of the United States of America come to Botswana. It says a lot about our country and the way it is democratic and the respect America has for us. And as a member of the Defense Forces of Botswana, I'm proud to serve in an Army that serves in a democratic state."
According to a White House fact sheet, "the BDF is one of the most professional military forces in Africa and has participated successfully in peacekeeping operations on the continent. Some two-thirds of BDF general officers have been trained in the United States."
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner, who is also traveling with the president, told the Washington File, "ACOTA is a great program. It's an infrastructure capacity building partnership. We need to do more of it and we need to do it effectively and with the right partners."
Morake said, "We are enthusiastic about ACOTA because it will enhance our capabilities for peacekeeping. It is a bit better than the ACRI (African Crisis Response Initiative) program because it gives us more decisionmaking power about how we believe they [peacekeeping forces] should be used."
[ACRI was a U.S. military program that helped train close to 10,000 troops from seven African nations from 1997 to 2002 to respond to crisis situations. Although ACRI did not provide weapons training, which ACOTA would do, it did train African troops directly. ACOTA would train military instructors who would return to their own defense units in Africa and pass on their newly acquired skills.]
"We have been discussing ACOTA for a while now," Morake said, and "the Government of Botswana, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has been consulting with the BDF about what they think about this new model. So far, our view on ACOTA is that it is more positive than ACRI."
Botswana is not the only country interested in ACOTA. Uganda, which is another country Bush is visiting on this tour, participated in ACRI and its Ambassador in Washington, Edit Ssempala, believes it would be a good idea for her country to join ACOTA when it finally gets off the ground. In an interview last August she told the Washington File, "You cannot have stability unless you have a professional, trained army." So, "any help -- even to countries involved in conflicts now -- is an important contribution to peace in Africa."
Lt. Colonel Morake agreed, adding that the advantage of ACOTA over ACRI, as he understood it, is that the new effort "allows us Africans to use our peacekeeping resources the way we think they should be used. ACRI envisioned an eventual combined force which we thought made it very difficult to make our own sovereign decisions about the use of that force."
Another concept in the new ACOTA program that Morake said appealed to the BDF was its "train the trainer" approach. ACRI had used Special Forces troops to train select African units directly, but in ACOTA, he said, "The Americans are more in a supportive role. They will train our instructors who will work with our own people and then we are equipped with American-sponsored military equipment. So, it's a much better arrangement, I think."
Addressing the "peace-enforcement" aspect of ACOTA that involves weapons and weapons training, which ACRI did not, Morake said, "I could see that in a place like Liberia there might be a need for enforcement given that one never knows what will happen when Charles Taylor leaves. And, you know, with enforcement you give yourself the tools to deal with a potentially violent situation, not necessarily that you're going to apply all the tools. But one of the ways of persuading people to lay down their arms is the knowledge that you can be robust if need be."
The BDF training chief emphasized, "It doesn't mean if you're coming with enforcement [armed] that it means you are going to fight. But, if push comes to shove, the mandate and capability are there to use the force required to achieve the mission of enforcing a ceasefire or protecting innocent civilians."
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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