20 May 2004
Cooperation Called Key to Countering Terrorism
All nations must work against extremists, former Senegalese envoy says
By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- All nations of the world, not just those directly affected by terrorism, must work together to counter the violence of extremists, said retired Senegalese Air Force General Mamadou Seck, former ambassador to the United States and champion of closer U.S.-African military ties.
Delivering the seventh in a series of lectures on Africa named in honor of former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young at the Ghanaian Embassy May 18, the fighter pilot turned diplomat told those attending the event, sponsored by the National Summit on Africa, that "the final goal" of defeating international terrorism "can be achieved only if we fight together on the global scale."
The Senegalese was his nation's chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and leader of a contingent of troops who fought with the United States during the first Gulf War. Seck was also an early promoter of a U.S.-African military training partnership called the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), which is now called the African Contingency Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) program. The partnership has helped train 12,000 African troops from seven African nations to be more effective peacekeepers.
According to Seck: "The war on terrorism cannot be won by only one nation or a limited number of nations. It has to be a global objective with the participation of all democratic and civilized nations. This is why the OAU [now the African Union] signed a convention against terrorism in 1999, following the terrorist acts in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Africa began systematically addressing this problem two years before the terrorist attacks of September 11."
Reflecting on his tenure as ambassador, Seck said: "I was in Washington during the terrible attack of September 11, 2001. I remember speaking to the media on September 13, when I said: ‘The terrorist attacks that damaged the Pentagon and destroyed the World Trade Center are a massive tragedy not only for the U.S. but also for all people. ... These attacks ... will be answered by the U.S. with the help of its international friends. ... We must have solidarity to combat terrorism together, and we in Senegal are available with our small means to share this war against this threat.'"
Seck related how, in the wake of the attack by terrorists who flew hijacked aircraft into the two New York skyscrapers, killing almost 3,000 people, he sent a report that "recommended to my government that we, as Africans, not only express our condemnation of terrorism but also take drastic measures against it. I explained to my president that although our country seemed stable and secure, we still were vulnerable because our intelligence services were not modernized enough and our security forces did not have the adequate means and the necessary training."
Seck said the report "convinced President Wade to convene an African conference in Senegal on terrorism on October 17, 2001." A key theme of the conference, he said, was "all the African leaders, in collaboration with the U.S., Britain, France and others, must reflect on the ways and means of fighting terrorism that has become a common threat for us all."
Noting that Senegal is 95 percent Muslim, Seck said: "The Muslim countries also have to convince the international community that Islam is a religion of peace. Salaam, which means peace, and Islam both derive from the same root. The word peace is repeated in the Koran 666 times to underline its significance."
He added, "It is my conviction that no one can be a believer in God if he kills his innocent brothers and sisters -- especially when invoking God, as, for example, when the GIA [Group Islamique armé] in Algeria invoked the expression `Allahou Akbar' -- God is the greatest -- while killing innocent people."
As an example of cooperative efforts aimed at combating terrorism, Seck noted that senior officers of nine African countries met recently at U.S. European Command (EUCOM) headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, to discuss the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI), a military training partnership with Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Senegal to counter terrorist groups in northern Africa.
Seck emphasized that a "common strategy" is important "when it comes to fighting a common enemy, if it is about destroying the terrorists' means of action, their logistics, their networks of command and control, their communications, their financing sources and their refuges."
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=May&x=20040520184736r1EJrehsiF0.2212946&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
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