Signs of Military Professionalism, Cooperation On Rise in Africa

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

STUTTGART, Germany, June 26, 2012 – Dotting the African continent are promising examples of the capable, professional military forces U.S. Africa Command is working to promote.

As Tunisia spawned what became known as the Arab Spring in December 2010, its military opposed then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s order to use force against the pro-democracy protesters who ultimately brought down his regime.

The Ugandan army has become a professional force and plays a key role in advancing regional peace and security, conducting humanitarian operations at home while contributing thousands of troops to counterterrorism and peacekeeping efforts in neighboring Somalia.

Uganda is also among four African nations -- also including South Sudan, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- that have come together to fight the Lord’s Resistance Army, one of Africa’s most violent and persistent rebel groups which has brutalized civilians in the region for a quarter-century.

Meanwhile, Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti are contributing forces under the banner of the African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, to help Somalia deal with the al-Shabab terrorist organization that threatens its transitional government.

And in Liberia -- a nation long wracked by civil war and instability -- the military once discredited as the puppet of former president and convicted war criminal Charles Taylor has become a respected organization under the direction of the democratically elected civilian leadership.

Officials at Africom, the United States’ newest combatant command focused on Africa, see these and other developments as a sign of positive trends they’re helping to shape on the continent.

Strengthening the defense capabilities of African countries and encouraging them to work together to confront common security threats and challenges has been a cornerstone of Africom’s work since its standup in 2008.

Africom has been instrumental in supporting other promising developments, Army Maj. Gen. Charles J. Hooper, Africom’s director of strategy, plans and programs, told American Forces Press Service. “We see increasing trends toward democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights,” he said. “And I think Africom has played a very positive role in supporting those trends.”

Hooper pointed to the role U.S. military advisors and mentors have played in rebuilding the Armed Forces of Liberia through a five-year, State-Department funded Africom program known as Operation Onward Liberty. For the past two years, Marine Forces Africa has led the joint Marine-Army-Air Force effort aimed at helping professionalize the Liberian military and ensuring it's able to defend the country’s borders and come to the aid of its neighbors if needed.

“This small training and education mission [is] focused on developing a cohesive Liberian armed force,” said Hooper. “I saw our Operation Onward Liberty mentors assisting them in everything from [establishing] a fair military justice system and teaching the military police to serve, to working in the clinics, all the way to assisting the young soldiers in the Liberian army who volunteered and started an elementary school on their base,” he said.

Particularly encouraging, he said, was the Liberian military’s new focus on internal development. Engineering units, for example, were using their equipment to build roads and rebuild infrastructure ravaged during years of civil war.

Hooper said he was impressed by the Liberian force that has emerged. “What I saw there was a Liberian military that had a renewed faith in itself, a renewed enthusiasm about being a force for good in its country and serving the people,” he said.

Michael Casciaro, Africom’s security cooperation programs division chief, reported similar promise in Uganda, where the command is providing training and equipment to build capability and capacity.

Casciaro said he received favorable feedback about the transformation taking place in the Ugandan military from the unlikeliest of sources: an opposition leader. “What he told us was, ‘I see the difference in Americans operating in my country… I see the impact of Americans working with the Ugandans because now they … go out and do humanitarian things for their own country, and are being used in a different way,’” Casciaro said.

In 2007, Uganda stepped up to support the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, followed by Burundi; both remain today as the primary troop-contributing nations. “A major objective of ours has been to prepare Africans to go into Somalia to create stability,” Casciaro said. “And [the African militaries] have been instrumental in clearing a prominent terrorist group out of Mogadishu,” a first step toward expanding the effort north to regain control of the country.

Army Brig. Gen. Arnold Gordon-Bray, Africom’s deputy operations director, called the mission in Somalia “one of the best examples of Africans helping themselves that we are involved in.”

The African Union established its African Union Mission to Somalia with a clear vision that a failed Somalia would impact the entire continent, Bray said.

“This collective grouping is epitomizing what Africom is able to do, working with the State Department, working with other international partners, working by, with and through African partners to bring stability,” he said. “It is a great mission. It is symbolic of all the great things we are trying to do.”

A full range of peacekeeping training and instruction falls under the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance, a program funded and managed by the U.S. State Department. It is designed to improve African militaries’ capabilities by providing selected training and equipment required to execute multinational peace support operations. U.S. military trainers play a supporting role, providing mentorship and specialized instruction in areas such as bomb detection or deployment logistics.

Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the Africom commander, told Congress earlier this year he’s also encouraged by “an increasingly collaborative approach” among African nations standing together against al-Shabab. As they rallied to Somalia’s aid, the U.S. State Department responded to their requests for help in training and equipping those forces so they would be able to deploy to conduct their operations.

Ham called this effort a model of what U.S. Africa Command is all about: a command able to tap into the full range of U.S. government capabilities to help African nations better provide for their own security.

“And it is starting now to have significant benefit… We are seeing those African forces being more and more successful against al-Shabab each and every day,” he said. “This is one example of how building partner capacity really yields a decisive result in Africa,” he said.

Ham cited similar success in helping Africans in their fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army.

U.S. Special Forces advisors working with the four nations on the ground “are having a very positive effect,” he told the House Armed Services Committee in February. “We’re assisting in intelligence fusion, in facilitating long-range communications, logistics operations to sustain forces in the field for long periods of time and increased intelligence collection.”

“So I’m optimistic,” he told the House panel. “But I’m not yet to the point where we see the end in sight.”

The result, Ham said, is fulfillment of Africom’s goal of enabling Africans to solve African problems.

“If that is successful -- and I believe the trend line is pretty good right now -- that means that’s an area where the United States would not have to commit sizable forces to address a security situation,” Ham told the House panel. “And that’s really what we’re trying to do. That’s the essence of building partner capability in this collaborative approach with state and defense.”

Texas Army National Guard Soldiers work with Ugandan Soldiers

By Army Staff Sgt. Malcolm McClendon

Combined Joint Task Force—Horn of Africa

SINGO, Uganda (6/25/12) – When Army Sgt. Krystal Earles, a team leader with the Texas Army National Guard’s 3rd Squadron, 124th Cavalry Regiment, became a noncommissioned officer, she immediately learned the importance of accountability. Ever since then, she has passed on this fundamental leadership skill to junior NCOs.

“‘Where are your Soldiers?,’ that was the first thing my senior sergeants would ask me when I was promoted,” said Earles. “I immediately realized how fundamentally important this was. To best lead your Soldiers, you have to know where they’re at, not only geographically, but physically and mentally as well.”

This basic skill was one item that formed the basis of an exchange program as part of Peace Support Operations Soldier Skills Field Training that she and fellow U.S. Soldiers held with their Uganda Peoples Defense Force counterparts.

As part of the training, Earles and the other Soldiers from 3rd Sqdrn., 124th Cav. Regt. shared their experience and best practices on basic infantry skills.

“We discussed topics like maneuvering through the jungle, establishing a support-by-fire position, guiding your Soldiers through suppressive fire, breaching an obstacle, and finally, seizing the objective,” Earles said.

The discussions were followed by practical exercises conducted by the Ugandan soldiers. For Sgt. 1st Class Curtis Stille, the professionalism and motivation in which these tasked were carried out by the Ugandan soldiers was one of the things he appreciated the most.

“It was good to see how well the Ugandan soldiers performed during the live-fire exercises,” Stille said. “They were very motivated to put all that was discussed to the test. You could tell they were very proud of how they performed the assaults and tasks given.”

The Ugandan and U.S. Army noncommissioned officers worked together to help mentor more than 3,500 Ugandan soldiers. Earles believes the union, with the different leadership styles and varied experiences, contributed to the success.

“It was interesting to see how Ugandan noncommissioned officers worked with their soldiers,” Earles said. “When it was my turn to share my experiences, I immediately referred to my beginnings as an NCO and simply asked them, ‘Where are your soldiers?’”

U.S. Support Aids Hunt for Central African Rebel Group

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

STUTTGART, Germany, June 22, 2012 – The U.S. military is just one part of a larger, multinational effort to help four African partner nations bring rebel leader Joseph Kony and senior members of his brutal Lord’s Resistance Army to justice, said Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the commander of U.S. Africa Command.

Kony and his followers, many of them reported to be kidnapped children, have for years conducted a reign of terror marked by thousands of deaths, abductions, maiming and rape across several nations in central Africa. But they gained worldwide notoriety earlier this year when a YouTube video about Kony went viral.

The United States’ focus on this problem, however, is not new, Africom officials explained.

Since the 1990s, the United States has provided Uganda humanitarian and security assistance and supported reconciliation efforts in support of Uganda’s efforts to curtail the LRA’s brutalities against civilian populations.

President Barack Obama signed the Lord’s Resistance Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act into law in May 2010, affirming U.S. commitment to partners in the region to put an end to LRA atrocities. Since then, the United States has pursued a comprehensive, multi-faceted strategy to help the governments and people of the region in their efforts to end the threat posed by the rebel group.

Last fall, the president increased this effort by ordering 100 special operations forces to the region, where they operate from a joint operations center in Uganda and four remote outposts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

Ham emphasized that the U.S. military has no direct operational role. Instead of conducting the manhunt themselves, U.S. troops are providing information- and intelligence-sharing, logistics, communications and other enabling capabilities for host-nation troops pursuing Kony in Uganda, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Republic of the Congo.

“Our effort … is very much a supporting role to try to encourage the militaries of the four African countries that are involved, who lead their effort,” he said.

This approach, Ham explained, is consistent with Africom’s overall strategy and priorities. “The two overarching principles for us here at U.S. Africa Command are, one, simply, a safe, stable, secure Africa is in the best interest of not only the African countries, but of the United States as well,” he said. “And certainly the … effort to bring Kony to justice fits into that ... priority.”

The approach also reinforces one of Africom’s underlying principles, espoused by Obama during his visit to Ghana in 2009, in that, “in the long run, Africans are best suited to address African security problems,” the general said.

Ham recognized the challenges the Africans face in finding Kony and the LRA, who operate across a large ungoverned area and conceal their movements and limit their communications.

“It’s a large geographic area, heavily forested, very remote, [with a] lack of infrastructure, very few roads and bridges. It’s very rough terrain, and so it doesn’t lend itself to an easy solution,” he said.

Complicating the effort, he said, is the fact that the LRA’s members, estimated at about 200 in number, never congregate and operate in “very, very small groups.”

Ham reported signs of progress regarding the collective military efforts against the LRA.

“There are indications that the organization is increasingly in a survivalist mode; that they are moving frequently, that they are focused more on self-preservation than they are on extending their influence… into the small towns and villages across the region,” he said.

Ham expressed concern, however, that a desperate LRA might attempt a spectacular attack to weaken the collective will of the Africans confronting them.

“It’s a very real concern, and one we have to watch carefully,” he said.

However, Ham said he has seen increased commitment and cooperation in recent months between the Africans and expressed confidence that they ultimately will succeed in capturing Kony.

“I’m confident in the abilities of the four African countries: the level of commitment that I’ve seen from their senior officials, mostly from heads of state, certainly from ministers of interior and defense and chief of staff; the level of commitment I see from the African Union; the level of commitment from my president and from our government,” he said. “I am confident this mission will be successful.”

Ham offered a reminder about why that success matters for the United States.

“Why does America care about this part of Africa?” he said. “Because we have a great interest in regional stability and regional security. We feel…, as Americans, that our security is enhanced when other parts of the world are stable and secure as well.”

U.S. Supports Pushback Against Lord’s Resistance Army

By Karen Parrish

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2012 – The United States is part of a successful effort to help counter the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, but a four-pillared approach to neutralizing the terrorist group must continue, senior defense, diplomatic and aid officials told senators here yesterday.

That approach, officials explained, includes increasing protection for civilians in LRA-affected areas, apprehending and removing Joseph Kony and other LRA leaders, disarming, demobilizing and reintegrating remaining LRA fighters, and sustaining humanitarian relief to affected areas.

Amanda J. Dory, deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for African affairs, joined Donald Yamamoto, principal deputy assistant Secretary of State for African affairs, and Earl Gast, U.S. Agency for International Development assistant administrator for Africa, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s African Affairs Subcommittee yesterday.

The LRA is composed mostly of kidnapped children forced to conduct Kony’s terrorist tactics over the past 20 years, administration officials have said. Tens of thousands of people have been murdered and as many as 1.8 million have been displaced by the LRA, they said.

President Barack Obama announced April 23 that a U.S. military advise-and-assist mission to Central Africa, begun in October, will remain in place with periodic review.

“Our advisers will continue their efforts to bring this madman to justice and to save lives,” the president said in announcing the mission’s extension.

The 100-member U.S. team of trainers is working to help nations affected by the LRA to “help realize a future where no African child is stolen from their family and no girl is raped and no boy is turned into a child soldier,” Obama said.

Dory described U.S. contributions to the effort, which include training local forces and assisting in intelligence and logistics coordination.

“The militaries of Uganda, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in collaboration with the African Union, continue to pursue the LRA and seek to protect local populations,” she said. “They are leading this effort.”

U.S. advisors in Uganda synchronize and oversee the department’s counter-LRA efforts and coordinate with Ugandan forces, she said, while other U.S. service members work in field locations with forces from Uganda, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

“U.S. advisors have helped to set up operations fusion centers to enable daily coordination, information sharing and tactical coordination,” she said. “[They] are also integrating local civilian leaders into the work of the partner forces to improve the effectiveness of the civil-military relations.”

Yamamoto said the State Department’s role in the counter-LRA mission largely involves multinational coordination.

“We are coordinating closely with the United Nations peacekeeping missions in the region, especially to promote civilian protection,” he said. “We have encouraged the U.N. to scale up its efforts when possible. We are also working very closely with the African Union to increase its efforts to address the LRA.”

Gast said USAID has worked in Africa since the late 1980s to help communities build security, to reintegrate children formerly abducted by the LRA, and to strengthen economic development in affected areas.

“As the conflict first began to exact severe economic losses, cause mass displacement and weaken governance in Northern Uganda, USAID focused on providing lifesaving assistance to those affected by the conflict,” Gast said. “When the LRA was finally driven out of Northern Uganda, our programs shifted from relief to recovery and then to longer-term development, which is taking place now.”

Dory noted the LRA operates in a remote and rugged zone that includes parts of several countries. U.S. forces have effectively only been in the area since December and January, she said, but they have seen results from their efforts.

“We believe the U.S. military advisors have established a good foundation and made initial progress, especially considering the complexity of the operating environment, the number of partners involved and the remoteness of the operational areas,” Dory said. “We will continue to monitor the situation closely with our interagency partners to ensure our support is having the intended impact.”