Pentagon Role in Africa May End

BUNDASE TRAINING CAMP, Ghana -- U.S. Special Forces trainers strode up and down the firing line here one recent morning, barking instructions and encouragement as Ghanaian troops struggled to get a feel for the new American-supplied M-60 machine guns they will take with them to nearby Sierra Leone on a U.N. peacekeeping mission.

Earlier in the morning, some of the 100 Americans from the 3rd Special Forces Group trained the Ghanaians on M-16 rifles. During the 10-week training program, the troops also will learn to use mortars and sophisticated communications equipment.

"We are trying to make sure these people will operate under live fire," Lt. Col. Jay Glover said as he sat in the camp's U.S.-style mess tent built for the training. "If they can't, people will get killed when they turn around and go into combat."

Glover and his team are part of Operation Focus Relief, the most visible and costly of the myriad programs the Pentagon has been conducting in 22 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. They include training elite battalions like this one for peacekeeping duties, readying other soldiers for disaster relief, AIDS prevention, and other smaller programs.

But many of the programs, which together cost $130 million a year, may be short-lived. Most were initiated by former president Bill Clinton as a compromise between sending U.S. troops into war-torn African countries and doing nothing. They are now under review by the Bush administration, which is divided over what military commitments to make on this continent.

The White House must assess whether the programs are "misguided, inadequately resourced or simply need more time to bear fruition," according to a working paper published last month co-written by Jendayi E. Frazer, director of African affairs at the National Security Council. Despite the programs, the paper said, "there was no noticeable change in any of Africa's wars."

During a visit to Africa last month, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell acknowledged that he disagrees with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over funding military missions here.

The United States, Powell said, should remain committed to equipping and training African peacekeepers, but Rumsfeld "is always looking for opportunities to back off on some of the overseas commitments we have. It is just trying to find the right balance between getting too committed and not getting committed enough."

So far, two 800-man Nigerian battalions have been trained, equipped and deployed to Sierra Leone under the $90 million Focus Relief program. The Ghanaian battalion, along with one from Senegal and three from Nigeria, are to be deployed by the end of the year.

The program was rushed into existence last year after the rebel Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone took 500 U.N. peacekeepers hostage. With the U.N. operation in disarray and Britain, the former colonial power there, rushing in troops, Clinton was under pressure to do something to help fight a rebel force renowned for hacking off the arms and legs of women and children.

He was unwilling to commit troops and opted instead to provide training and equipment for seven West African battalions to step into the breach. "Certainly the motivation was to get troops on the ground that were not U.S. troops," said a senior Pentagon official.

According to U.N. sources and observers in Sierra Leone, the two Nigerian battalions are a marked improvement over other African forces deployed there, but have not yet faced any serious challenges in combat.

A broader U.S. program is the $20 million-a-year African Crisis Response Initiative, started in 1996 to create a pan-African force for peacekeeping and disaster relief. U.S. Special Forces provide training, uniforms and communications equipment but no weapons.

With State Department funding, the ACRI program has trained 8,000 troops since 1997, and plans to train a total of 12,000, U.S. officials said.

It began when the Clinton administration feared Burundi would implode on the heels of the 1994 Rwanda genocide crisis. A U.S. official familiar with the program said it was initially "ill thought-out and rushed" through the policy-approval process.

None of Africa's major armies took part, either because they declined or could not qualify because of rules that limited participation to countries with democratic governments. Nigeria was initially ineligible and later chose, along with South Africa, not to participate. Uganda, Ethiopia and Ivory Coast all joined but were suspended because of military coups, political unrest or involvement in wars. Only smaller countries such as Benin, Malawi, Mali and Ghana signed up.

The NSC paper said that after spending more than $100 million on ACRI, "it is unclear what the United States has to show for its efforts."

Other programs include a $10 million U.S. Navy program to combat the spread of AIDS in African armed forces, and the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, which brings regional military and civilian leaders together.

In Guinea, the United States has supplied more than $1 million of communications equipment, spare parts and meals to its army. A multimillion-dollar aid package is under consideration, Pentagon officials said.

Many African armed forces, faced with sharp budget cutbacks and the end of Cold War largess, welcome the U.S. training and the equipment that often goes with it.

Ghana, participating in both Focus Relief and ACRI, is one of the most enthusiastic countries about the new military ties. In an interview, Defense Minister Kwame Addo-Kufuor said his troops received advanced equipment and "orientation toward democratic traditions and a better appreciation of the democratic way of life."

About 300 of the 800 soldiers being trained here come from the 64th Battalion, known for its loyalty to former president Jerry Rawlings, who led two coups, governed the country for 20 years and is widely accused of using the unit to suppress dissent and violate human rights. Rawlings left office in January.

None of the units trained in either Focus Relief or ACRI has been accused of human rights abuses. But human rights groups argue that training armies that have histories of brutality must include effective vetting of participants and have a strong focus on human rights and humanitarian law.

Janet Fleischman, Africa director of Human Rights Watch, said human rights training and vetting are the "weakest link" in the Focus Relief program. "If done right, with strong human rights vetting, humanitarian law instruction and a clear mechanism for monitoring and accountability, this could be a new model," she said. "But we haven't seen if they are going to give sufficient emphasis to these fields to make it work."

Lt. Col. Glover said troops he trains receive seven hours of human rights instruction, with additional training incorporated into other exercises.

A senior Pentagon official said "all participating individuals are vetted for human rights violations." But in the cases of Nigeria and Ghana, where until recently the United States has had scant military contact, vetting is limited to checking the names of training candidates against lists of suspected rights abusers kept by the State Department, Defense Department or intelligence agencies.

"We don't really know who these guys are or where they come from," acknowledged a U.S. official in the region. "We have very little to match the names against because we haven't worked with this army for decades."