[News] American proxy wars in Africa

[Anti-Imperialist News]

    American proxy wars in Africa


        Nick Turse


        2014-04-02, Issue 672 <http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/672>


        http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/91210
        <http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/91210>

Lion Forward Teams? Echo Casemate? Juniper Micron?

You could be forgiven if this jumble of words looks like nonsense to 
you. It isn't. It's the language of the U.S. military's simmering 
African interventions; the patois that goes with a set of missions 
carried out in countries most Americans couldn't locate on a map 
<http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/05/02/geog.test/>; the argot of 
conflicts now primarily fought by proxies and a former colonial power on 
a continent that the U.S. military views as a hotbed of instability and 
that hawkish pundits 
<http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ohanlon-troops-to-africa-20140216,0,572595.story> 
increasingly see as a growth area 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/frances-counterterrorism-operations-in-africa-deserve-us-support/2014/01/24/ab55e8aa-851a-11e3-bbe5-6a2a3141e3a9_story.html> 
for future armed interventions.

Since 9/11, the U.S. military has been making inroads in Africa, 
building alliances, facilities, and a sophisticated logistics network. 
Despite repeated assurances by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) that 
military activities on the continent were minuscule, a 2013 
investigation by TomDispatch <http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175743> 
exposed surprisingly large and expanding U.S. operations -- including 
recent military involvement with no fewer than 49 of 54 nations on the 
continent. Washington's goal continues to be building these nations into 
stable partners with robust, capable militaries, as well as creating 
regional bulwarks favorable to its strategic interests in Africa. Yet 
over the last years, the results have often confounded the planning -- 
with American operations serving as a catalyst for blowback (to use a 
term of CIA tradecraft).

A U.S.-backed uprising in Libya, for instance, helped spawn 
<http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/#/?chapt=2> hundreds of 
militias that have increasingly caused chaos in that country, leading to 
repeated attacks on Western interests and the killing of the U.S. 
ambassador and three other Americans. [url=]Tunisia[/url] has become 
ever more destabilized, according 
<http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/120134-return-of-jihadist-fighters-from-syria-sparks-fear-in-tunisia?utm_source=Africa+Center+for+Strategic+Studies+-+Media+Review+for+February+25+2014&utm_campaign=2%2F25%2F2014&utm_medium=email> 
to a top U.S. commander in the region. Kenya 
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/25/us-kenya-security-idUSBREA1O0XP20140225> 
and Algeria 
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/25/in-amenas-timeline-siege-algeria> 
were hit by spectacular, large-scale terrorist attacks that left 
Americans dead 
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/01/21/algeria-hostages-militants-gas-plant/1850707/> 
or wounded 
<http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/kenya-mall-attack-97157.html>. 
South Sudan, a fledgling nation Washington recently midwifed into being 
that has been slipping into civil war, now has more than 870,000 
displaced persons 
<http://www.irinnews.org/report/99704/fear-persists-among-south-sudan-s-displaced>, 
is facing an imminent hunger crisis 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-cahalan-phd/south-sudan-the-clock-is-ticking_b_4849841.html?utm_source=Africa+Center+for+Strategic+Studies+-+Media+Review+for+February+25+2014&utm_campaign=2%2F25%2F2014&utm_medium=email>, 
and has recently been the site of mass atrocities 
<http://www.irinnews.org/report/99699/the-mass-graves-of-bor-south-sudan>, 
including rapes and killings. Meanwhile, the U.S.-backed military of 
Mali was repeatedly defeated 
<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Keep-Calm/2012/0322/Outgunned-against-rebels-Mali-soldiers-overthrow-government> 
by insurgent forces 
<http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/14/world/africa/mali-military-offensive/> 
after managing to overthrow the elected government, and the 
U.S.-supported forces of the Central African Republic (CAR) failed to 
stop a ragtag rebel group from ousting 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2013/10/car-state-lawlessness-201310128612722300.html> 
the president.

In an effort to staunch the bleeding in those two countries, the U.S. 
has been developing a back-to-the-future military policy in Africa -- 
making common cause with one of the continent's former European colonial 
powers in a set of wars that seem to be spreading, not staunching 
violence and instability in the region.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

After establishing a trading post in present-day Senegal in 1659, France 
gradually undertook a conquest of West Africa that, by the early 
twentieth century, left it with 
<http://www.africa.upenn.edu/K-12/French_16178.html> a vast colonial 
domain encompassing present-day Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad, Guinea, Ivory 
Coast, Mali, Niger, and Senegal, among other places. In the process, the 
French used Foreign Legionnaires from Algeria 
<http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=qqeOMjr9kqYC&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=french,+africa,+algerian+legionnaires,+tirailleurs,+Moroccan+Goumiers&source=bl&ots=5GGUinRL05&sig=hTHb_JHFwEoFphwXAkPVOvaAbOQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VSEdU6_YJKmM1AG11YCgBw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false>, 
Goumiers from Morocco, and Tirailleurs from Senegal, among other African 
troops, to bolster its ranks. Today, the U.S. is pioneering a 
twenty-first-century brand of expeditionary warfare that involves 
backing both France and the armies of its former colonial charges as 
Washington tries to accomplish its policy aims in Africa with a limited 
expenditure 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/world/africa/us-takes-training-role-in-africa-as-threats-grow-and-budgets-shrink.html?_r=1> 
of blood and treasure.

In a recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President Barack Obama and 
French President François Hollande outlined 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-and-hollande-france-and-the-us-enjoy-a-renewed-alliance/2014/02/09/039ffd34-91af-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html> 
their efforts in glowing terms:

"In Mali, French and African Union forces -- with U.S. logistical and 
information support -- have pushed back al-Qaeda-linked insurgents, 
allowing the people of Mali to pursue a democratic future. Across the 
Sahel, we are partnering with countries to prevent al-Qaeda from gaining 
new footholds. In the Central African Republic, French and African Union 
soldiers -- backed by American airlift and support -- are working to 
stem violence and create space for dialogue, reconciliation, and swift 
progress to transitional elections."

Missing from their joint piece, however, was any hint of the Western 
failures that helped facilitate the debacles in Mali and the Central 
African Republic, the continued crises plaguing those nations, or the 
potential for mission creep, unintended consequences, and future 
blowback from this new brand of coalition warfare. The U.S. military, 
for its part, isn't saying much about current efforts in these two 
African nations, but official documents obtained by TomDispatch through 
the Freedom of Information Act offer telling details, while experts 
<http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the-future-role-of-u-s-counterterrorism-operations-in-africa> 
are sounding alarms about the ways in which these military interventions 
have already fallen short or failed.

OPERATION JUNIPER MICRON

After 9/11, through programs <http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/> 
like the Pan-Sahel Initiative and the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism 
Partnership, the U.S. has pumped 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/world/africa/west-fears-for-malis-fate-after-french-forces-leave.html?pagewanted=all> 
hundreds of millions of dollars into training and arming the militaries 
of Mali, Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, 
and Tunisia in order to promote "stability." In 2013, Captain J. Dane 
Thorleifson, the outgoing commander of an elite, quick-response force 
known as Naval Special Warfare Unit 10, described such efforts as 
training "proxy" forces in order to build "critical host nation security 
capacity; enabling, advising, and assisting our African CT 
[counterterror] partner forces so they can swiftly counter and destroy 
al-Shabab, AQIM [Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb], and Boko Haram." In 
other words, the U.S. military is in the business of training African 
armies as the primary tactical forces combatting local Islamic militant 
groups.

The first returns on Washington's new and developing form of "light 
footprint" warfare in Africa have hardly been stellar. After U.S. and 
French forces helped 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/world/africa/27military.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/world/africa/27military.html> 
to topple Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, neighboring Mali went 
from bulwark to basket case. Nomadic Tuareg fighters 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/world/africa/tuaregs-use-qaddafis-arms-for-rebellion-in-mali.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0> 
looted the weapons stores of the Gaddafi regime they had previously 
served, crossed the border, and began taking over northern Mali. This, 
in turn, prompted a U.S.-trained officer 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/world/africa/in-mali-coup-leaders-seem-to-have-uncertain-grasp-on-power.html?_r=0> 
-- a product of the Pan-Sahel Initiative -- to stage a military coup in 
the Malian capital, Bamako, and oust the democratically elected 
president of that country. Soon after, the Tuareg rebels were muscled 
aside by heavily-armed Islamist rebels from the homegrown Ansar al-Dine 
movement as well as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Libya's Ansar 
al-Shariah, and Nigeria's Boko Haram, who instituted a harsh brand of 
Shariah law, creating a humanitarian crisis that caused widespread 
suffering and sent refugees streaming from their homes.

In January 2013, former colonial power France launched a military 
intervention, code-named Operation Serval 
<http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130723/post-mortem-french-operation-mali>, 
to push back and defeat the Islamists. At its peak, 4,500 French troops 
were fighting alongside West African forces, known 
<http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minusma/background.shtml> as 
the African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA), later 
subsumed 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/world/africa/un-security-council-establishes-peacekeeping-force-in-mali.html> 
into a U.N.-mandated Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission 
in Mali (MINUSMA). The AFISMA force, as detailed in an official U.S. 
Army Africa briefing on training missions obtained by TomDispatch, reads 
like a who's who of American proxy forces in West Africa: Niger, Guinea, 
Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Togo, Senegal, Benin, Liberia, Chad, 
Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana, and Sierra Leone.

Under the moniker Juniper Micron, the U.S. military supported 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/world/africa/us-weighing-how-much-help-to-give-frances-military-operation-in-mali.html> 
France's effort, airlifting 
<http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2013/November%202013/1113mali.aspx> 
its soldiers and materiel into Mali, flying refueling missions 
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/20/us-flies-more-200-air-refuel-missions-mali/> 
in support of its airpower, and providing "intelligence, surveillance, 
and reconnaissance" (ISR) through drone operations 
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175743> out of Base Aerienne 101 at 
Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, the capital of neighboring 
Niger. The U.S. Army Africa AFISMA document also makes reference to the 
deployment to Chad of an ISR liaison team with communications support. 
Despite repeated pledges that it would put no boots on the ground in 
troubled Mali, in the spring of 2013, the Pentagon sent 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-deploys-small-number-of-troops-to-war-torn-mali/2013/04/30/2b02c928-b1a0-11e2-bc39-65b0a67147df_story.html> 
a small contingent to the U.S. Embassy in Bamako and others to support 
French and MINUSMA troops.

After issuing five media releases between January and March of 2013 
about efforts to aid the military mission in Mali, AFRICOM simply 
stopped <http://www.africom.mil/about-africa/west-africa/Mali> talking 
about it. With rare exceptions 
<http://codebookafrica.wordpress.com/operations/recent-us-military-operations-relating-to-africa-2000-present/recent-us-counter-terrorism-operations/operation-juniper-micron/>, 
media coverage of the operation also dried up. In June, at a joint press 
conference with President Obama, Senegal's President Macky Sall did let 
slip 
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/27/remarks-president-obama-and-president-sall-republic-senegal-joint-press-> 
that the U.S. was providing "almost all the food and fuel used by 
MINUSMA" as well as "intervening to assist us with the logistics after 
the French response."

A January 2014 Stars and Stripes article mentioned 
<http://www.stripes.com/news/no-end-in-sight-for-1-year-old-air-force-mission-over-mali-1.262401#.UzvrnV54x68> 
that the U.S. air refueling mission supporting the French, run from a 
U.S. airbase in Spain, had already "distributed 15.6 million gallons of 
fuel, logging more than 3,400 flying hours" and that the effort would 
continue. In February, according to military reports, elements of the 
Air Force's 351st Expeditionary Refueling Squadron delivered their one 
millionth pound of fuel to French fighter aircraft conducting operations 
over Mali. A December 2013 briefing document obtained by TomDispatch 
also mentions 181 U.S. troops, the majority of them Air Force personnel, 
supporting Operation Juniper Micron.

Eager to learn where things stood today, I asked AFRICOM spokesman 
Benjamin Benson about the operation. "We're continuing to support and 
enable the French and international partners to confront AQIM and its 
affiliates in Mali," he told me. He then mentioned four key current 
mission sets being carried out by U.S. forces: information-sharing, 
intelligence and reconnaissance, planning and liaison teams, and aerial 
refueling and the airlifting of allied African troops.

U.S. Army Africa documents obtained by TomDispatch offer further detail 
about Operation Juniper Micron, including the use of Lion Forward Teams 
in support of that mission. I asked Benson for information about these 
small detachments that aided the French effort from Chad and from within 
Mali itself. "I don't have anything on that," was all he would say. A 
separate briefing slide, produced for an Army official last year, noted 
that the U.S. military provided support for the French mission from Rota 
and Moron, Spain; Ramstein, Germany; Sigonella, Italy; Kidal and Bamako, 
Mali; Niamey, Niger; Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; and N'Djamena, Chad. 
Benson refused to offer information about specific activities conducted 
from these locations, preferring to speak about air operations from 
unspecified locations and only in generalities.

Official military documents obtained by TomDispatch detail several U.S. 
missions in support of proxy forces from the Multidimensional Integrated 
Stabilization Mission in Mali, including a scheduled eight weeks of 
pre-deployment training for troops from Niger in the summer of 2013, 
five weeks for Chadian forces in the autumn, and eight weeks in the 
autumn as well for Guinean soldiers, who would be sent into the Malian 
war zone. I asked Benson about plans for the training of African forces 
designated for MINUSMA in 2014. "In terms of the future on that... I 
don't know," was all he would say.

Another official briefing slide produced by U.S. Army Africa notes, 
however, that from January through March 2014, the U.S. planned to send 
scores of trainers to prepare 1,400 Chadian troops for missions in Mali. 
Over the same months, other U.S. personnel were to team up with French 
military trainers to ready an 850-man Guinean infantry force for similar 
service. Requests for further information from the French military about 
this and other missions were unanswered before this article went to press.

OPERATION ECHO CASEMATE

Last spring, despite years of U.S. assistance, including support from 
Special Operations forces advisors, the Central African Republic's 
military was swiftly defeated 
<http://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/preventing-genocide-blog/genocide-prevention-blog/central-african-republic-the-path-to-mass-atrocities> 
and the country's president was ousted by Seleka, a mostly Muslim rebel 
group. Months of violence followed, with Seleka forces involved 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/world/africa/central-african-republic-leader-resigns.html> 
in widespread looting, rape, and murder. The result was growing 
sectarian clashes between the country's Muslim and Christian communities 
and the rise of Christian "anti-balaka" 
<http://www.irinnews.org/report/99634/briefing-who-are-the-anti-balaka-of-car> 
militias. ("Balaka" means machete in the local Sango language.) These 
militias have, in turn, engaged in an orgy of atrocities 
<http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/report-details-atrocities-in-central-african-republic/?_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=centralafricanrepublic&_r=0> 
and ethnic cleansing 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/world/asia/rights-groups-warn-of-ethnic-cleansing-in-central-african-republic.html?ref=centralafricanrepublic> 
directed against Muslims 
<http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/70-Muslims-killed-in-CAR-town-20140224?utm_source=Africa+Center+for+Strategic+Studies+-+Media+Review+for+February+25+2014&utm_campaign=2%2F25%2F2014&utm_medium=email>.

In December, backed by a United Nations Security Council resolution and 
in a bid to restore order, France sent 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/world/africa/stopping-bloodshed-in-the-central-african-republic-amid-ghosts-of-genocide.html> 
troops into its former colony to bolster peacekeepers from the 
African-led International Support Mission in the Central African 
Republic (MISCA). As with the Mali mission, the U.S. joined the effort, 
pledging 
<http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/Article/11547/ussupports-peacekeeping-efforts-in-central-african-republic> 
up to $60 million in military aid, pouring money into a trust fund 
<http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/political-wrangling-stymies-car-peacekeeping-force/?utm_source=Africa+Center+for+Strategic+Studies+-+Media+Review+for+March+4+2014&utm_campaign=3%2F4%2F2014&utm_medium=email> 
for MISCA, and providing airlift services, as well as training African 
forces for deployment in the country.

Dubbed Echo Casemate, the operation -- staged out of Burundi and Uganda 
-- saw the U.S. military airlift hundreds of Burundian troops, tons of 
equipment, and more than a dozen military vehicles into that strife-torn 
land in just the first five days of the operation, according 
<http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/Article/11575/dod-continues-central-african-republic-peacekeeping-support> 
to an AFRICOM media release. In January, at France's request, the U.S. 
began airlifting 
<http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/Article/11659/us-airlifts-rwandans-to-central-african-republic> 
a Rwandan mechanized battalion and 1,000 tons of their gear in from that 
country's capital, Kigali, via a staging area in Entebbe, Uganda (where 
the U.S. maintains a "cooperative security location" and from which U.S. 
contractors had previously flown 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/contractors-run-us-spying-missions-in-africa/2012/06/14/gJQAvC4RdV_story.html> 
secret surveillance missions). The most recent airlift effort took place 
on February 6th, according to Benson. While he said that no other 
flights are currently scheduled, he confirmed that Echo Casemate remains 
an ongoing operation.

Asked about U.S. training efforts, Benson was guarded. "I don't have 
that off the top of my head," he told me. "We do training with a lot of 
different countries in Africa." He offered little detail about the size 
and scope of the U.S. effort, but a December 2013 briefing document 
obtained by TomDispatch mentions 84 U.S. personnel, the majority of them 
based in Burundi, supporting Operation Echo Casemate. The New York Times 
recently reported 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/world/africa/us-takes-training-role-in-africa-as-threats-grow-and-budgets-shrink.html?_r=0> 
that the U.S. "refrained from putting American boots on the ground" in 
the Central African Republic, but the document clearly indicates that a 
Lion Forward Team of Army personnel was indeed sent there.

Another U.S. Army Africa document produced late last year noted that the 
U.S. provided military support for the French mission in that country 
from facilities in Germany, Italy, Uganda, Burundi, and the Central 
African Republic itself. It mentions plans to detail liaison officers to 
the MISCA mission and the Centre de planification et de conduite des 
opérations (the Joint Operations, Planning, and Command and Control 
Center) in Paris.

As U.S. personnel deploy to Europe as part of Washington's African wars, 
additional European troops are heading for Africa. Last month, another 
of the continent's former colonial powers 
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314399/Hitlers-Holocaust-blueprint-Africa-concentration-camps-used-advance-racial-theories.html>, 
Germany, announced 
<http://www.dw.de/france-germany-to-send-joint-troops-to-mali/a-17442869?utm_source=Africa+Center+for+Strategic+Studies+-+Media+Review+for+February+20+2014&utm_campaign=2%2F20%2F2014&utm_medium=email> 
that some of its troops would be sent to Mali as part of a Franco-German 
brigade under the aegis of the European Union (EU) and would also aid in 
supporting 
<http://www.english.rfi.fr/africa/20140215-germany-flags-stronger-military-ties-france-africa> 
an EU "peacekeeping mission" 
<http://www.dw.de/berlin-dampens-prospects-for-wider-military-role/a-17452768> 
in the Central African Republic. Already, a host of other former 
imperial powers on the continent -- including Belgium 
<http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/08/30/daily/leopold-book-review.html>, 
Italy, the Netherlands 
<http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/11/30/dutch_double_down_in_mali>, 
Portugal, Spain 
<http://www.armytimes.com/article/20140210/NEWS/302100001/3-star-AFRICOM-commander-details-future-missions-continent>, 
and the United Kingdom <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22391857> 
-- are part of a European Union training mission 
<http://www.eeas.europa.eu/csdp/missions-and-operations/eutm-mali/index_en.htm> 
to school the Malian military. In January, France announced 
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/apnewsbreak-france-africa-military-presence> 
that it was reorganizing its roughly 3,000 troops in Africa's Sahel 
region to reinforce a logistical base in Abidjan, the capital of Côte 
d'Ivoire, transform N'Djamena, Chad, into a hub for French fighter jets, 
concentrate 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/world/africa/us-takes-training-role-in-africa-as-threats-grow-and-budgets-shrink.html?_r=0> 
special operations forces in Burkina Faso, and run drone missions out of 
Niamey, Niger (already a U.S. hub for such missions).

SCRAMBLING AFRICA

Operations by French and African forces, bolstered by the U.S. military, 
beat back the Islamic militants in Mali and allowed presidential 
elections to be held. At the same time, the intervention caused a 
veritable terror diaspora that helped lead to attacks in Algeria, Niger, 
and Libya, without resolving Mali's underlying instability.

Writing in the most recent issue of the CTC Sentinel, the official 
publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, analyst 
Bruce Whitehouse points out that the Malian government has yet to 
reassert its authority in the north of the country, reform its armed 
forces, tackle graft, or strengthen the rule of law: "Until major 
progress is made in each of these areas, little can be done to reduce 
the threat of terrorism... the underlying causes of Mali's 2012 
instability -- disaffection in the north, a fractured military, and 
systemic corruption -- have yet to be fully addressed by the Malian 
government and its international partners."

The situation may be even worse in the Central African Republic. "When 
France sent troops to halt violence between Christians and Muslims in 
Central African Republic," John Irish and Daniel Flynn of Reuters 
recently reported, "commanders named the mission Sangaris after a local 
butterfly to reflect its short life. Three months later, it is clear 
they badly miscalculated." Instead, violence has escalated, more than 
one million people have been displaced, tens of thousands have been 
killed, looting has occurred on a massive scale, and last month U.S. 
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper informed Congress that 
"much of the country has devolved into lawlessness."

It is also quickly becoming a regional arms-smuggling hot spot. With 
millions of weapons reportedly unaccounted for as a result of the 
pillaging of government armories, it's feared that weaponry will find 
its way into other continental crisis zones, including Nigeria, Libya, 
and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In addition, the coalition operation there has failed to prevent what, 
after a visit to the largely lawless capital city of Bangui last month, 
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres 
called "ethnic-religious cleansing." Amnesty International found much 
the same. "Once vibrant Muslim communities in towns and cities 
throughout the country have been completely destroyed as all Muslim 
members have either been killed or driven away. Those few left behind 
live in fear that they will be attacked by anti-balaka groups in their 
towns or on the roads," the human rights group reported. "While an 
African Union peacekeeping force, the African-led International Support 
Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA), supported by French 
troops, has been deployed in the country since early December 2013, they 
have failed to adequately protect civilians and prevent the current 
ethnic cleansing from taking place."

FRENCH WINE IN NEW BOTTLES?

"We're not involved with the fighting in Mali," AFRICOM spokesman 
Benjamin Benson told me, emphasizing that the U.S. military was not 
engaged in combat there. But Washington is increasingly involved in the 
growing wars for West and Central Africa. And just about every move it 
has made in the region thus far has helped spread conflict and chaos, 
while contributing to African destabilization. Worse yet, no end to this 
process appears to be in sight. Despite building up the manpower of its 
African proxies and being backed by the U.S. military's logistical 
might, France had not completed its mission in Mali and will be keeping 
troops there to conduct counterrorism operations for the foreseeable future.

Similarly, the French have also been forced to send reinforcements into 
the Central African Republic (and the U.N. has called for still more 
troops), while Chadian MISCA forces have been repeatedly accused of 
attacking civilians. In a sign that the U.S.-backed French military 
mission to Africa could spread, the Nigerian government is now 
requesting French troops to help it halt increasingly deadly attacks by 
Boko Haram militants who have gained strength and weaponry in the wake 
of the unrest in Libya, Mali, and the Central African Republic (and have 
reportedly also spread into Niger, Chad, and Cameroon). On top of this, 
Clapper recently reported that Chad, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania were 
endangered by their support of the French-led effort in Mali and at risk 
of increased terror attacks "as retribution."

Still, this seems to have changed little for the director of national 
intelligence. "Leveraging and partnering with the French is a way to 
go," he told Congress last month. "They have insight and understanding 
and, importantly, a willingness to use the forces they have there now."

France has indeed exhibited a longstanding willingness to use military 
force in Africa, but what "insight and understanding" its officials 
gleaned from this experience is an open question. One hundred and 
sixteen years after it completed its conquest of what was then French 
Sudan, France's forces are again fighting and dying on the same fields 
of battle, though today the country is called Mali. Again and again 
during the early 20th century, France launched military expeditions, 
including during the 1928-1931 Kongo-Wara rebellion, against indigenous 
peoples in French Equatorial Africa. Today, France's soldiers are being 
killed on the same ground in what's now known as the Central African 
Republic. And it looks as if they may be slogging on in these nations, 
in partnership with the U.S. military, for years to come, with no 
evident ability to achieve lasting results.

A new type of expeditionary warfare is underway in Africa, but there's 
little to suggest that America's backing of a former colonial power will 
ultimately yield the long-term successes that years of support for local 
proxies could not. So far, the U.S. has been willing to let European and 
African forces do the fighting, but if these interventions drag on and 
the violence continues to leap from country to country as yet more 
militant groups morph and multiply, the risk only rises of Washington 
wading ever deeper into post-colonial wars with an eerily colonial look. 
"Leveraging and partnering with the French" is the current way to go, 
according to Washington. Just where it's going is the real question.

* This article was published in 
[url=]http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/266-32/22556-american-proxy-wars-in-africa]Reader 
Supported News[/url]
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