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By ALEX DE WAAL and ABDUL MOHAMMED
SOMERVILLE, Mass. — Security is a core concern of the
American government’s Africa policy. This was made clear in May when President
Obama proposed a $5 billion Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund to supplement
programs the Pentagon already has in 35 countries. And it was made clear again
at the recent U.S.-Africa summit in Washington, when Mr. Obama announced $110
million a year for an African Peacekeeping Rapid Response Partnership, a
program to train and equip six African armies for peacekeeping operations.
Because Mr. Obama is committed to scaling back the
deployment of United States troops to combat terrorism, America’s security
strategy in Africa translates largely into training and equipping African
armies. Although this approach rightly gives African governments the lead in
tackling their own security problems, it is misguided nonetheless. It is, in
effect, providing foreign tutelage to the militarization of Africa’s politics,
which undermines peace and democracy throughout the continent. America’s
diplomacy is becoming a handmaiden to Africa’s generals.
Consider two countries riven by different kinds of
conflict and ask yourself what they have in common. On the one hand, there is
South Sudan. By African standards, it is not a poor country. It has vast oil
resources, and as soon it became independent from Sudan, three years ago,
government spending per capita was about $350, four times the average for East
African states. It also received the most generous international aid package of
any country in East Africa — the equivalent of another $100 per capita. But the
government spent about half of its budget on its huge army. And many of its 745
generals proceeded to make fortunes thanks to payroll fraud and procurement
scams.
According to President Salva Kiir of South Sudan, $4
billion in public funds were plundered by government ministers. When Mr. Kiir
shut out his political rivals from the club of kleptocrats, fighting broke out.
Various commanders and party bosses then mobilized supporters through ethnic
militias, bringing a sectarian dimension to a conflict that was inherently
about the distribution of public resources.
Then there is Nigeria. Its political leaders, generals
and businessmen — who are often all those things at once — have grown wealthy
on oil money, while much of the population lives in deep poverty. Health and
education services are inadequate, and the government faces widespread outrage
about corruption. Small wonder that the Islamist militants of Boko Haram, who
espouse austere forms of Shariah justice, are able to recruit disaffected young
men and that the Nigerian army struggles to find combat-ready units to counter
them.
One thing South Sudan and Nigeria have in common is
systemic corruption and a military elite that controls politics and business.
The civil strife in South Sudan and the jihadist insurgency in Nigeria are
largely symptoms of those deeper governance problems. Another thing South Sudan
and Nigeria have in common is vast American support. In 2006-2013, the United
States government spent up to $300 million to support the South Sudanese army.
Nigeria has long been one of Washington’s biggest defense-cooperation partners.
Even as conventional military threats have declined
throughout Africa, overall military spending on the continent has grown faster
than anywhere else in the world. And these military budgets often hide big
black holes. In Uganda, according to local journalists, some funds officially
dedicated to the salary of army personnel who turned out not to exist have been
used by President Yoweri Museveni to reward generals loyal to him.
When political crises occur, the American government’s
response is to privilege military measures, and local governments know it. For
example, the ongoing peace talks in South Sudan have focused more on
dispatching Ethiopian, Kenyan and Rwandan troops under the auspices of the
Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional organization, and less
on addressing the root causes of the conflict. In the absence of a durable
political solution to the underlying crisis, this is a high-risk move; it could
suck the whole of northeast Africa into South Sudan’s war.
The overall approach violates the first principle of
peacekeeping: Never send a peace mission where there is no peace to keep. The
risks of getting embroiled are especially high when the troops deployed come
from a neighboring country. What’s more, the very governments that propose to
serve as mediators may have a conflict of interest: They stand to gain from
dispatching their soldiers, especially if the mission is funded by
contributions from United Nations members.
Counterterrorism assistance has a better track record
reinforcing bad government than rooting out extremists. Repression by dictators
like Idriss Déby in Chad or Blaise Compaoré in Burkina Faso has been tolerated
because their governments have supplied combat troops for operations against
jihadists in the Sahara. Meanwhile, Kenya has experienced more terrorist
attacks since its army moved into Somalia in 2011 to fight the radical Islamist
group Al Shabab. After the attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi last year,
Kenya’s army and police indiscriminately targeted Muslim communities —
generating resentment among those groups and potentially more recruits for the
militants.
Fifteen years ago, when African leaders set up their own
peace and security system within what later became the African Union, they
tried to balance diplomacy and armed enforcement. In case of a conflict, they
would hold negotiations with all parties; sending in peacekeeping troops would
only be a fallback option. But Western countries like the United States and
France have tended to favor military approaches instead. During the civil war
in Libya in 2011, a panel of five African presidents, established by the
African Union and chaired by Jacob Zuma of South Africa, proposed letting Col.
Muammar el-Qaddafi go into exile in an African country and then setting up an
interim government. But the plan was spurned by NATO, which preferred regime change
by way of foreign intervention.
The Obama administration is aware of the dangers of
supporting armed forces in Africa. At the U.S.-Africa summit in Washington, Mr.
Obama announced a new Security Governance Initiative to help professionalize
six African militaries and promote their being subjected to civilian oversight.
This is a step in the right direction, but it is a very small step. Only $65
million has been earmarked for that program, compared with $5 billion for
counterterrorism cooperation.
Washington has the means to do much more. A single
aircraft carrier has a crew as large as the entire American diplomatic service
posted abroad. The cost of developing the fleet of F-35 stealth fighter planes
could fund the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development
and all United Nations peacekeeping operations for nearly 20 years. Security in
Africa will not be achieved by giving more power and money to African military
forces. It will be achieved by supporting diplomacy, democracy and development.
Alex de
Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts
University. Abdul Mohammed is the chairman of InterAfrica Group, an Ethiopian
civil society organization.
