|
Hmmm….there is
something very familiar about this (sand, oil, “political instability”, imperialism). Let’s review: There’s
been a 2 year genocide in Dafur that the Bush administration couldn’t get
excited about, but when there are claims of terrorists in fossil fuel areas,
suddenly there is $100 MN a year for prevention. Who benefits? Follow the money. - kwc US
takes war on terror into Sahara THE United States has
set aside $500 million over the next five years to secure a vast new front in
its global war on terrorism: the Sahara Desert. Critics say the region is not the terrorist zone that some
senior US military officers assert. They add that heavy-handed military and
financial support that reinforces authoritarian regimes in north and west
Africa could fuel radicalism where it scarcely exists. The Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism
Initiative (TSCTI) was begun in June to provide military expertise, equipment
and development aid to nine Saharan countries where lawless swathes of desert
are considered fertile ground for militant Muslim groups involved in smuggling
and combat training. "It's the Wild
West all over again," said Major Holly Silkman, a public affairs officer
at US Special Operations Command Europe, which presides over US security and
peacekeeping operations in Europe, former Soviet bloc countries and most of
Africa. During the first phase
of the programme, dubbed Operation Flintlock, US Special Forces led 3,000
ill-equipped Saharan troops in tactical exercises designed to co-ordinate
security more effectively along porous borders and beef-up patrols in ungoverned
territories. Maj Silkman said
Africa has become the most important concern of the US European Command (EuCom)
because of rampant corruption, drug and human trafficking, poverty and high
unemployment, which create a significant "potential for instability",
particularly in the Saharan region, where 50 percent of the population is
younger than 15. The head of Special
Operations Command Europe, Major General Thomas R Csrnko, said he was concerned
that al-Qaeda is assessing African groups for "franchising
opportunities," notably the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat -
known as GSPC by its initials in French - cited on the US State Department's
list of foreign terrorist organisations. The Algeria-based
GSPC, estimated to have about 300 fighters and said to be linked to al-Qaeda, was accused of
kidnapping European tourists in 2003 and has taken responsibility for a spate
of attacks in the Sahara this year. General Csrnko
considers the group the main threat to security in the region, and has cited the
potential for terrorist camps in the Sahara comparable to those once run by
al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Eucom officials say there is evidence that 25 percent
of suicide bombers in Iraq are Saharan Africans. Terrorist attacks such as the
11 March, 2004, Madrid train bombings that killed 191 persons have been linked
to north African militants. But some observers say
terrorism in the Sahara is little more than a mirage and that a higher-profile
US involvement could destabilise the region. "If anything, the [TSCTI] ... will generate terrorism,
by which I mean resistance to the overall US presence and strategy," said
Jeremy Keenan, a Sahara specialist at the University of East Anglia. A report by the
International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, said that although the
Sahara is "not a terrorist hotbed", repressive governments in the region are using
the "war on terror" to tap US largesse and deny civil freedoms. The report said the regime of Mauritanian President Maaouiya
Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya - a US ally in west Africa deposed on 3 August in a
bloodless coup - used
the threat of terrorism to legitimise the denial of human rights. Mr Keenan said the
government of Algeria is an even worse offender, misleading Washington about
the GSPC threat to acquire modern weapons and shed its pariah status. Aside
from the 2003 kidnapping issue, US and Algerian authorities have failed to
present "indisputable verification of a single act of alleged terrorism in
the Sahara", Mr Keenan said. "Without the GSPC, the US has no legitimacy for its
presence in the region," he added, noting that an escalating American strategic
dependency on African oil requires that the United States bolster its presence
in the region. Maj Silkman, however,
said cultivating security, not oil resources, is the prime objective of the
TSCTI. She said it is vital that other members of the international community
get involved. "Reducing the
threat is not as much about taking direct action as it is in eliminating
conditions that allow terrorism to flourish," she said. |
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
