United States Africa Command

Public Affairs Office

6 August 2010

USAFRICOM - related news stories

TOP NEWS RELATED TO U.S. AFRICA COMMAND AND AFRICA

White House Party for Africa Leaves Out Leaders (New York Times)
(Pan Africa) President Obama convened a forum this week to celebrate the 50th
anniversaries of 17 African nations, but he did not invite a single African leader to help
him do so.

U.S. Links Suspects to Somalia (Wall Street Journal)

(Somalia) U.S. prosecutors filed terrorism-related charges against 14 U.S. residents and
citizens, accusing them of providing money, recruits and other support to the Somali
Islamist group al-Shabaab.

Analyst Says Indictments May Reveal Somali Sympathies Toward Al-Shabab (Voice
of America)
(Somalia) An analyst has expressed concern Somali residents in the United States could
be violently targeted by Americans after Attorney General Eric Holder announced the
indictment of 14 people charged with providing support to the hard-line Somali
insurgent group al-Shabab.

MCC partnerships bolster Africa-US trade (African Manager)

(Pan Africa) Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) partners hips throughout
Africa have demonstrated how development assistance can attract t he private sector
and bolster trade, MCC Chief Executive Officer Daniel W. Yohannes, remarked
Wednesday in Washington DC.

'No' Side Concedes Kenya Vote (Associated Press)

(Kenya) Kenyans overwhelmingly backed a new constitution to replace a British
colonial-era draft that inflated the powers of the president, preliminary results
announced Thursday showed.

Mauritania not fighting Al-Qaeda, but local terrorism: president (Xinhua)

(Mauritania) Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz says his country is not
fighting Al-Qaeda, but facing a local form of terrorism based in the Sahel region of the
African continent.

Ivory Coast long-delayed election now set for Oct (Associated Press)
(Ivory Coast) Ivory Coast will finally hold long overdue presidential elections on Oct.
31, the prime minister announced Thursday, bringing hope that an eight-year political
crisis that divided the country in two may be coming to an end.

Sierra Leone shows little interest in model witness Campbell (The Guardian)
(Sierra Leone) On the streets of Freetown, people were not sure who Campbell was, let
alone that she had come to testify at a hearing relating to Sierra Leone's diamond-
fuelled civil war in the 1990s.

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website
 UN mission takes note of new date for Ivorian presidential polls
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FULL ARTICLE TEXT

White House Party for Africa Leaves Out Leaders (New York Times)

DAKAR, Senegal — Many of Africa’s leaders have spent part of their summer shuttling
between capitals, congratulating one another on 50 years of independence. One capital
they will not be visiting together is Washington.

President Obama convened a forum this week to celebrate the 50th anniversaries of 17
African nations, but he did not invite a single African leader to help him do so. Was
this, as the African news media and independent commentators see it, an expression of
distaste for abusive rulers? Was it an extension of Mr. Obama’s own conviction —
already enunciated — that bad government is at the heart of the continent’s woes and
that “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions”?

The State Department denies such an intent behind the forum, noting that American
officials meet with African leaders in other settings.

Nonetheless, commentators on the continent and in the West note a sharp contrast
between this week’s event in Washington and the summer’s other major 50th
anniversary observance in a Western capital: Paris.

At a celebration on July 14, Bastille Day in France, President Nicolas Sarkozy was
flanked by the leaders of Cameroon and Burkina Faso, Paul Biya and Blaise Compaore,
who have been sharply criticized on human rights and governance, while 11 other
African heads of state, some with equally dubious records, joined him on the reviewing
stand.
There, they surveyed a parade of uniformed troops from African armies, some of which
had taken part in large-scale abuses over the previous decade. The Senegalese press, for
one, was roundly critical of the event. Not only did it dress down the African leaders
for heeding the call of the ex-colonial ruler (the irony of celebrating African
independence in the seat of a former colonial power was lost on few observers), but it
also criticized Mr. Sarkozy for hosting presidents who mistreat their citizens.

Unlike the French president, Mr. Obama stands no risk of being photographed in the
company of rulers accused of flouting democracy and human rights. By contrast, he
summoned 115 under-35s from civil society, journalism and business to a “President’s
Forum With Young African Leaders” this week to help him in “looking forward,” as a
State Department official put it.

“We’ve got to look for the next generation of leaders,” said Bruce Wharton, deputy
assistant secretary for public diplomacy.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama bluntly addressed issues of corruption and press freedom in
speaking to the group at the White House, saying that “sometimes the older leaders get
into old habits, and those old habits are hard to break.”

When asked about President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Mr. Obama told the young
people at the forum, “I’ll be honest with you — I’m heartbroken when I see what’s
happened in Zimbabwe. I think Mugabe is an example of a leader who came in as a
liberation fighter and — I’m just going to be very blunt — I do not see him serving his
people well. And the abuses, the human rights abuses, the violence that’s been
perpetrated against opposition leaders I think is terrible.”

African news organizations read the president’s forum as having more to do with the
current generation of leaders than with those he invited, seeing it as a rebuke to the
older generation.

“50th Anniversary of African Independences: Barack Obama snubs the African

dictators,” read a headline in the Cameroonian newspaper Le Messager.

Mr. Obama is giving a “kick in the nose to African leaders, whom he seems to be
royally snubbing,” said the Fasozine of Burkina Faso.

Here in Senegal, the newspaper Walfadjri ran a headline saying, “Obama snubs Wade
and company and unrolls the red carpet for civil society,” referring to President
Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal. So desirable is the association with Mr. Obama that Mr.
Wade’s government once put a notice on the front page of a local newspaper saying
merely that the Senegalese president had spoken with the American president on the
telephone, without divulging the conversation’s contents.
“The American president is extremely sensitive on the subject of democracy,” said
another Senegalese paper, Kotch. “Proof: he’s going to celebrate the 50th anniversaries
of African nations without inviting a single head of state.”

Mr. Obama has made an overt pitch for the more widespread diffusion of democracy on
the continent before, a gesture often recalled in the African media. In a speech to the
Ghanaian Parliament in July 2009, the president said it was a “fundamental truth” that
“development depends on good governance. That is the ingredient which has been
missing in far too many places, for far too long.” Mr. Obama added that it was up to
Africans themselves to add this “ingredient.”

Mr. Obama’s choice has been met with frosty silence, mostly, in African presidential
palaces. But it clearly has the potential to sting. Governments lacking internal
legitimacy on the continent often derive their credibility from international recognition,
from going to conferences, and being met and greeted by other heads of state, as
scholars are increasingly pointing out.

“International recognition endows African state actors with a domestic power of

command,” wrote Pierre Englebert, a professor of politics at Pomona College, in his
recent book “Africa: Unity, Sovereignty & Sorrow.”

The absence of presidents and their retinues at the Washington gathering is thus seen as
no accident.

“By refusing to invite them, and welcoming them in Washington, Obama is clearly
telling them, ‘If you want to engage with us, you have to behave,’ ” said Mamadou
Diouf, director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. “It’s a way of
questioning the choice made by Sarkozy.”

Other analysts agreed. “You take one look at Sarkozy and his buddies, that’s not the
picture Obama wants to convey,” said J. Stephen Morrison, an Africa expert at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

A French Foreign Ministry official rejected the widespread criticism of Mr. Sarkozy,
calling it “a sterile polemic.”

“The two initiatives are complementary,” the official, who was not authorized to speak
publicly on the matter, said of the two approaches taken by Mr. Sarkozy and Mr.
Obama. “A country can’t be reduced just to its leaders and civil society. For a
democracy to function, you need both.”

As for the general populace, though, Mr. Obama’s choice has been “saluted by African
public opinion,” said a Senegalese opposition leader, Abdoulaye Bathily, “because the
emerging forces are not to be found in the leadership, but in the civil society
movement.” Mr. Bathily added: “The leaders have failed the African people.”
--------------------
U.S. Links Suspects to Somalia (Wall Street Journal)

U.S. prosecutors filed terrorism-related charges against 14 U.S. residents and citizens,
accusing them of providing money, recruits and other support to the Somali Islamist
group al-Shabaab.

The group, alleged by U.S. authorities to have ties to al Qaeda terrorists, is one of
several vying for control of Somalia in that country's lengthy civil war.

Those charged in indictments announced Thursday aren't accused of threatening

attacks against the U.S. Most allegedly aided al-Shabaab in recruiting fighters to join its
insurgency.

But the indictments point to a broader trend of U.S. citizens and residents joining
extremist groups and raises fears among authorities that young men trained and
radicalized in Somalia could return to the U.S. and pose a threat here.

"As demonstrated by the charges unsealed today, we are seeing an increasing number
of individuals—including U.S. citizens—who have become captivated by extremist
ideology and have taken steps to carry out terrorist objectives, either at home or
abroad," Attorney General Eric Holder said at a news conference. "It's a disturbing
trend that we have been intensely investigating in recent years and will continue to
investigate and root out. But we must also work to prevent this type of radicalization
from ever taking hold."

The charges were filed in California, Alabama and Minnesota, where the Federal
Bureau of Investigation in recent years has tracked the recruitment of young Somalis
drawn to train and fight with al-Shabaab. Most were motivated to join the fight in
Somalia after Ethiopia, and later the African Union, sent troops to defend Somalia's
nominal government from insurgent attack, investigators say.

The threat posed by al-Shabaab has grown since last month when the group claimed
responsibility for bombings in Uganda that killed dozens of people as they watched the
televised World Cup soccer final. Uganda is one of several countries that has supplied
troops to the African Union contingent in Somalia.

The new charges announced Thursday are aimed at what investigators say were top
U.S. recruiters for al-Shabaab.
The case arose from a probe that began in 2008 when multiple families in an ethnic
Somali enclave in Minneapolis reported that their young sons had suddenly
disappeared and turned up weeks later in Somalia.

One of those recruits became the first known American suicide bomber in an al-Shabaab
attack in Somalia that year, according to U.S. law enforcement officials.

Prosecutors previously charged several alleged recruits, mostly from Minnesota, some
of whom underwent training at Al-Shabaab camps and returned to the U.S.
--------------------
Analyst Says Indictments May Reveal Somali Sympathies Toward Al-Shabab (Voice
of America)

An analyst has expressed concern Somali residents in the United States could be
violently targeted by Americans after Attorney General Eric Holder announced the
indictment of 14 people charged with providing support to the hard-line Somali
insurgent group al-Shabab.

Faisal Abdiroble said there have been instances where Somali residents in the state of
Minnesota have gone back to Somalia to be suicide bombers or joined the ranks of the
insurgent group fighting the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

“There is the potentiality that some elements who favor al-Shabab and radical religious
movements probably could be found in Minnesota. Minnesota has a large underclass
Somali community who have been neglected either by (the) government welfare
system, or otherwise. It will not be a surprising thing to find that there are Somalis who
sympathize with al-Shabab,” he said.

Attorney General Holder said at a news conference Thursday that the indictment sheds
additional light on a deadly pipeline that has provided funding and fighters to the al-
Shabab terror organization from cities across the United States.

Analyst Abdiroble said the indictments will send a message of the U.S administration’s
seriousness in decisively dealing with supporters of the insurgents, both internationally
and inside Somalia.

The indictments came a day after federal agents arrested a 26-year-old man from
Chicago hours before his scheduled trip to Somalia.

Prosecutors say Shaker Masri had been under investigation for 18 months, but, in the
past month, was became increasingly serious about his planned trip to Somalia, where
he hoped to launch a suicide attack against the Somali administration. He is now
charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization.
The internationally-backed Somali Transitional Federal Government has been battling
almost daily with hard-line Islamic insurgents who have vowed to overthrow the
administration to implement the strictest form of the Sharia Law.

Analyst Abdiroble said the Somali administration is too weak to withstand the threat
posed by the hard-line Islamic insurgents.

“I must emphasize that there isn’t much left of the (Somali) government that the U.S
supports. (President) Sheikh Sharif’s government is literally a government that doesn’t
exist in Somalia. Al-Shabab has taken most of the country,” Abdiroble said.
--------------------
MCC partnerships bolster Africa-US trade (African Manager)

Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) partners hips throughout Africa have

demonstrated how development assistance can attract t he private sector and bolster
trade, MCC Chief Executive Officer Daniel W. Yohannes, remarked Wednesday in
Washington DC.

Through MCC investments, Yohannes said, countries can become better partners for
trade, which empowers them to fulfill the vision of the African Growth and Oppo r
tunity Act (AGOA) of the United States for stronger business relations and great e r
opportunities for private sector investment and commerce.

In his closing remarks at the 2010 AGOA Forum in Washington, Yohannes said: â? We
hope that this AGOA forum in Washington generates new ideas for improving Afr i
caâ?s ability to participate in the global market place. This engagement will he lp
alleviate poverty and produce political stability in AGOAâ?s second decade.

"Now more than ever, Americaâ?s prosperity and security are linked with that of the
developing world, including in Africa," he added.

According to the official, AGOA represents a progressive US trade and investment

policy toward the continent that is reducing barriers to trade, increasing dive r sified
exports, creating jobs and expanding opportunities for Africans.

AGOA provides trade preferences to designated countries that are making progress in
economic and political reforms. There are currently 38 sub-Saharan African c o untries
that can take advantage of the trade benefits.

Yohannes said that African countries were the largest recipient of MCCâ?s devel
opment assistance.

Over 70 per cent - more than US$ 5 billion of MCCâ?s global portfolio of US$ 7. 5 billion
- benefits the people of Africa.
MCC also helps African partner countries take greater advantage of AGOA opportun
ities by building sound policies vital for trade and the physical links through w hich
trade can flow.

Following the AGOA Forum in Washington, Yohannes said MCC will also take part in
the AGOA Forum sessions in Kansas City, Missouri, to discuss private sector opp o
rtunities in Africa, specifically related to agriculture-related companies.
--------------------
'No' Side Concedes Kenya Vote (Associated Press)

NAIROBI, Kenya—Kenyans overwhelmingly backed a new constitution to replace a

British colonial-era draft that inflated the powers of the president, preliminary results
announced Thursday showed. A leading opponent said the "No" side would respect the
outcome.

Almost 70% of the country voted in favor of the new constitution during Wednesday's
vote, according to preliminary vote results.

Opponents of the draft earlier had expressed misgivings about the results, but William
Ruto, Kenya's higher education minister and a top leader of the "No" team, said the
majority had expressed their views.

"As member of the 'No' team we respect the verdict of the majority," Mr. Ruto said. He
then called on the "Yes" side to engage in negotiations over the parts of the constitution
the "No" side objected to, items likely to include the constitution's clauses on abortion
and land ownership.

Kenya's election commission underscored that it was the only organization that could
name a winner, but with a seemingly overwhelming victory at hand, the "Yes" team
was ready to declare victory.

"Saying that we have won is an understatement. Kenya has been reborn," said Kiraitu
Murungi, the minister of energy and a member of the "Yes" team. "In fact it has been 20
years of painful labor. There is neither winner nor loser, we are all Kenyans, let us
embrace each other as we usher the country into a new chapter."

Voters overwhelmed polling stations in some locations Wednesday. The international

community, and particularly the U.S., has urged Kenyans to pass the constitution, even
as the draft raised emotions over land rights, abortion and Muslim family courts.

Kenya's current constitution, drawn up in the lead-up to Kenya's 1963 independence

from Britain, grants the president sweeping powers. The new constitution would
dramatically cut back on those powers by setting up an American-style system of
checks and balances and paving the way for much-needed land reform.

In the Rift Valley—the scene of some of the worst atrocities in 2007-08—Bishop

Cornelius Korir said the church would continue to press the government as it
implements the new constitution to take into account the church's view on abortion.

"We are very proud of the people of the North Rift for maintaining peace and we want
peace to continue," Bishop Korir said.

A coalition of evangelical churches said in a statement that it was saddened by

irregularities in the campaign, balloting and counting phases of the election process, but
the Catholic church and the Anglican church didn't sign the statement.

An observer group said it hadn't seen any signs of rigging as had been claimed by some
in the "No" camp.

"We are confident that the process and the results reflect the wishes of Kenyans," said
Kennedy Masime, the chairman of the Elections Observation Group, which had 10,000
observers across the country.

The group projected that the "Yes" team will win with 68.8% and the "No" vote will get
31.2$. It also projected the turnout at 72.5%, which would be the highest turnout for a
national vote in Kenya's history. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 2.9
percentage points.

The apparent passing of the new constitution is a major victory for President Mwai
Kibaki, who backed a constitutional referendum in 2005 that was defeated.

The referendum was one of the conditions of the power-sharing agreement between
Kibaki and Prime Minster Raila Odinga that ended the 2007-08 violence. Both back the
new constitution, and both appealed to Kenyans to vote peacefully.

Kenyan presidents have long favored their own ethnic tribes in the distribution of
resources, a tremendous source of tension here.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday the Obama administration
was gratified that a large number of Kenyans voted and that the vote was generally
peaceful.

"This is an important step toward strengthening democratic institutions in Kenya," Mr.

Crowley said.
--------------------
Mauritania not fighting Al-Qaeda, but local terrorism: president (Xinhua)
NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania - Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz says
his country is not fighting Al-Qaeda, but facing a local form of terrorism based in the
Sahel region of the African continent.

This local terrorism has invaded several times into the territory of Mauritania, the
president told a press conference on Wednesday night, adding that the Public Treasury
has allocated 50 million U. S. dollars for equipment and the modernization of the armed
forces.

"We have used 60 percent of the funds and we have put in place a service of special
units for the anti-terrorist fight," he declared.

In reference to a joint military raid on terrorists last month by Mauritanian and French
forces, the president said all those killed were not important members of the group.

The Mauritanian and French commandos launched the attack on the North African
wing of Al-Qaeda (AQMI) in the northern part of Mali to rescue the French hostage
Michel Germaneuaa, killing six AQMI members, but failing to find the hostage.

After the military action, AQMI announced the killing of the 78- year-old hostage in
retaliation. France immediately declared war with Al-Qaeda, vowing to reinforce the
anti-terror cooperation with governments in northwest Africa including Mauritania,
Mali, Algeria and Niger.

The Mauritanian president told reporters that his country has been since engaged
against the terrorists based in the desert "in the north of a neighboring country."

"We act against these terrorists, sometimes with the technical and logistical support and
information from certain friendly countries also ready to combat terrorism," Aziz said.

But he made it clear that no French or foreign military base is hosted in Mauritania. He
also ruled out any terrorist group holed up in the territory of his country, although 31
Mauritanian soldiers were killed in terror attacks between 2005 and 2009.
--------------------
Ivory Coast long-delayed election now set for Oct (Associated Press)

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – Ivory Coast will finally hold long overdue presidential
elections on Oct. 31, the prime minister announced Thursday, bringing hope that an
eight-year political crisis that divided the country in two may be coming to an end.

Prime Minister Guillaume Soro made the announcement following a Cabinet meeting in
the political capital of Yamoussoukro on the eve of the country's 50th anniversary of
independence celebrations.
"We are committed to leading Ivorians to these elections, to organizing peaceful
elections so that we can end this crisis which has — quite obviously — lasted too long,"
Soro said.

The ongoing political crisis has put a damper on celebrations slated for Saturday, and
President Laurent Gbagbo said in March that they would be canceled altogether if a
date hadn't been set.

Since a failed coup in 2002, the country has been divided between a rebel-controlled
north and a government-controlled south. The ongoing civil war meant that
presidential elections originally slated for 2005 were canceled and Gbagbo stayed in
power. But peace accords signed in 2007 brought rebels into a power-sharing
government with Gbagbo's allies and called for elections within a year.

However, disagreements over voter registration brought the peace process to a

standstill and several elections dates came and went without any sign that progress
toward a lasting peace was being made.

Soro acknowledged that skeptics would say that this new Oct. 31 date would simply be
ignored like the previous ones, but said that he was optimistic that this time, elections
would be held.

"We have all but finalized the voter list. You know that the voter list is the backbone of
this election. If you don't have a good quality definitive voter list, then you cannot have
good quality elections," he said.

Fears that the peace process had come unhinged erupted in February, when Gbagbo
unilaterally dissolved the government and the electoral commission, amid allegations
that hundreds of thousands of foreigners had been included on voter rolls. This led to
three weeks of violent opposition demonstrations that left at least five people dead.

The new provisional voter list was published on July 12 and a public appeal process
began on Monday.
--------------------
Sierra Leone shows little interest in model witness Campbell (The Guardian)

Fourteen people were sitting in court number two at the pristine UN-backed war crimes
court in Freetown, Sierra Leone. There was capacity for scores more, but only nine
diehards had come to watch the live streaming of Naomi Campbell's testimony in the
trial of the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor. The other five were security
guards working at the court.
On the streets of Freetown, people were not sure who Campbell was, let alone that she
had come to testify at a hearing relating to Sierra Leone's diamond-fuelled civil war in
the 1990s.

Some said that they had grown weary of the trial anyway, and wanted to move on. "The
court and this trial have lasted for too long," said Aiah Ngaujah, a victim of the war,
who had both his arms hacked off by rebels who allegedly had been backed by Taylor.

Conteh, another amputee, was convinced that the former Liberian president was guilty
as charged. "He is living in luxury in Europe while we suffer here," he said, dashing to
pick up 1,000 leones (about 16p) dropped for him from a passing car.

Murtala Kamara, a journalist, said he was pleased to see Campbell in the witness box.
"It was good she came, you know," he said.

Peter Andersen, the spokesman for the court, said the poor attendance could be
attributed to a lack of publicity, uncertainty over when the model would appear, and
the fact that the proceedings were shown on satellite news channels, allowing people to
watch from home – though very few homes here have access to satellite television.

Leon Jenkins-Johnston, a lawyer, who was in court to watch the online streaming of the
event, was angry about the low attendance. "It's a shame! A big shame," he said, looking
around the near empty courtroom. "We are pawns in this whole game."
-------------------
UN News Service Africa Briefs
Full Articles on UN Website

UN mission takes note of new date for Ivorian presidential polls

5 August – The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Côte d'Ivoire today took note
of the announcement of a new date for the country’s presidential election, and urged
that a credible timetable be set up for the repeatedly-delayed polls.