Cablegate: Acota African Peacekeeping Training Team Meets

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS PARIS 002788

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL MASS XA FR
SUBJECT: ACOTA AFRICAN PEACEKEEPING TRAINING TEAM MEETS
WITH FRENCH MILITARY

1. SUMMARY: On 18 April 2005, representatives of the
African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance
(ACOTA) program office met with officials of the French Joint
Staff at the Ministry of Defense to exchange views on our
respective peacekeeping capacity enhancement efforts in
Africa. The ACOTA team noted the meeting was in the spirit
of the May 1997 tripartite Agreement that called for
cooperation among the U.S., UK, and France on efforts to
enhance African peacekeeping capacities. Major General Bruno
Neveux provided an update on the RECAMP program while the
ACOTA team outlined current ACOTA priorities. The exchange
underlined that the RECAMP and ACOTA programs are
complementary. RECAMP focuses on exercising strategic and
operational military staffs an on political-military training
for African military officers. The ACOTA program focuses on
full-scope training for the basic building blocks of African
peacekeeping operations -- peacekeeping battalions. General
Neveux expressed gratitude for the ACOTA team's consultative
initiative and said such consultations would be continued.
END SUMMARY.

2. The ACOTA team (Barbara Hughes, Department of State ACOTA
Program Coordinator, and Richard Roan, ACOTA Training
Manager) and Emboffs met with Major General Bruno Neveux,
Chief of Force Training of the French Joint Staff, and two
RECAMP planning officers. They noted the Tripartite
Agreement of 22 May 1997 in which the U.S., UK, and France
agreed to collaborate on efforts to enhance the peacekeeping
capacities of African nations. The ACOTA team sought the
French perspective on ACOTA efforts as well as the French
vision for future RECAMP exercises.

3. General Neveux expressed gratitude for the ACOTA team's
visit and initiative in seeking to exchange views on program
plans. He noted that RECAMP and ACOTA had been complementary
programs since their inception and expressed confidence that
the two programs would continue to be mutually supportive.
He stated that RECAMP would continue to focus on training
African strategic and operational military staffs and
providing politic-military training for African military
officers. The General said that while the basic principles
underlying RECAMP have not changed, there is a new focus on
leadership issues. He stated that the African militaries in
general are weak in the areas of command and control,
logistics, and work at the political-miltary level. He did
note that he is studying the question of whether or not to
continue concluding their RECAMP cycle with a large field
exercise as in the past. He reported that Cameroon was under
consideration as the next (2006) RECAMP exercise but that a
final decision had not been made.

4. The ACOTA team described ACOTA's primary focus on
training the "working end" of the African peacekeeping
spectrum -- providing deploying peacekeeping battalions with
staff and field training. General Neveux agreed with the
critical importance of training peacekeepers and noted that
ACOTA's work to prepare peacekeeping battalions well
complemented RECAMP's efforts at strategic and
political-military training. The ACOTA team welcomed French
officers to visit future ACOTA training in Africa. General
Neveux reciprocated with his commitment to welcoming U.S.
officials to RECAMP events. It was agreed to continue to
seek synergies in our work toward a common goal, although the
General added that we should not be "too nave or optimistic"
on such prospects.

5. The ACOTA team has cleared this message.
WOLFF

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