Proposed US budget cut would hurt African peacekeeping

A 40-percent reduction proposed by the US Congress of the voluntary peacekeeping funds that support the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) “would undercut our effort to assist Africans to deal with problems on their own,” State Department Spokesman James Rubin said on Friday.

The US Information Agency (USIA) quoted Rubin as saying that one of the main objectives of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s recent tour of six sub-Saharan African nations was “to develop regional partners with the United States to deal with some of the terrible crises that Africa has faced.”

He described the proposed cut as “unconscionable” as many of the same members of Congress who opposed the funding said that the US should not be involved in African conflicts. “If we’re not going to get involved,” Rubin said, “we have to at least assist Africans in resolving these problems themselves, through their own capabilities”.

The United States proposed the ACRI several years ago to help increase the continent’s capacity to end conflicts and conduct peacekeeping missions, USIA reported.

Its long-term objective is to build in Africa a corps of some 12,000 military personnel trained in peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance.

In West Africa, Benin, Ghana and Senegal have already taken part in various training exercises, USIA said. Members of the armed forces of Cote d’Ivoire are to begin undergoing training soon in areas such as convoying, security for relief workers and liaising with civil and non-governmental authorities.

Under ACRI, some US $55 million has been spent on training in Africa, USIA said.