Co-organisers satisfied with peacekeeping exercise

The lessons learnt during a just ended peacekeeping training exercise known as “Gabon 2000” have led the organisers to conclude that the concept of RECAMP (French acronym for Strengthening African Peacekeeping Capacity-Building) would need superior human resources and materials to bring a regional crisis under control, AFP reported. The French army chief of staff, General Jean-Pierre Kelche, said at a news conference in Libreville on Friday that a very serious crisis would need many more personnel on the ground and include troops from the West as well as African soldiers, according to AFP. “Gabon 2000”, which ran from 17-29 January, was “prepared with enormous care by Gabon,” Kelche reported him as saying, adding that the next RECAMP (Renforcement des capacites africaines de maintenir la paix) military exercise, due in two years, might take place in eastern or southern Africa. “Gabon 2000,” organised jointly by Gabon and France, took place in Lambarene in the south of Gabon and simulated a peacekeeping and civilian protection operation in a country divided by an internal conflict. Gabon, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome e Principe, contributed troops towards a 600-member battalion and a multinational command structure during the exercise. The co-organisers of the exercise said they were very satisfied with its outcome, AFP reported.