14. Carrying a Big Stick

 

While the preferred means to keep Africa, its people and material resources available for exploitation is through “agreements” of various sorts, enforcing “free trade” has always required military might. While not as obvious as a hundred years ago, this remains true today.

Unlike the US or France, Canada is not a leading military force on the continent. But Ottawa exerts significant influence through its training, deployments and participation in regional security initiatives. Canadian companies have also militarized parts of the continent.

Since the start of the century Canadian Forces have trained hundreds of African soldiers through Canada’s Military Training Assistance Program (MTAP). Senior military personnel from Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Benin, Cameroon, Botswana, Benin, Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire trained at the Lester B. Pearson Centre in Nova Scotia and Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre in Kingston Ontario.

On the continent Canadian special forces trained a number of African militaries. Along with the US, Canadian troops trained counterterrorism units in Niger, Kenya and Mali and in 2014 Canadian Special Operations Forces Command spokesman Major Steve Hawken told Embassy that his force had recently trained 800 African military personnel.1 Regular Canadian forces directed or participated in a slew of training initiatives, running courses in Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Mali among other places.2 In 2010 Canadian troops led a three-week Tactical Operations Staff Course in Nairobi for officers from a dozen different African countries and facilitated a multi-week course in Okahandja, Namibia, to prepare officers from 11 nations for the ranks of captain to lieutenant colonel.3 In 2006 Canada’s special operations liaison officer to NATO “develop[ed] a Military Assistance training program in order to enhance the Counter Insurgency (COIN) skill sets of the Cape Verde Coast Guard Marines.”4

Canadian officials generally tell the media the aim of training other militaries is to help fight terror or the illicit drug trade but a closer look at military doctrine suggests broader strategic and geopolitical motivations. An important objective is to strengthen foreign militaries’ capacity to operate in tandem with Canadian and/or NATO forces. According to MTAP, its “language training improves communication between NATO and other armed forces” and its “professional development and staff training enhances other countries compatibility with the CFs [Canadian Forces].”5 At a broader level MTAP states its training “serves to achieve influence in areas of strategic interest to Canada. ... Canadian diplomatic and military representatives find it considerably easier to gain access and exert influence in countries with a core group of Canadian-trained professional military leaders.”6

When Ottawa initiated post-independence training missions in Africa (see Chapters 6 and 7) a memo to cabinet ministers described the political value of training foreign military officers. It stated: “Military leaders in many developing countries, if they do not actually form the government, frequently wield much more power and influence domestically than is the case in the majority of western domestic nations … [it] would seem in Canada’s general interest on broad foreign policy grounds to keep open the possibility of exercising a constructive influence on the men who often will form the political elite in developing countries, by continuing to provide training places for officers in our military institutions where they receive not only technical military training but are also exposed to Canadian values and attitudes.”7

Canada is increasingly involved in “counterterrorist” training exercises in the Sahel region, which covers parts of Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, South Sudan, Sudan and Eritrea. Through its Counter-Terrorism Capacity Building Program Ottawa ploughed tens of millions of dollars into training law enforcement, increasing border security and strengthening legal regimes in a half-dozen Sahel countries.8 As part of this effort Canadian special forces also trained militaries in the region.9

As an indication of Ottawa’s involvement in the region, Canada (with Algeria) co-chaired the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) Sahel working group, a consortium of nations organized by Washington in September 2011.10 The Global Counterterrorism Forum “provide[s] a unique platform for senior counterterrorism policymakers and experts from around the world to work together to identify urgent needs, devise solutions and mobilize resources for addressing key counterterrorism challenges.”11

Alongside this effort, the Canadian Special Operations Regiment (CSOR) has participated in Exercise Flintlock since 2011. Fifty members of CSOR and the Special Operations Aviation Squadron traveled to Senegal and Mauritania for Exercise Flintlock in 2014.12 The New York Times Magazine reported: “For the past three weeks, Green Berets, along with British, French and Canadian special operators, had been training 139 elite troops from Niger, Nigeria and Chad” as part of Flintlock 2014.13

Sponsored by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) and directed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Flintlock takes place in a different Sahel region nation each year. In December 2011 the Toronto Star reported: “The training efforts are closely tied to the larger US special forces efforts across the [Sahel] region” of northern Africa.14 “Although Flintlock is considered an exercise, it is really an extension of ongoing training, engagement, and operations that help prepare our close Africa partners in the fight against extremism and the enemies that threaten peace, stability, and regional security,” said the commander of the US Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahel, Colonel Kenneth Sipperly, during Flintlock 2014.15

In March 2012 Flintlock was cancelled because Mali’s military, which was to host that year’s exercise, was fighting a rebellion by largely nomadic Tuaregs in the north of the country. The Ottawa Citizen’s David Pugliese explained: “There was a debate in US military circles on whether to proceed with the Flintlock exercise, as a show of force that western nations are committed to supporting governments in the region. But it was decided that since Malian troops were so heavily involved in combat, its military couldn’t spare the soldiers to be trained by Canadian and other special forces.”16

Exercise Flintlock is but one of the mechanisms under which special forces are deployed to the region. In 2014 the Globe and Mail reported that Canadian special forces were sent to hunt Boko Haram in Nigeria while the Ottawa Citizen reported that Canadian Special Operations Forces Command members trained troops in Niger, Kenya and Mali.17

Though their operations are “shrouded in secrecy” — complained a 2006 Senate Committee on National Security and Defence — it is clear Canada’s Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2) commandos have been deployed to the continent on numerous occasions since the unit’s establishment in 1993.18 Weak state structures in many African countries and Western media indifference make it possible to deploy special forces to the continent without push back.

Canadian special forces were dispatched to Mali in 2013 to “protect Canadian personnel who are already operating in the troubled African country”, reported Canadian Press.19 On February 28, 2011, CTV.ca reported “that Canadian special forces are also on the ground in Libya.”20 Apparently, JTF2 were dispatched to that country in contravention of international law and UN Security Council resolution 1973, which was adopted on March 17, 2011. Resolution 1973 authorized a no-fly zone over Libya but explicitly forbade “a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.”21

In 2009 JTF2 soldiers flew to Chad and/or Burkina Faso in a bid to secure the freedom of kidnapped Canadian diplomats Robert Fowler and Louis Guay.22 At the end of 1998 JTF2 descended on the Central African Republic as part of a UN force sent to secure key areas around Bangui, the capital.23 In Canada’s Secret Commandos David Pugliese points out that Ottawa announced the deployment of 300 Canadian peacekeepers to the Central African Republic but said nothing about the JTF2 operatives.24

Earlier in 1998, JTF2 commandos accompanied former general Romeo Dallaire to Arusha, Tanzania, for his testimony at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.25 In November 1996 JTF2 escorted the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa, Raymond Chrétien, to Kinshasa and General Maurice Baril into eastern Congo.26 Nous étions invincibles, a personal account by Canadian special forces commando Denis Morisset, provides a harrowing account of the JTF2 operation to bring Baril to meet Rwandan-backed rebel leader Laurent Kabila. The convoy came under fire upon which US Apache and Blackhawk helicopters launched a counterattack on the Congolese, rescuing their Canadian allies.27

JTF2’s first mission may have been to Somalia in 1993, according to Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen: “The Defence Department still declines to discuss, or deny, whether the JTF2 was involved in the Somalia killing. But a review of military records points to intriguing links that suggests the March 4 incident [when Canadian soldiers killed a Somali civilian] could have been the counterterrorism unit’s first foray into missions affecting ‘the national interest.’”28

If decision-makers in Ottawa have their way Canadian special forces are likely to increase their operations on the continent. Since the mid-2000s Canada’s special forces have steadily expanded. In 2006 the military launched the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command to oversee JTF2, the Special Operations Aviation Squadron, Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit and Special Operations Regiment. Begun that year, CSOR’s 750 members receive similar training to JTF2 commandos, the most secretive and skilled unit of the Canadian Armed Forces. After having doubled from 300 to 600 men, JTF2 is set to move from Ottawa to a 400-acre compound near Trenton, Ontario, at a cost of $350 million.29 By 2014 Canada’s total special forces numbered just over 1,800 and had a $353 million yearly budget, a big increase from JTF2’s $25 million budget in 2005.30 The government supports special forces because these elite units have close ties to their US counterparts and the government is not required to divulge information about their operations. Ottawa can deploy these troops abroad and the public is none the wiser. “Deniability,” according to Major B. J. Brister, is why the federal government prefers special operation forces.31

It’s harder to deploy a naval frigate covertly. But what actually transpires at sea is generally only known to those aboard.

Over the past decade Canadian naval ships have maintained a patrol off the continent, particularly near the Horn of Africa. As part of what’s been dubbed Africa’s “encirclement by U.S. and NATO warships”, HMCS Athabaskan led Operation Steadfast Jaguar 06 in the Gulf of Guinea.32 A dozen warships and 7,000 troops participated in the exercise, the first ever carried out by NATO’s Rapid Response Force.33

The following year HMCS Toronto participated in a six-ship task group of the Standing Naval Maritime Group 1 of NATO that traveled 23,000 kilometres around the continent. The trip took five months and was the first NATO fleet to circumnavigate Africa. HMCS Toronto spent a year preparing for this trip, a journey costing Canadian taxpayers $8 million.34

Oil largely motivated operations off Nigeria’s coast. Nigeria’s Business Day described NATO’s presence as “a show of force and a demonstration that the world powers are closely monitoring the worsening security situation in the [oil-rich] Niger Delta.”35 A Canadian spokesperson gave credence to this interpretation of their activities in a region long dominated by Shell and other Western oil corporations. When the Standing Naval Maritime Group 1 warships patrolled the area Canadian Lieutenant Commander Angus Topshee told the CBC that “it’s a critical area of the world because Nigeria produces a large amount of the world’s light crude oil, and so when anything happens to that area that interrupts that flow of oil, it can have repercussions for the entire global economy.”36

More broadly, the objective of circumnavigating the continent was to develop situational knowledge of the various territorial waters, especially Nigeria and Somalia.37 How knowledge of countries’ coastlines was to be used was not made entirely clear, but it certainly wasn’t to strengthen their sovereignty. “During the voyage,” according to a story in Embassy, “the fleet sailed at a distance of 12 to 15 miles off the African coast, just beyond the limits of sovereign national waters. The NATO fleet did not inform African nations it would soon be on the horizon. This, Lt.-Cmdr. Topshee says, was an intentional move meant to ‘keep options open.’ ‘International law is built on precedent,’ he says. ‘So if NATO creates a precedent where we’re going to inform countries, we’re going to operate off their coastline, over time that precedent actually becomes a requirement’.”38 To help with the legal side of the operations a lawyer circumnavigated the continent with HMCS Toronto.39 Reportedly, the Nigerians did not appreciate NATO’s aggressive tactics. Topshee described the Nigerians as “downright irate” when the fleet approached. “There was real concern they might take action against us.”40

For HMCS Toronto’s Captain Stephen Virgin, the circumnavigation was largely about preparing NATO forces for a future invasion. “These are areas that the force might have to go back to some day and we need to operate over there to get an understanding of everything from shipping patterns to how our sensors work in those climates.”41

In early 2011, 15 days before the UN Security Council authorized a no-fly zone over Libya, HMCS Charlottetown left Halifax for the North African country.42 Two rotations of Canadian warships enforced a naval blockade of Libya for six months with about 250 soldiers aboard each vessel.

Later that year, on May 19, HMCS Charlottetown joined an operation that destroyed eight Libyan naval vessels.43 The ship also repelled a number of fast, small boats and escaped unscathed after a dozen missiles were fired towards it from the port city of Misrata.44 After the hostilities the head of Canada’s navy, Paul Maddison, told Ottawa defence contractors that HMCS Charlottetown “played a key role in keeping the Port of Misrata open as a critical enabler of the anti-Gaddafi forces.”45

On one occasion a Canadian warship, part of a 20-ship NATO flotilla purportedly enforcing the UN arms embargo on Libya, boarded a rebel vessel filled with ammunition. “There are loads of weapons and munitions, more than I thought,” a Canadian officer radioed HMCS Charlottetown commander Craig Skjerpen. “From small ammunition to 105 howitzer rounds and lots of explosives.”46 The commander’s response, reported the Ottawa Citizen, was to allow the rebel ship to sail through.47

Since 2008 the Canadian Navy has maintained a near constant patrol off Somalia’s coast. In the summer of that year Canada took command of NATO’s Task Force 150 that worked off the coast of Somalia. Between the start of 2013 and fall of 2015 Canadian warships participated in a 28-nation Combined Maritime Forces operation in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. HMCS Regina reported seizing 130 kilograms of heroin 160 km east of Tanzania in April 2014 while a few months earlier HMCS Toronto confiscated 539 kilograms 300 km from the Kenyan coast.48 At the start of 2015 twenty-six Canadian Armed Forces members participated in the multinational maritime security exercise Cutlass Express 2015.49 Sponsored by AFRICOM, it took place off the East African coast.

While Canadian naval vessels patrolled the coast, Canadian forces sought to expand their presence on land. In 2011 Ottawa negotiated to house equipment and soldiers in Tanzania, Senegal and Kenya (as well as four other non-African countries). Dubbed Operational Support Hub, the Canadian military was seeking “a permanent footprint on both sides of the African continent”, reported the Toronto Star.50 According to a military briefing note obtained by Postmedia, the bases are designed to improve the Canadian Forces’ “ability to project combat power/security assistance and Canadian influence rapidly and flexibly anywhere in the world.”51

Apparently, some African governments pushed back against the Canadian military request. According to documents unearthed by the Toronto Star, Canadian officials ran into difficulties upon asking an East African government — either Kenya or Tanzania — about hosting a military hub. “Local officials were suspicious and demanded to know Ottawa’s motivation for moving into the region,” noted the newspaper.52 When this book went to press it was not clear if the African “Support Hubs” had been launched.

Canada’s growing military interest in Africa coincided with Washington’s creation of the United States Africa Command. Initiated in 2000, AFRICOM was formally launched as a US Defense Department geographic combatant command in 2008.

As part of AFRICOM the Pentagon began establishing Cooperative Security Locations and Forward Operating Sites across the continent in 2004. By 2013, wrote author Nick Turse, US forces were “involved in Algeria and Angola, Benin and Botswana, Burkina Faso and Burundi, Cameroon and the Cape Verde Islands. And that’s just the ABCs of the situation. Skip to the end of the alphabet and the story remains the same: Senegal and the Seychelles, Togo and Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. From north to south, east to west, the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, the heart of the continent to the islands off its coasts, the U.S. military is at work. Base construction, security cooperation engagements, training exercises, advisory deployments, special operations missions, and a growing logistics network.”53

In 2014 one AFRICOM official called the operation an “actual war-fighting combatant command”.54 Speaking to an audience of defence contractors, the chief of AFRICOM’s engineering division, Rick Cook, added that the US had been “at war” on the continent for two-and-half years.55

The Pentagon’s growing interest in the continent was partly motivated by competition with China, explains Pádraig Carmody, author of The New Scramble for Africa. The “creation of AFRICOM and other US military initiatives in Africa have to be seen also in the context of geoeconomic competition with China on the continent. This is acute in certain oil rich countries such as Sudan (where China is supportive of Al-Bashir, whereas the US is much closer to the Southern Sudanese government).”56

The competition with China was centered on Africa’s growing role as a commodity provider. In 2011 the chief of the analysis branch for the Strategic Reviews Office of the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff Jeffrey N. Krulick, pointed out that “during the past decade, the increasing global competition for resources, access to energy, and terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa have spurred a renewed focus on U.S. policy toward Africa.”57

One of the ways in which AFRICOM expressed US power, added Krulick, was through relations with the African Union. “The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) was established to address U.S. strategic interests in Africa by building partnerships with African allies and the African Union.”58

Alongside AFRICOM’s efforts, Ottawa spent hundreds of millions of dollars building African Union military capacity. The bulk of the money supported AU missions in Sudan and Somalia but Ottawa also funnelled tens of millions of dollars into developing a regional military structure to police the continent.59 Delivering Results: Canada Fund for Africa explains: “The Canada Fund for Africa has enabled preparatory work towards the establishment of a continental early-warning system and the African Standby Force, the adoption of a draft framework on a common African Defense and Security Policy, the launching of an African Center for the Study and Research on Terrorism and the technical upgrading of the African Union’s Situation Room.”60

The centerpiece of the AU peace and security architecture is the African Standby Force (ASF). The ASF is supposed to eventually include regional brigades for East, West, North, South and Central Africa with each force expected to reach some 4,000, mostly soldiers, but also civilian and police units. Not a standing army, the ASF is a network of nationally based units integrated through common doctrine, shared training curriculum, joint exercises and regional planning.61

While a pan-African force has been a topic of discussion for a half-century, the ASF proposal dates to a 1997 African Chiefs of Defence Staff conference in Harare. But the initiative only gained traction when the G8 agreed to “The Joint Africa/G8 Plan to Enhance African Capabilities to Undertake Peace Support Operations.”62 At the summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, G-8 leaders committed “to work with African partners to deliver a joint plan, by 2003, for the development of African capability to undertake peace support operations, including at the regional level; to train African peace support forces, including through the development of regional centres of excellence for military and civilian aspects of conflict prevention and peace support, such as the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre; and, to better coordinate peacekeeping training initiatives.”63

Alongside the US and several European countries, Canada organized and financed initial workshops for the AU Peace Support Operations Division, which oversaw the ASF.64 In its 2005-06 report Canada’s Military Training Assistance Program noted that it “offers the training that African countries, and the African Union (AU), are seeking to build up their security forces and prepare them for peace support operations. For example, this fiscal year MTAP facilitated Canada’s co-sponsorship, with France, of one in the ongoing series of training workshops for the African Standby Force (ASF).”65

Canada has engaged from coast to coast. In 2005 Canadian officials assisted the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in producing a framework document for the operationalization of the West African Standby Force while on the other side of the continent Ottawa paid for “Exercise NJIWA” at the Eastern African Standby Force Brigade headquarters in Addis Ababa.66 A Canadian embassy official oversaw the introduction of the 2012 exercise attended by more than 100 participants.67

Further south, Canada joined Britain and the US in funding Kenya’s Amani Peace Operations Training Village.68 Located just outside of Nairobi, this facility supports a wide array of “scenario-based” training for both urban and rural settings, explained US Army Sergeant Luis R. Rivera, who managed phase four of the Amani Peace Support Operations Village.69

In aid of the ASF roadmap, Canada funded and staffed various military training centres across the continent.70 In the mid-2000s Ottawa donated more than $4 million to help open the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center in Ghana and the African Centre for Strategic Research and Studies in Nigeria as well as to expand the Ecole de Maintien de la Paix Alioune Blondin in Mali. Between 2012 and 2014 Canada put up another $10 million for these West African “peacekeeping” centres.

Alongside its commitment to developing the AU’s security architecture, Ottawa financed and armed African Union missions in Sudan and Somalia. Since 2004 Canada has spent $200 million to train and equip African troops and police for the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS), which later morphed into the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). As part of the effort, Ottawa also donated three-dozen armoured personnel carriers to Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and Burkina Faso.71 Canadian forces went further with their assistance and helped deploy and train numerous African military units dispatched to Sudan.

Similarly, Ottawa funnelled over $20 million to the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) between 2011 and 2014.72 Hailed as “the highlight of the new regional security architecture”, AMISOM included staff officers of the East Africa Standby Force.73

It is not a stretch to say that AMISOM and, to some extent, AMIS were instigated by Washington.74AMISOM emerged immediately after the US/Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, and as discussed in the previous chapter, largely depended on US weapons and money. In 2014, AFRICOM spokesperson Tom Davis admitted “the US has established a military coordination cell in Somalia to provide planning and advisory support to the African Union Mission in Somalia.”75

Washington paid close attention to the ASF. Both AFRICOM’s posture statement and the 2011 US National Military Strategy made strong commitments to developing ASF capacity.76 As part of this effort AFRICOM helped establish an AU Peace Support Operations Center “to assist the African Union with communications links to its new African Standby Force.”77 They also trained AU technicians and military personnel on Very Small Aperture Terminal (VAST) satellite systems and other communication technologies.78 It’s critical to note that by training and equipping AU forces, AFRICOM is well placed to eavesdrop on AU military operations.79

Through the Partnership for Integrated Logistics Operations and Tactics (PILOT) accord Ottawa formerly worked with AFRICOM to build ASF capacities. PILOT “aimed at building long-term operational logistics planning capacity with the African Standby Force while simultaneously promoting interoperability between the US military and ASF.”80

Along with the US and Canada, NATO was another force that developed the ASF. Since 2005 NATO has provided expert and training support for “the operationalisation of the African Standby Force” and in 2009 ASF staff officers began training at the NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany. Despite its purported focus on the North Atlantic region, NATO also provided airlift support to the AU missions in Somalia and Sudan.81

In theory AU-sponsored military forces represent African unity at its finest. Just after independence Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah called for an African High Command and African legion.82 But Nkrumah wanted a force to repel the traditional powers from the continent.

The ASF is unlikely to develop into that force. The AU has not, or cannot, provide sufficient resources to the ASF, making it “reliant on foreign funding for any large-scale interventions or peace-keeping work”, notes Simon Allison in South Africa’s Daily Maverick.83 As things stand it’s hard to imagine the US, EU or Canada providing significant sums to an ASF mission viewed as contrary to their interests. The AU also lacks transport logistics support. The US is “capable” of providing this, wrote Jeffrey N. Krulick, chief of the analysis branch for the US Strategic Reviews Office of the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff. “But the efforts to improve ASF operational reach must coincide with U.S. interests in Africa.”84

The combination of logistical and financial dependence on NATO countries make it unlikely for the regional brigades to be deployed when Washington and/or Paris oppose such a move. But AFRICOM’s interest in building up the ASF is not simply defensive.

Washington and NATO countries support the ASF in hope that it will do their bidding. AFRICOM’s civilian Deputy Ambassador Anthony Holmes, described official US thinking on this point: “By and large our approach is what we call ‘by, with and through’,” which involves “developing partnerships for extended periods of time” to develop African military capacity for dealing with “problems” so “we don’t have to do it.”85 Reframing this thinking in anti-imperialist terms, Stop NATO’s Rick Rozoff argued that Washington backed the ASF and its regional brigades to build “surrogate armies to control Africa region by region.” He further asserts that “by training, modernizing, arming and integrating the armed forces of the 54-nation African Union … the U.S. and its main NATO allies are developing regional proxy forces — most notably the African Standby Force — for armed interventions against nations whose governments are not to the West’s liking.”86

The federal government poured tens of millions of dollars into the ASF as part of a professed desire to promote “African solutions to African problems”.87 In 2008 then foreign minister Maxime Bernier reportedly described a $10 million grant to ASF training centres as a way for “African peacekeepers and civilian police to take on increased responsibility for their own continent” while Canada’s permanent representative to the AU, David Usher, launched an ASF training initiative in 2012 by saying “Africa has empowered itself with a unique and decisive capability to provide African answers to some of the most complex African security challenges.”88

When it serves their interests Ottawa, Washington and Paris happily promote “African solutions to African problems”. But when African solutions are not to their liking the NATO powers simply ignore AU proposals, as was the case with the conflict that arose in eastern Libya in early 2011. Days into the uprising the AU Peace and Security Council discussed the crisis and announced it would send a mission to study the situation. But the “advanced assessment” AU military team dispatched to Cairo, Egypt, was unable to gain security assurances from the Transitional National Council in control of Benghazi. The fact-finding mission never reached Libyan territory.89

A week before NATO began bombing Libya, the AU outlined a way to resolve the conflict. On March 10 the AU Peace and Security Council, which is responsible for the ASF, put forward a five-point plan demanding: “A cease-fire; the protection of civilians; the provision of humanitarian aid for Libyans and foreign workers in the country; dialogue between the two sides, i.e. the Gaddafi regime and the National Transitional Council (NTC); leading to an ‘inclusive transitional period’ and political reforms which ‘meet the aspirations of the Libyan people.’”90

Three weeks into the bombing the AU High Level Ad Hoc Committee on Libya, including four heads of state and Uganda’s foreign minister, visited Libya to pursue a ceasefire.91 Gaddafi agreed to the first phase of the proposal but it was rejected by NATO-backed NTC. The AU roadmap called for “(i) immediate cessation of all hostilities; (ii) cooperation of the concerned Libyan authorities to facilitate the timely delivery of humanitarian assistance to needy populations; (iii) protection of foreign nationals, including the African migrant workers living in Libya; and (iv) dialogue between the Libyan parties and establishment of a consensual and inclusive transitional government.”92
In May 2011 the entire AU assembly convened in an extraordinary session to “review the situation in Libya”.93 They called for an immediate end to all attacks against civilians, a ceasefire and a transitional period that would allow for elections.94

In flagrant disregard of the emerging African security regime they claimed to support, the US, Canada, France and Britain ignored AU mediation efforts. AU officials protested vociferously. Ten days into the NATO assault the AU boycotted an international conference on Libya held in London.95 Four months later Jean Ping, the chairperson of the AU Commission, expressed his concern about being sidelined during a BBC program, explaining that “nobody talked to us, nobody has consulted us.”96 At a meeting with the UN Security Council three months into NATO’s war the AU High Level Ad Hoc Committee on Libya criticized the war. Delivering the AU position, Ruhakana Rugunda, Uganda’s permanent representative to the UN, said: “there has been no need for these war activities, ever since Gaddafi accepted dialogue when the AU Mediation Committee visited Tripoli on April 10. Any war activities after that have been provocation for Africa. It is an unnecessary war. It must stop.”97

(This book doesn’t cover it thoroughly but Canada played a significant role in the 2011 NATO attack. A Canadian general led the bombing campaign, seven CF-18 fighter jets participated and two Canadian naval vessels patrolled the Libyan coast. See my The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy for more detail.)

In Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa, Concordia University professor Maximilian Forte argues the invasion of Libya was designed to eliminate an important supporter of African unity and critic of Western militarism on the continent. Gaddafi spearheaded opposition to AFRICOM, successfully undermining Washington’s ability to gain “broad African support for basing the AFRICOM headquarters on the continent.”98 A 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Tripoli called “the presence of non-African military elements in Libya or elsewhere on the continent” almost a “neuralgic issue” for Gaddafi.99

Eliminating Gaddafi delivered a blow to the AU and those who rejected AFRICOM. Dan Glazebrook writes: “In taking out Muammar Gaddafi, AFRICOM had actually eliminated the project’s fiercest adversary … Gaddafi ended his political life as a dedicated pan Africanist and, whatever one thought of the man, it is clear that his vision for Africa was very different from that of the subordinate supplier of cheap labour and raw materials that AFRICOM was created to maintain.”100

Corporate Canada also militarized African life. With few regulations constraining their international operations, a number of Canadian security companies operate on the continent. Unlike the US and South Africa, “Canada does not have legislation designed to regulate either the services provided by Canadian PMSCs [private military security companies] operating outside of Canada or the conduct of Canadian citizens working for foreign PMSCs.”101 Furthermore, Ottawa has not signed the international convention against the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries and has been little involved with the human rights councils working group on the use of mercenaries.102

Muskoka-based Executive Security Services International offers bodyguard services on the continent while Vancouver-based CKR Global helped Canadian businesses assess security risks in a number of African countries. CKR generally dispatches former soldiers on staff to help clients work with local police and private security firms.103

Run by former Torontonian Abdiweli Ali Taar, Somali-Canadian Coast Guard (SomCan) commanded 400 marines and operated a half-dozen patrol ships.104 In 2002 the private security firm was contracted to provide coast guard services in Puntland, a semiautonomous region in northern Somalia. In 2005 SomCan was removed after some of its men ended up in a “spectacular gun battle” with Puntland’s police and army and three of its employees hijacked a Thai fishing vessel for ransom.105 After SomCan smoothed over relations with Puntland authorities, a 2009 Macleans article noted that Abdiweli Ali Taar met “United Nations officials and foreign diplomats, including Canada’s ambassador to Kenya” to seek funds to restart its anti-pirate coast guard services.106

Run by retired Canadian Brigadier General Ian Douglas, Black Bear Consulting operated in Sierra Leone, Angola, Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo.107 In his 2000 book Fortune’s Warriors former Canadian Airborne Regiment commando Jim Davis writes that Douglas offered to introduce him to officials of the notorious mercenary outfit Executive Outcomes if he sought employment.108

Davis instead went to work for Globe Risk Holdings. The Toronto company supplied security support to businesses in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Angola and both Congos. Set up by Alan Bell, a 12-year veteran of the British Special Forces, Globe Risk tried to open a branch in Sierra Leone in 1999. At the time the National Post reported: “Next month, Alan Bell and Jim Davis, two former soldiers, are travelling to Sierra Leone, a country few would dare visit, to open a branch of their private security company. For the two enterprising Canadians, the explosive mix of diamonds, road blocks, feuding rebel groups and child soldiers represents an irresistible business opportunity.”109 Globe Risk planned to train the president’s bodyguards and build a local security force capable of guarding airports and seaways.110 Driving the initiative forward was a plan to open a large bauxite mine in the country.111

Individuals such as Jim Davis and other publicly trained elite Canadian soldiers were highly sought after by private military firms. In 2006 the Ottawa Citizen reported: “Records previously released under the access to information law have shown that Joint Task Force Two officers are concerned the unit is losing personnel to private military firms. Former JTF2 have found work as guns-for-hire with companies in Africa and Iraq.”112

Home to former Canadian special forces, Canada’s leading private security corporation opened field offices in Nigeria, Algeria, Somalia and Libya. The “largest privately owned security company in the world”, Montréal-based GardaWorld has about 50,000 employees.

Garda established its Nigerian operations in 2013. “As part of our logistical support offering in Lagos, we have a secure operational villa in a gated community with waterfront access, popular with international oil & gas companies,” noted the company’s website.113 Oil operations in Nigeria are fraught with insecurity and a number of international energy firms have turned to former soldiers from the US, UK and South Africa to deter political and criminal attacks.

Similarly, in 2013 GardaWorld rented a villa in Mogadishu, Somalia. The Montréal company said it was capable of lodging energy contractors and international development workers as well as accompanying them around the country.114 A 2014 report from the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries questioned the growing role of Western security companies in the country. “As Somalia rebuilds its security institutions, the Government should ensure that private security forces are properly regulated and do not become a substitute for competent and accountable police. All Somalis have the right to security, not just those who can afford to pay for it,” said Faiza Patel, chairperson of the UN Working Group.115

But it’s not simply a matter of equal justice. In a country where control of armed men has long been the main source of power, private security companies can easily strengthen the hand of a political faction or prolong conflict.

Libya was Garda’s most successful foray onto the continent. Sometime in the “summer of 2011”, according to its website, Garda began operating in the country.116 After Libya’s National Transition Council captured Tripoli (six weeks before Muammar Gaddafi was killed in Sirte on October 20, 2011) the rebels requested Garda’s assistance in bringing their forces “besieging the pro-Qaddafi stronghold of Sirte to hospitals in Misrata”, reported Bloomberg.117 Garda’s involvement in Libya may have contravened that country’s laws as well as UN resolutions 1970 and 1973, which the Security Council passed amidst the uprising against Gaddafi’s four-decade rule. Resolution 1970 called for an arms embargo, mandating all UN member states “to prevent the provision of armed mercenary personnel” into Libya. Resolution 1973 reinforced the arms embargo, mentioning “armed mercenary personnel” in three different contexts. In an article titled “Mercenaries in Libya: Ramifications of the Treatment of ‘Armed Mercenary Personnel’ under the Arms Embargo for Private Military Company Contractors”, Hin-Yan Liu points out that the Security Council’s “explicit use of the broader term ‘armed mercenary personnel’ is likely to include a significant category of contractors working for Private Military Companies (PMCs).”118

Canadian officials probably introduced the rebels to Garda. In fact, Ottawa may have paid Garda to help the rebels. Reportedly, the federal government used some of the $2.2 billion it froze in Libyan assets in Canada to pay Waterloo-based Aeryon Scout Micro to equip and train the rebels with a three-pound, backpack-sized Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.119

Contravening international law can be good for business. As the first Western security company officially operating in Libya, Garda’s website described it as the “market leader in Libya” with “over 3,500 staff providing protection, training and crisis response.”120 Garda’s small army of former British special forces and other elite soldiers won a slew of lucrative contracts in Libya. The company’s Protective Security Detail provided “security for a number of international oil companies and their service providers” as well as NATO soldiers training the Libyan Army (the first time NATO contracted out the protection of a training program).121

The company also protected a hundred European Union Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) personnel who trained and equipped Libyan border and coast guards in a bid to curtail African migrants from crossing the Mediterranean. Garda’s four-year EUBAM contract garnered attention in early 2014 when 19 cases of arms and ammunition destined for the company disappeared at the Tripoli airport. But Garda didn’t let this loss of weapons deter it from performing its duties. According to Intelligence Online, company officials asked “to borrow British weapons to ensure the safety of EU personnel.”122

The request found favour since Garda already protected British interests in Libya, including Ambassador Dominic Asquith. In Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi, Fred Burton and Samuel M. Katz describe the ambassador’s protection detail: “Some members of Sir Dominic Asquith’s security detail were undoubtedly veterans of 22 Special Air Service, or SAS, Great Britain’s legendary commandos, whose motto is ‘Who Dares Wins.’ Others were members of the Royal Marines Special Boat Service, or SBS.”123

In June 2012 a rebel group attacked Asquith’s convoy in Benghazi with a rocket-propelled grenade. “The RPG-7 warhead fell short of the ambassador’s vehicle”, notes Under Fire. Two Garda operatives “were seriously hurt by fragmentation when the blast and rocket punched out the windshield of the lead vehicle; their blood splattered throughout the vehicle’s interior and then onto the street.”124

One wonders how many Libyans have fallen prey to “Canada’s Blackwater”? Or how many such military engagements Canadians will participate in as the scramble for African resources grows?