by Rick Rozoff
April 26, 2010
from
GlobalResearch Website
Japanese navy commander Keizo Kitagawa
recently spoke with Agence France-Presse and disclosed that his
nation was opening its first overseas military base - at any rate since the
Second World War - in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.
Kitagawa is assigned to the Plans and Policy Section of the Japan
Maritime Self-Defense Force, as his nation’s navy is called, and is in
charge of the deployment.
AFP quoted the Japanese officer as stressing the unprecedented nature of the
development:
“This will be the only Japanese base outside
our country and the first in Africa.” [1]
The military installation is to cost $40 million
and is expected to accommodate Japanese troops early next year.
Djibouti rests at the confluence of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, across
from strife-torn Yemen, and borders the northwest corner of equally
conflict-ridden Somalia.
The narrow span of water separating it from
Yemen is the gateway for all maritime traffic passing between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean via,
-
the Suez Canal
-
the Red Sea
-
the Gulf of Aden
-
the Arabian Sea
Naval deployments to the Gulf of Aden by several
major nations and alliances - the U.S., NATO, the European Union, China,
Russia, India, Iran and others - are designed to insure the free passage of
commercial vessels through the above route and to protect United Nations
World Food Program deliveries to Somalia.
The second concern in particular led to the
passage of
United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1838 in 2008, which requests that nations with military
vessels in the area suppress the capture of ships and their crews for
ransom. An anti-piracy mission.
However, the above-mentioned Japanese naval officer was more direct in
identifying his nation’s interest in establishing a military base in Africa.
Kitagawa also told AFP that,
“We are deploying here to fight piracy and
for our self-defense. Japan is a maritime nation and the increase in
piracy in the Gulf of Aden through which 20,000 vessels sail every year
is worrying.”
The term self-defense is not fortuitous.
Article 9 of the 1947 Japanese Constitution
explicitly affirms that,
“the Japanese people forever renounce war as
a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means
of settling international disputes. To accomplish the aim of the
preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war
potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the
state will not be recognized.”
As such, in the post-World War Two period the
nation’s armed forces have been called the Japan Self-Defense Forces
(JSDF).
The Constitution also expressly prohibits the deployment of military forces
outside of Japan, stating that it is,
“not permissible constitutionally to
dispatch armed troops to foreign territorial land, sea and airspace for
the purpose of using military power, as a so-called overseas deployment
of troops, since it generally exceeds the minimum level necessary for
self-defense.”
That notwithstanding, in the years following the
Cold War all post-Second World War proscriptions against the use of military
force by the former Axis nations have been disregarded, [2] and
in February of 2004 Japan dispatched 600 troops, albeit in a non-combat
role, to Iraq shortly after the U.S. and British invasion of the country.
The nation’s navy, the Japan Maritime
Self-Defense Force, supplied fuel and water in support of the U.S.
Operation Enduring Freedom campaign in Afghanistan from 2001-2007 and
again from January of 2008 to the beginning of this year, thereby violating
another basic tenet of its constitution, the ban on engaging in what the
document refers to as collective self-defense, the relevant section
of which reads:
“Japan has the right of collective
self-defense under international law. It is, however, not permissible to
use the right, that is, to stop armed attack on another country with
armed strength, although Japan is not under direct attack, since it
exceeds the limit of use of armed strength as permitted under Article 9
of the Constitution.”
However, a 2007 Defense White Paper left the
door open to further military deployments with a provision on “international
peace cooperation activities.”
It is in the spirit of that elastic and evasive phrase that Japan resumed
support for the war in Afghanistan in 2008 and has now secured a military
base on the African continent.
The Japanese official presiding over the latter project also said that,
“A camp will be built to house our personnel
and material. Currently we are stationed at the American base.” Kitagawa
added that “We sent military teams to Yemen, Oman, Kenya and Djibouti.
In April 2009, we chose Djibouti.”
A year earlier, the Kyodo News cited an official
of the Foreign Ministry as confirming that,
“Japan and Djibouti reached a status of
forces agreement” on April 3, 2009, “stipulating the terms of operations
and legal status for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and
related officials who will be based in the African nation during the
current antipiracy mission in waters off Somalia.” [3]
The agreement was signed on the same day by
Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada and the foreign minister of
Djibouti, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, in Tokyo.
The month before Japan sent two destroyers to
the Gulf of Aden. Two months later Japan deployed two new destroyers, the
4,550-ton Harusame and the 3,500-ton Amagiri, off the Horn of Africa.
Also last July the Japanese press disclosed
that,
“The U.S... asked Japan to build its own
facilities to carry out full-fledged operations,” and that at the time
“about 150 members of the Ground Self-Defense Force and MSDF [Maritime
Self-Defense Force] stationed in Djibouti live in U.S. military lodgings
near an airport.” [4]
The Japanese military announced plans to
construct a runway for Maritime Self-Defense Force P-3C surveillance planes
and barracks for its troops.
Although Russian, Chinese, Indian and Iranian ships in the Horn of Africa
are there to protect their own and other nations’ vessels and their missions
are understood to be limited to anti-piracy operations and to a prescribed
duration, Japan and its American and NATO allies have established permanent
land, naval and air bases in the region for use in armed conflicts on the
African continent.
In early 2001 the U.S. started negotiations with the government of Djibouti
for setting up its first major military base in Africa at the former French
Foreign Legion base Camp Lemonnier. (Until recently spelled Lemonier by the
Pentagon.)
This was several years before combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden became
the rationale for U.S. and NATO deployments in the region.
Djibouti is the last territory on the African continent to achieve
independence (excepting Western Sahara, seized by Morocco in 1975 with the
connivance of Spain’s General Franco), only being granted what independence
it has by France in 1977. Its population is less than 900,000.
France still maintains its largest overseas military base in the world in
the nation and has approximately 3,000 troops stationed there.
Since the Pentagon moved into and took over Camp Lemonnier in 2003, it
established its Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA)
on the base and has an estimated 2,000 troops from all four branches of the
U.S. military - Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps - stationed there.
The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa’s area of operations
incorporates,
-
Djibouti
-
Ethiopia
-
Eritrea
-
Kenya
-
Seychelles
-
Somalia
-
Sudan
-
Uganda
-
Yemen,
...and increasingly the Indian Ocean island
nations of Comoros, Madagascar and Mauritius.
As the U.S. was transferring the CJTF-HOA command from the Marine Corps to
the Navy in 2005 - to free up Marines for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -
the then commander, Major Marine General Timothy Ghormley,
acknowledged that,
“U.S. forces have been working with
militaries in Yemen, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya
and Comoros” [5] and “operate throughout Kenya, Sudan,
Eritrea, Djibouti, Yemen and Ethiopia.” [6]
France has used its base in Djibouti for deadly
military interventions in Cote d’Ivoire and Chad and, because of the
nation’s topography, Djibouti has also been used for training French troops
for the war in Afghanistan, where the nation’s contingent is the fourth
largest serving under NATO command.
Last December the commander of the French army in the country, Commandant
Etienne du Fayet, said that,
“French officers are going to be training a
contingent in Uganda next February and we are also going to Ethiopia.”
[7]
During deadly border clashes between Djibouti
and Eritrea in June of 2008 France deployed additional troops, warships and
aircraft to the region. The U.S. base has been used for military operations
in Somalia and Uganda.
In 2008 the deputy commander of U.S. forces in
the country was cited as revealing that,
“the Djibouti base facilitates some other
military activities he won’t talk about.
“There have been reports of U.S. special
operations forces working from the base on counter-terrorism missions in
Somalia and elsewhere...[T]hat approach is the model for the new United
States Africa Command...”
At the same time Rear Admiral Philip Greene
took over as commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa and,
speaking over nine months before the formal activation of U.S. Africa
Command (AFRICOM), said,
“There is, I think, great synergy between
what CJTF-Horn of Africa does now and what we’re about and what AFRICOM
will represent as a combatant command.”
To indicate the range of the operations he
envisioned, Greene also said he would,
“be watching some of the region’s hot spots
for potential seeds of instability,” including “the situations in Kenya,
Somalia and Sudan’s Darfur region, as well as tension on the
Ethiopia-Eritrea border and piracy along the Indian Ocean coastline.”
[8]
In 2006 a Kenyan daily newspaper wrote that (as
of four years ago),
“direct US arms sales to East Africa and the
Horn of Africa countries - Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda,
Uganda and Zambia - have shot up from under one million dollars in 2003
to over $25 million in 2006. Djibouti leads the list with nearly $20
million in direct arms purchases in 2005 and 2006.” [9]
The same feature described broader U.S. plans
for the Horn of Africa region and further afield being hatched from Camp
Lemonnier in Djibouti:
“Overall, direct US weapons sales [to
Africa] increased from $39.2 million in 2005 to nearly $60 million in
2006. In both years, East Africa and the Horn accounted for nearly 40
percent of US weapons sales to Africa, and this demonstrates the US
military’s strategic shift to the region.
“Access to strategic airfields and ports has also increased for the US
military. Beyond Camp Lemonier in 2003, the US had an agreement with
Kenya that allowed it access to the port of Mombasa and airfields at
Embakasi and Nanyuki.
“Zambia and Uganda have joined Kenya in this unique arrangement. At
Entebbe, the US has constructed two K-Span steel buildings to house
troops and equipment. The so called ‘Lily Pad’ arrangement will allow
the US military to use the base when needed in times of conflict or as a
staging area for a conflict within the region.”
The article also stated,
“Strategically, the US military has
developed a regional operations plan that centers on Djibouti to support
the Horn countries. It anchors the southern flank with bases in Kenya,
Zambia and Uganda to the west...
[L]ike in Nigeria, it can be used to ensure
an uninterrupted flow of oil from the newly discovered fields of Uganda
and Kenya, and it opens the door to the construction of a well-protected
oil pipeline carrying oil from the interior of Central Africa to the
port of Mombasa. It also provides a strategically located airbase to
support future military operations to the north in Sudan or to the
west.” [10]
In 2006 the Pentagon expanded Camp Lemonnier by
almost five times its original size, from 88 to 500 acres.
Late last year it completed an airfield project
in the country to provide parking spaces for C-130 Hercules and CV-22 Osprey
aircraft and to support C-17 Globemaster III and C-5 Galaxy military
transport planes.
Four years ago the Reuters news agency reported “the United States is
already providing Ethiopia and Kenya with logistical support and U.S.
special forces had been observed on the Kenya-Somalia border,” [11]
and shortly afterward the U.S. Air Force divulged that U.S. airmen were
operating out of Contingency Operating Location Bilate (also known as Camp
Bilate) in Ethiopia in conjunction with the the Combined Joint Task
Force-Horn of Africa headquarters at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.
[12]
The U.S. military headquarters in Djibouti is in charge of three smaller
downrange bases, known as Contingency Operating Locations, at Bilate
and Hurso in Ethiopia and Manda Bay in Kenya.
An Ethiopian newspaper revealed at the time that,
“The United States would continue providing
training and other assistance to the Ethiopian Defense Forces as per the
Ethio-US bilateral cooperation” [13] during the Ethiopian
invasion of Somalia in 2006.
Ethiopian troops were being trained in infantry
tactics by soldiers with the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division’s 1st
Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment at the Training Academy in
Hurso as jets from the country bombed the Somali capital and ground forces
invaded their eastern neighbor.
The U.S. Army conducted training at the base
starting no later than 2003.
“U.S. military personnel with the Combined
Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa... have spent the last four years
training the Ethiopian National Defense Forces in basic military
tactics.” [14]
The effects of that preparation were seen in the
2006 invasion of Somalia.
The Pentagon’s role in Somalia was not limited to training and arming
Ethiopian invasion forces, as in early 2007 it was reported that,
“recent military operations in Somalia have
been carried out by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command,
which directs the military’s most secretive and elite units, like the
Army’s Delta Force.
“The Pentagon established a desolate outpost in the Horn of Africa
nation of Djibouti in 2002 in part to serve as a hub for special
missions...” [15]
As U.S. special forces were operating in Somalia
and Washington’s military client was launching air and ground attacks there,
the U.S. deployed the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, which,
“has an air wing of about 75 aircraft,
including F/A-18 Hornet and SuperHornet strike fighters, E-2C Hawkeyes,
EA-6B Prowlers, and SH-60 Seahawks,” [16] to join the the
guided-missile cruisers USS Bunker Hill and USS Anzio and the amphibious
landing ship USS Ashland off the coast of Somalia.
An “AC-130 gunship, operated by the Special
Operations Command, flew from its base in Djibouti to the southern tip
of Somalia” [17] where it “rained gunfire on the desolate
village of Hayo” on January 8. A local official was quoted as saying
“There are so many dead bodies and animals in the village.” [18]
“Officials with CJTF-HOA, based in Djibouti, declined... to comment on
the reported AC-130 attacks; media reports said the plane was based at
Camp Lemonier.” [19]
Also in early January of 2007 a major Kenyan
newspaper reported,
“The US counter-terrorism task force based
in Djibouti acknowledges that American troops are on the ground in
northern Kenya and in Lamu,” the latter on the Indian Ocean. [20]
In March of the same year two U.S. soldiers were
killed in Ethiopia in what was attributed to an accident.
They were assigned to a unit that was,
“part of the U.S.-led Combined Joint Task
Force-Horn of Africa, headquartered at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti.”
[21]
Late last year U.S. Africa Command deployed
lethal Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), 133 military personnel and
three P-3 Orion anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft to
Seychelles in the Indian Ocean east of Kenya. The Pentagon now has its
second major African military base.
In addition to the 5,000 U.S. and French troops stationed there, Djibouti
also has been home to what in 2005 Agence France-Presse disclosed
were,
“several hundred German, Dutch and Spanish
soldiers.” [22]
That is, the diminutive state is for all
practical purposes not only the headquarters for U.S. Africa Command but
also for NATO in Africa.
In late 2005 Britain announced that it was also deploying troops to
Djibouti.
Starting in March of 2009 NATO started rotating its Standing NATO Maritime
Group 1 (SNMG 1) and Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG 2) warship fleets
off the coast of Somalia, first with Operation Allied Provider until
August of last year and since with Operation Ocean Shield, which continues
to the present day and which in March was extended until the end of 2012.
The current fleet consists of warships from the
U.S., Britain, Greece, Italy and Turkey. Its area of operations includes one
million square kilometers in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin. (The
current name of the naval groups are NATO Response Force Maritime Groups 1
and 2.)
NATO does not intend to leave the area soon if at all.
Even before the NATO Allied Provider and Ocean Shield
operations began, the Italian destroyer MM Luigi Durand De La Penne,
“a 5,000-ton multi-role warship capable of
air defense, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare operations,”
[23] part of the Standing NATO Maritime Group 2, at the time
comprised of warships from the U.S., Britain, Germany, Greece and
Turkey, visited the Kenyan port city of Mombasa in October of 2008.
Of the current
NATO
deployment, last December then German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung
said that it was,
“the most robust mandate we have ever had,”
adding, “There may be combat situations, and in this respect it would of
course be a combat deployment.” [24]
The NATO flotillas joined warships of the
U.S.-led Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) with logistics facilities in
Djibouti. Formerly the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 150, starting in 2001 it
became a multinational operation with the inclusion of NATO allies and those
from an emerging Asian NATO.
Full participating nations are the U.S.,
Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and Pakistan, and others who have
been involved are Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal,
Singapore, Spain and Turkey.
CTF-150 has 14-15 warships near Somalia at any
given time and is coordinated with the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, under the
Combined Forces Maritime Component Commander/Commander US Naval Forces
Central Command in Bahrain.
In January of 2009 the U.S. Navy inaugurated Combined Task Force 151
(CTF-151), which will include warships from 20 nations, NATO and Asian NATO
states.
European NATO nations are also “double-duty” participants in the European
Union Naval Force Somalia - Operation Atalanta, the first naval
operation conducted by the EU and run under the auspices of the European
Security and Defense Policy. It was launched in December of 2008 and is
based at the Northwood Operation Headquarters in Britain, which also houses
NATO’s Allied Maritime Component Command Northwood.
Current participants in Operation Atalanta
are Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Norway and Spain, and,
“a number of Cypriot, Irish, Finnish,
Maltese and Sweden military personnel supplement the team at the
Northwood Operation Headquarters.” [25]
Starting no later than September of 2009 NATO
commanders have visited and in essence established a headquarters in
Somalia’s autonomous Puntland state.
Last autumn British Commodore Steve Chick,
commander of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2, met with Puntland authorities
on board the HMS Cornwall.
“The talks ended successfully with NATO and
Puntland officials agreeing to cooperate in combating pirates operating
along the Somali coast.” [26]
This January Admiral Pereira da Cunha,
commander of Standing NATO Maritime Group 1, hosted Puntland officials on
the Portuguese flagship Alvares Cabral, and the meeting,
“focused on human intelligence gathering,
capacity building and counter piracy cooperation between NATO and
Puntland authorities.”
“NATO... has established a close working relationship with the Puntland
Coastguard... This is just a start. With 60 years of experience and
coalition building, NATO is well placed to make things happen.”
[27]
In March ministers of the Puntland government
met with Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 commander Commodore Steve Chick on
board the HMS Chatham, current flagship of the NATO naval group in the
region.
The talks “covered ways in which further
cooperation between NATO and the Puntland authorities could be developed
in the future.” [28]
According to a Puntland news source, NATO’s
activities aren’t limited to operations in the waters off Somalia:
“NATO has a working relationship with
Puntland authorities in a bid to enhance its fight against the piracy
scourge along the lawless waters of the Horn of Africa. Puntland has
offered its help in terms of dealing with the gangs in the mainland.”
[29]
The European Union will soon begin training
2,000 Ugandan troops for deployment to Somalia to aid the Transitional
Federal Government, which is fighting for its life even in the nation’s
capital.
Last October a Kenyan newspaper announced that Kenyan troops sailed to
Djibouti to receive military training along with the armed forces of other
regional nations.
At the same time military officers from Denmark,
Finland, Norway and Sweden were in Kenya to,
“assist the region in the ongoing
establishment of a united military force to deal with conflicts on the
continent.”
“The experts from the European countries, which are part of the Nordic
Bloc, are based at the EASBRIG headquarters, at the Defense Staff
College in Karen, Nairobi.” [30]
EASBRIG, the East African Standby Brigade,
“will be deployed to trouble spots within 14
days after chaos erupts, to restore order... The brigade will have
troops from 14 countries...The military unit will comprise 35,000
soldiers and 1,000 police officers plus 1,000 civilian staff. Kenya is
already training 2,000 soldiers to be seconded to the force once it is
in place.” [31]
Japan’s destroyers off the coast of Somalia and
the nation’s first foreign military base in the post-World War Two era in
Djibouti are in line with the geostrategic plans of Tokyo’s allies in North
America and Europe.
Plans which are embodied most fully in the creation of the first U.S.
regional military command outside North America in a quarter of a century,
Africa Command.
Long after pirates, al-Qaeda affiliates and
other threats have ceased to serve as their justification, the
Pentagon, NATO and Japan will retain their military footholds in Africa.
Notes
1) Agence France-Presse, April 23, 2010
2) Former Axis Nations Abandon Post-World War II Military Restrictions
Stop NATO, August 12, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/former-axis-nations-abandon-post-world-war-ii-military-restrictions
3) Kyodo News, April 3, 2009
4) Kyodo News, July 31, 2009
5) Stars And Stripes, September 23, 2005
6) US Department of Defense, September 22, 2005
7) Radio France Internationale, December 11, 2009
8) Voice of America News, January 25, 2008
9) The East African, November 6, 2006
10) Ibid
11) Reuters, November 21, 2006
12) Air Force Link, January 7, 2007
13) Ethiopian Herald, January 5, 2007
14) Stars and Stripes, January 10, 2007
15) Xinhua News Agency, January 13, 2007
16) Stars and Stripes, January 10, 2007
17) Voice of Russia, January 9, 2007
18) Reuters, January 10, 2007
19) Stars and Stripes, January 10, 2007
20) The Nation, January 3, 2007
21) Stars and Stripes, March 8, 2007
22) Agence France-Presse, December 22, 2005
23) The Standard (Kenya), October 29, 2008
24) Associated Press,December 23, 2009
25) European Union Naval Force Somalia http://www.eunavfor.eu/about-us/mission
26) North Atlantic Treaty Organization Maritime Component Command
Headquarters Northwood September 11, 2009
27) North Atlantic Treaty Organization Allied Command Operations January
27, 2010
28) Royal Navy, March 30, 2010
29) Garowe Online, April 8, 2010
30) The Nation, October 29, 2009
31) Ibid