Africa slams door in Uncle Sam's face

THE US must not be allowed to station its new Africom military command centre anywhere in Africa.

Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said in Cape Town yesterday that defence ministers of the Southern African Development Community had agreed to block Uncle Sam - and South Africa expected the rest of the continent to do the same.

African nations that didn't toe the line could expect to be punished, he implied.

He said: "Africa has to avoid the presence of foreign forces on its soil."

The US announced in February that it would combine the three command structures that currently oversee its interests and operations in Africa, from outside the continent, into a single African command and control centre to be known as Africom.

The US Army's General William Ward has been appointed to run the 1000-strong headquarters team, which a senior US official said in May would be "as small and unobtrusive as possible".

So far, however, only Liberia has said publicly it would be willing to host Ward and his staff.

Without naming Liberia, Lekota said South Africa expected all countries to follow its lead.

Lekota warned that any country breaking ranks might find itself isolated.

He said: "It is not unnatural that there might be one or two countries that don't agree with the majority.

"Normally, the minority, even if it holds a different view, would tend to go with the view of the majority because the unity of African nations supersedes any individual view."

He added: "I would imagine that any country that wants to go against the decision of the AU would consider what the implications might be where other sister countries might refuse to cooperate with it in other areas."

Wafula Okumu, an Africa analyst at the Institute for Security Studies, in Pretoria, said the AU had not taken a formal position on Africom, but that Washington was having doors slammed in its face across the continent.

Okumu said the US was arguing that a greater presence in Africa would allow its troops to carry out humanitarian projects and to be on hand more quickly to help out in disasters.

He said: "America's interests in Africa are oil and the security threat to America."