British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday proposed a 15 000-strong European Union battle force, including British troops, dedicated to intervening in African conflicts and deployable within 10 days of a political instruction. He said the force should be ready next year.
Blair made the bold proposal just 24 hours after the Iraq Survey Group reported that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. The talk of battle plans underlined the fact that despite the controversy over Iraq, Blair has not lost his fervour for human rights-driven military interventions.
The proposal formed part of a wider package to tackle the crisis across Africa, including generous debt and aid proposals designed to take the continent out of its cycle of poverty, disease and instability.
The EU brigade, capable of more rapid deployment than any other multinational force, would intervene with the sanction of the African Union or the United Nations. The intention is that it would hold the line until an AU or UN force could be assembled.
The force would be broken down into battle groups of 1 500 with bigger countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Poland supplying their own groups and smaller countries contributing to other groups.
Such rapid action in Sudan might have prevented the refugee crisis and killings in Darfur in the west of the country. A 3 000-strong AU force, largely Nigerian, is still weeks from deployment.
The prospect of British troops embarking on another foreign expedition was warily criticised by the Tories. Nicholas Soames, the shadow defence secretary, said: ”It is unfortunate that when the government is disbanding regiments and getting rid of manpower and capabilities that it should impose another task on our already overstretched armed forces.”
Donald Anderson, Labour chairperson of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, said in Morocco, where he will attend today’s opening of Parliament: ”There are dangers because of the fear of raising old colonial hackles again. The best thing we can do is not to intervene as Europeans but to help train African Union forces to take the lead themselves.”
Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader who recently wrote to the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, suggesting that the EU rapid response units should be sent to Africa, said: ”These arrangements would allow for the kind of intervention we could all be in favour of. The tragedy is that they have not been in place for Darfur.”
Blair was speaking in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the second session of the Commission for Africa, which is preparing a comprehensive plan on how the G8 industrialised countries and the EU can help Africa next year, which Blair described as the year of decision for Africa.
His speech echoed his original clarion call for humanitarian intervention which he set out in Chicago in 1999.
Downing Street officials are seeking to produce an updated version of the Chicago principles to take into account the post-Iraq world.
Blair, speaking to a hall of leading African politicians and economists, described the drive to restore hope for Africa as ”one noble cause worth fighting for” in an era of cynicism and disengagement from the political process.
Explaining his plan for EU battle groups dedicated to the continent, he said: ”There will be times when Africa cannot stop a conflict on its own. Then the rest of the international community must be there to help. That is why I want Africa to be the top priority for the EU’s new rapidly deployable battle groups and to get them operational initially as soon as possible in 2005.”
He added: ”These groups would allow the EU to respond to a crisis in Africa in 10 days.”
No 10 said the idea had won support inside the EU, where as many as seven battle groups are being formed.
Blair also revealed that Britain will train, directly or indirectly, 20 000 African troops over the next five years.
He said the commission would report in March — ahead of the UK-hosted G8 summit in June. After publication ”the time for excuses will be over. The world inside Africa and outside will know just what the problems are, but also the solutions.”
The report is likely to call for multilateral debt to be written off, EU food subsidies to end and the international aid budget to double. Africa will be asked to intensify peer group review to stamp out corrup-tion and human rights abuses. Rich countries will be told to stop their citizens laundering money, selling arms and steal ing resources in Africa.
Blair said a recovery for Africa was necessary to keep Europe secure. ”We know that poverty and instability lead to weak states which can be havens for terrorists and other criminals,” he said.
His visit to one of the world’s poorest countries coincided with a strong attack on Europe’s aid strategy from the chancellor, Gordon Brown.
Brown said Brussels should spend an extra â,¬1-billion a year on low-income countries in Africa and Asia, calling it ”nonsensical” that the European commission was focusing its financial assistance on relatively rich countries in the Balkans.
The EU aid commissioner, Poul Nielsen, on Thursday in Brussels attacked Brown’s plans for an international finance facility intended to double aid by $100-billion a year by issuing bonds in the capital markets using donor countries’ long term funding commitments as collateral. He branded the idea Enron accounting.
But Bob Geldof, one of the 17 members of the Commission for Africa, hit back. He said the IFF proposal was ”elegant, timely, simple and necessary”. – Guardian Unlimited Â