U.S. Africa Command denies plans to establish military base in Botswana

AFRICOM commander to visit Botswana

Victor Muyakwabo
Mmegi
 

The commander of United States Africa Command (US AFRICOM), General Carter Ham, will visit Botswana from August 15 -16.

General Ham’s visit comes at a time when the US Army is collaborating with the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) in an exercise code-named Southern Accord 12.

According to a statement from the American Embassy in Gaborone, General Ham will meet with senior government officials and army officers before participating in the closing ceremony of Southern Accord 12. The joint training activities have reportedly enhanced the capabilities of military personnel of both Botswana and the US in various areas, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, anti-poaching, aero-medical, peacekeeping and convoy operations.

Speaking at the official opening of Southern Accord 12 recently, the American Ambassador to Botswana, Michelle Gavin, said the exercise had attracted such attention in the US that some senior government officials were interested in coming to Botswana.

General Ham became commander of the Stuttgart, Germany-headquartered US Africa Command on March 9, 2011. According to information from the US Embassy, General Ham was commissioned in the Infantry as a Distinguished Military Graduate in 1976.

His military service has included assignments in Kentucky, Ohio, California, Georgia, Italy and Germany, to name a few. He has also served in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Macedonia and Iraq.  General Ham has held a variety of positions, among them Recruiting Area Commander, Battalion Executive

http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=1&aid=503&dir=2012/August/Tuesday14

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U.S. Africa Command denies plans to establish military base in Botswana

Xinhua

GABORONE– Visiting Commander of the United States Africa Command (U.S. AFRICOM) Carter Ham denied on Thursday plans to build a military base in Botswana.

Ham announced this when responding to questions from media in a press briefing, before attending the closing ceremony for the two- week joint military training exercise “Southern Accord 12” between the two countries at Botswana Defense Force’s (BDF) Thebephatswa Base in southeast part of Botswana.

“No, there is no American base in Botswana. There are no plans whatsoever to have a base in Botswana. I see these reports where people talk about an American base, but there is no base and there are no plans for an American base. I cannot be clearer than that,” said Ham.

He explained that their presence in Botswana and their relationship with Botswana as the U.S. is based on mutual respect and a shared vision for the future, and that includes strong military to military ties.

He said the U.S. has an interest in a safe, secure and stable Africa.

“We want to see Africans able to address African security challenges. Our military engagement in Botswana and elsewhere on the continent is designed to build defense institutions capable of contributing to regional and international security, and when called upon, to support humanitarian assistance effort,” he said.

Speaking at the ceremony, BDF Deputy Commander Placid Segokgo said exercises such as these ones allow them to prepare their forces in line to the country’s commitment to the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) standby force objectives.

He said the “Southern Accord 12” had objectives such as to increase and strengthen relations and partnerships between U.S. forces and SADC forces in general, and enhance participating forces’ efficiency and effectiveness in conducting peace keeping operations among others.

The two-week long maneuver, involving some 1,200 soldiers from both sides, is said to have enhanced the capabilities of military personnel from both countries in a variety of areas, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, anti-poaching, peacekeeping, and convoy operations, and aero-medical evacuation.

The exercise included both classroom instruction and field exercises. The U.S. has in the past two years conducted similar Joint Military Training Exercises with African countries such as South Africa, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

U.S. AFRICOM, is one of nine Unified Combatant Commands of the U.S. Department of Defense. As one of six that are regionally focused, it is devoted solely to Africa. U.S. AFRICOM is responsible to the Secretary of Defense for U.S. military relations with 54 African countries. The command was created by presidential order in 2007 and was officially activated on Oct. 1, 2007.

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U.S. Helps Botswana Build Medical Evacuation System

THEBEPHATSHWA AIR BASE, Botswana – U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Eliece Soebbing discusses proper use of a tourniquet with Botswana Defense Force medics as Army Major Pam Aitchison, officer-in-charge of the forward support hospital’s intensive care unit, tends to a simulated patient during exercise Southern Accord, August 8, 2012. Southern Accord is a joint, combined training exercise led by U.S. Army Africa to expand capabilities between the U.S. military and Botswana Defense Force and enhance their interoperability. (DOD photo by Donna Miles)

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

U.S. Department of Defense

THEBEPHATSHWA AIR BASE, Botswana, Aug 16, 2012 — When the Botswana Defense Force sets out to build a medevac and aeromedical evacuation capability within its forces, it looked to the U.S. military, which has become the world’s expert in evacuating wounded troops from the battlefield.

U.S. soldiers, airmen, Marines and sailors brought their medical know-how to the Southern Accord 12 exercise under way at Thebephatshwa Air Base, Botswana, sharing with their host-nation counterparts everything from initial battlefield medicine to medevac and aeromedevac techniques.

The training culminated yesterday with a mass casualty exercise, in which the BDF medics watched their U.S. trainers provide immediate, lifesaving care to simulated casualties, then moved them through progressive, escalating levels of care.

The “casualties,” Marine Corps reservists from the 4th Marine Division’s Company D, Antiterrorism Battalion, had been wounded during a mock ambush. Their battle buddies, applying lessons the Marines here are sharing with their BDF counterparts, provided immediate combat lifesaver care at the point of injury before a BDF ambulance transported them to the forward surgical hospital.

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher Miller, one of two Navy corpsmen participating in Southern Accord, spent six days teaching basic combat lifesaver training to BDF infantry troops. Miller taught them techniques such as how to make and use tourniquets and how to apply pressure dressings for chest wounds.

“They seemed to be eating up the knowledge very quickly,” Miller said, ultimately racing against each other to see how quickly they could apply a tourniquet and pull a casualty to safety.

Once the casualties reached the forward surgical hospital, Army Captain Ray Abordo, commander of the Army Reserve’s 909th Forward Surgical Team, explained the step-by-step process used to triage the casualties, provide advanced trauma life support, and identify those who required care at the combat support hospital.

“This is the first demonstration of casualty evacuation from point of injury to the collection point, then to the forward surgical team, and then to the combat support hospital,” said Army Lieutenant Colonel Kyle Remick, commander of the medical task force for the exercise, as he watched the two staffs tend to patients.

The BDF then took the lead in applying the aeromedevac training they received here to load the “casualties” aboard a C-130 aircraft for evacuation.

Medlite 12, a U.S. Air Forces Africa exercise conducted this year during Southern Accord, focused on teaching the Botswanan medics not only to load patients for aeromedical evacuation, but also to treat them during the flight.

“You can have aircraft, but if you don’t know how to care for patients in the air, it’s not enough to conduct aeromedevac missions,” said Air Force Lieutenant Colonel June Oldman, a flight nurse assigned to the National Guard Bureau in Washington. “We are teaching them the proper techniques, and by applying these, it can make an amazing difference in lowering mortality rates.”

That capability, she said, would improve the BDF’s ability to support peacekeeping missions and other possible contingencies on the continent.

Most of the Medlite instructors were members of the North Carolina Air National Guard, which partners with Botswana’s military through the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program.

Oldman called the arrangement a win-win situation that enables the Guardsmen to hone their readiness skills while serving as mentors, and for the BDF medics who are eager to learn.

Air Force Master Sergeant Christopher Choate, chief flight evaluator for the North Carolina Guard’s 156th Air Evacuation Squadron, praised the speed in which the Botswanan combat medics grasped the week-and-a-half-long instruction. “After just that short time, they are taking over 100 percent, which is amazing,” he said.

Air Force Staff Sergeant Sara Baker called it a testament to the medical training the BDF is providing its medics. “It’s clear that they’ve had great training and brought it to the table,” she said. “They have just blown us away.”

BDF Marine Lance Corporal Oarabile Lesefedi, a paramedic who received the training, said he was amazed to see how the U.S. forces essentially transformed a military aircraft into a flying ambulance.

“This a big benefit, because it means that patients can be extracted more quickly and be moved in a way that is fast, very reliable and can take a lot of patients,” he said. “If we are able to adapt these techniques, it can save lives.”

Remick, the medical task force commander, said lessons being shared during Southern Accord and Medlite will go a long way toward helping the BDF build similar capabilities within its own force.

“This is a very exciting proposition to see how it will develop,” he said. “There is a lot of exciting potential in this country.”

The BDF graduated its first class of medics in 2009, and has instituted combat lifesaver and intermediate lifesaver certification programs, said Botswana Defense Force Lieutenant Colonel (Dr.) Aubrey Kadiwa. However, it has no equivalent of a battalion aid station or forward surgical team, and the military as well as civilian trauma-care systems are still evolving.

Kadiwa, a BSF doctor for the past seven years, emphasized that traditional military training alone isn’t enough to make the evolving BDF medical corps combat-ready.

“What you learn in medical school when you train as a doctor doesn’t reflect what actually happens on the battlefield,” he said.

Kadiwa welcomed the opportunity to train with U.S. military medics, many with combat deployments under their belts, during Southern Accord.

“What the Americans have learned in Afghanistan and Iraq is very different [from traditional medical] modalities. It’s not text book,” he said. “So there is a true benefit for us, being able to learn what they have learned.”

http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=8168&lang=0

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