Ambassador Speeches
Remarks by Ambassador Janet E. Garvey
Digital Videoconference with Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates
In the Multipurpose Room of the U.S. Embassy - Yaounde
Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 9:00 to 10:30 am
General William E. “Kip” Ward, the Commander of the United States Africa Command, defines the goal of AFRICOM as that of enhancing the capacity of Africans to care for their stability to enable development to take place. The U.S. Embassy has invited you – educators, legislators, policy advisers, opinion makers, informed and interested citizens – to participate in our digital videoconference (DVC) with Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates via Paris to promote a deeper mutual understanding of the role security plays as a cornerstone to economic development and to democracy.
The United States believes that Cameroon has the resources and potential to be both a leader and role model for Central Africa. Through our cooperative security relationship, we have worked with Cameroon over time to pursue the common interest of internal and sub-regional security through methods that meet this goal. AFRICOM is one of many partnerships formed on the basis of security. It seeks to enable Africans to provide for their own security in collaborative programs on the continent that work to achieve peace, regional security, and economic prosperity. One such program is being carried out as I speak, at the Douala Naval Base. There, U.S. Defense and Army Attaché Major Matthew Sousa, who would otherwise be with us today, is leading installation operations for the Automatic Identification System, known also as AIS. AIS helps monitor legal and illegal maritime traffic by providing identification read-outs and the position of vessels not always available through voice radio communication or radar.
In this second part of the program, we invite you to table your questions about AFRICOM so that myths can be dispelled and facts can emerge.
The United States is committed to security in Africa through partnerships. AFRICOM military-to-military partnerships, such as the maritime security programs of African Partnership Station (APS), are intended to improve the professionalism and capacity of African Armed Forces. The recently initiated African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program, which will train and equip Cameroon’s first peacekeeping battalion, is another good example of US-Cameroonian security cooperation designed to promote regional security, stability, and development.
As competent and professional militaries form the rank and file of Africa, increased security on the continent will be felt elsewhere. The U.S. Embassy welcomes this change as it does your questions about how AFRICOM will help move in this direction.