PEACE KEEPING IN AFRICA – THE FRENCH EXPERIENCE
Colonel Jean-Paul Staub, DRM (French Defence Intelligence Organisation).
Stockholm, 2 December 2004
1. Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all I would like to thank the Swedish national defence college for giving me
the opportunity to present the French experience in intelligence support to peace
keeping operations in Africa.
2. Africa has indeed been an instability area for decades and its populations, in addition
to poverty, starvation and disease are still suffering from numerous crises and
conflicts.
I shall not give you a strategic overview on Africa, but would just point out the variety
of this continent, either you consider its landscapes, its cultures, its religions or its
development.
Noteworthy is that the fall of the Soviet bloc changed little in Africa. If democracy and
human rights have progressed, especially in the North and the South of the
continent, it is a fact that poverty is increasing and, due to differentiated demography,
the gap between rich and poor countries becomes wider. This is a major factor of
instability.
Unequally available natural resources - energy, oil and even drinking water - come in
addition.
Moreover, corruption is widespread. Some countries are near and in some cases
beyond failure and bankruptcy.
But there are two positive factors to be considered: weapon proliferation is now
limited to conventional ones (which does not mean it is no more a concern) and
Islamic terrorism appears to be contained (which does not mean that it has been
eradicated).
3. This map has not for purpose to point out any particular country as unstable, neither
to discuss what a crisis is, nor to make a distinction between international and
domestic crises.
It just depicts that troops from many countries are committed in this continent to
restore and keep peace, either under UN flag or in the framework of bilateral defence
agreements.
France has maintained contingents in Africa since the colonial era and acquired
there a 40 years long experience in peace keeping and in the intelligence required to
support this type of operations.
4. In its principles, peace keeping intelligence is not different in Africa from what it is in
other parts of the world. All types of intelligence are required, with nevertheless some
particularities.
Satellite imagery, such as this Helios view of Bunia in the Democratic Republic of
Congo during the EU-lead Operation ARTEMIS last year allows mapping, analysis of
the infrastructure and detection of refugees camps, but is often limited in the
Equatorial zone by dense vegetation and clouds.
5. Air recce provides closer imagery but has the same limitations. Moreover, air
infrastructure is often poor in Africa and logistical support at a distance of more than
4,500 km from Europe is not easy. France maintains permanent air detachments in
several African countries, mainly Chad and Djibouti.
6. SIGINT also plays an important role in Africa. Although some African countries have
radar and air forces, as recently shown in Ivory coast, the monitoring of
communications will usually be the most useful.
France has several fixed SIGINT detachments in Africa. Mobile ones, such as this
one, may reinforce and complement their net.
7. This slide shows not only a delivery of small calibre ammunition in an African state,
providing evidence of weapon proliferation. It depicts also a sophisticated SATCOM
antenna. In Africa as elsewhere, modern technology is easily available and poses a
permanent challenge to SIGINT assets.
8. And last but not least, open source intelligence and technical intelligence play their
role in African peace keeping. The latter allows particularly to track the arms
smuggling routes which are sometimes amazing.
9. But as experienced on other theatres, peace keeping intelligence needs less sheer
military intelligence, less technical intelligence and more human intelligence, which
may be performed either as recce patrols or open collection.
10. HUMINT is particularly able to provide environment intelligence, that means better
knowledge of the physical and human features of the operation area. Cultural,
ethnical and religious factors are a prerequisite for military operations - not only
peace keeping ones and not only in Africa. But contacts with the population, the local
authorities, the factions is of paramount importance in peace keeping operations.
11. Only HUMINT will be able to allow a better understanding of militias and other
irregular forces. Who are indeed these groups including teenagers and sometimes
children, where do they come from, who are their leaders, their motivation, their
funding, their connections and possibly which is their outer support or direction?
Such are intelligence requirements in African peace-keeping.
12. HUMINT is also a good way to obtain proof photos or other kind of evidence.
It must nevertheless be underlined that the judicial value of such material will often
be questionable, especially when the circumstances under which the information has
been gained may not be disclosed or if the protection of the source will not allow it to
testify in person at a courtyard.
13. HUMINT can also provide support to technical intelligence, with close-up photos of
equipment, as shown by these snapshots of elements of the former Ivorian air force.
14. In Africa as elsewhere, the gathered information is stored and processed. Usually
this is done in France, with a reach-back capability from the operation area.
Here again, it must be stressed that the legal basis of such databases is
questionable, especially when dealing with personal data. Under French law, there is
a data protection act restricting the storage of personal data. This applies to armed
forces - including military intelligence - who are not allowed to store personal data
related to nationals.
15. Once processed, intelligence from all sources but with a strong HUMINT contribution
may produce charts like this, giving photos and biographical data of local leaders, as
well as their area of responsibility. This is of great value for commanders of the
peace-keeping force who will have to remain in contact with them.
16. But despite all the available human and technical capabilities, Africa poses a special
challenge to intelligence.
Africa’s specificity, as far as peace keeping intelligence is concerned, is the
complexity of human factors. The heritage of colonisation is a factor of crisis in itself.
Boundaries are often artificial, splitting ethnic groups in minorities of different states.
Corruption is widespread.
Warring parties are not only regular forces, but often several ethnic militias,
sometimes supported by foreign states in which their ethnic group has the political
control. This complexity appears clearly on this situation map in Ituri last year.
17. Covert HUMINT is seemingly an impossible task. Although France, as most of the
western countries, has nationals from a large range of African ethnic groups in its
military forces, their commitment is often too risky, and open collection is the better
way. Moreover, the languages of the former the colons are still widely in use, which
gives a clear advantage to intelligence officers who are native speakers. This is the
case for French in most parts of northern and western Africa.
18. But the variety of the ethnic groups and the hundreds of different vernacular
languages which are spoken in Africa poses another challenge, much more to
communications than to human intelligence. In most cases indeed, the HUMINT
operator may choose the language he addresses his contacts. This will of course not
be possible for COMINT.
19. It is not easy to anticipate several years in advance the operational requirement for
COMINT operators in so many different languages, to recruit and train them. For
instance, Operation ARTEMIS suffered for a whole month from the lack of a Swahili
operator, and at the beginning even the identification of this language failed.
20. Which should be the way ahead for peace-keeping intelligence in Africa?
Assisting Africans in overcoming their difficulties from their own appears to be the
only realistic one. The leading principle for French military assistance to African
states is called “Reinforcement of African peace-keeping capabilities” or RECAMP
(Renforcement des capacités africaines de maintien de la paix) according to its
French acronym.
But as far as intelligence is concerned, this raises other problems of ethical nature.
Despite important progress, democracy and human rights are not so widespread in
Africa. Some African intelligence services, also because their members belong
usually to the leading ethnic group in their country, may make a confusion between
threat and political opposition, between counter-intelligence and repression, and the
support provided to them may in the end be counterproductive if misused. We should
keep this in mind.
21. This concludes my presentation. I tried to speak to you frankly and plainly as an
intelligence officer. I confess I am not optimistic for the future of Africa in the short
term but this should not prevent us from further efforts.
I thank you for your attention and will be pleased to answer your questions.