World Focus: New US Africa command must prove its credibility

The first battle the US military's new Africa command needs to win is the one against the massed ranks of sceptics. When George Bush unveiled Africom a year ago, it was trumpeted as a way to prevent terrorist inroads on the world's poorest continent while enhancing America's image abroad. Ever since, and indeed even as the command became fully operational yesterday, officials have been trying to convince the world it has no hidden agenda and it is not a front for a new scramble for African oil.

Africom brings together military programmes that were previously split among three other commands over Iraq, Afghanistan and Nato. Its 1,300-strong personnel will help African governments develop crisis response teams, tackle pirates and drug-runners, as well as help train armies in counter-terrorism techniques. That last function is to counter what US officials call al-Qa'ida's "squirt tendency", where closing in on insurgents in one place means they spill over into others, like the remote fringes of the Sahara.

All has not gone according to plan, however. Originally there was to be a US military headquarters in Africa, but after public refusals from powerhouses such as Nigeria and South Africa, it ended up going operational yesterday from Stuttgart, Germany. There have been problems closer to home too, with Congress slashing the command's budget by a third last week, while lambasting the Pentagon for a "badly bungled" rollout.

Much of the overseas mistrust revolves around oil. With the US aiming to import a quarter of its crude from Africa by 2015, opponents see Africom as a front, whose real mission is to simply secure access to oil. Another worry is that a beefed-up US military presence in Africa will simply fulfil the prophecy that Africa might become the next terrorist breeding ground. And much has been made of the fact that Washington's re-engagement with Africa comes at a time when China has built up a powerful influence there by offering aid and investment with no awkward strings attached.

The fear in Africa is that Africom is all about America. Conscious of that, US soldiers have already been deployed to help build schools and clinics in African villages, in the hope that the locals see them as a force for good. But this "hearts and minds" effort has brought criticism from aid workers, who believe humanitarian development should be led by civilians. According to Refugees International, US foreign policy is being "militarised" with development aid controlled by the Pentagon shooting from 3 per cent to 22 per cent.