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Field PK
Training
The RECAMP program supplements individual and
group training of African soldiers by providing multinational
practical training for their Armed Forces.
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Practical training
is designed to strengthen the cohesion and
sub-regional effectiveness of African armies.
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Four
sessions have been held to date and have won increasing support
from African contributors and donors from all over the world.
RECAMP practical training, under the auspices of
the U.N. and in conjunction with OAU, under the control of
sub-regional organizations, tries to take into consideration all the
factors of a crisis situation--military, economic, social and
political--and involve the maximum number of actors in potential
crises.
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Individual training in peace-keeping skills has
to be complemented by practical training on a really large scale so
that it involves the establishment of political and military chains
of command and logistics operations.
Joint exercises also build confidence between the armed
forces of neighboring countries.
Sub-Regional
RECAMP Practical Training
RECAMP holds complete cycles of practical
training in peace-keeping for sub-regional armed forces.
This practical training, which last two years, involves:
Phase 1: a political-military seminar which studies a crisis
situation and how to deal with it;
Phase 2:
a staff exercise simulating the details at theater
command level of military decisions to put a peace-keeping operation
into effect;
Phase 3:
a field exercise with troops to test on a real scale
methods of action developed in the preceding phase.
These sessions, organized jointly by an African
country and France, are carried out at sub-regional level but enable
the forces of the sub-region to work together in a multinational
framework that easily goes beyond the African continent.
Four
Successful RECAMP Sessions
Since 1996 RECAMP practical training sessions
have become the main events in multinational peace-keeping training
for African forces.
The first session, within ECOWAS (West Africa), was held from
1996 to 1998 and involved four contributor countries and four donors;
it concluded with the Guidimakha exercise on the border of Senegal,
Mali and Mauritania;
The second cycle, within CEEAC (central Africa), involved
eight contributor countries and eight donors; it concluded with the Gabon
2000
exercise;
The third cycle, within SADC (southern Africa), which is
being organized, will involve cooperation from at least 16
contributors and will conclude with the Tanzanite exercise in
2002.
The fourth within ECOWAS will be held in West Africa with strategic
conference (June 2004) and lessons learned (first months of 2005) in
Abuja (Nigeria), and the exercice in Benin from November 2004 to
February 2005.
The RECAMP practical training sessions, placed
under the auspices of the United
Nations, in conjunction with OAU
and with control by sub-regional organizations, takes into
consideration all the factors in overt crises--military, economic,
social and political--thereby involving a maximum number of actors
in the management of potential crises.
The steady increase in the number of
contributors and donors to RECAMP practical training sessions is
proof that the concept is well adapted to the needs of the African
continent and conforms to the wish of the entire world, Europe
especially, to help enhance African peace-keeping capacities.
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