HQ$History - United States Special Operations Command

ing thousands of acres of land to productive use.
EUCOM reviewed the program in 1999 and concluded
that the SOF-developed training centers
continued to produce effective deminers and had
become an integral part of the nation’s demining
operations. The training mission’s success was
attributed to SOF’s ability to develop a rapport
with each of the entity armies and to inculcate a
higher degree of professionalism in them.
By late 1999, humanitarian demining operations
had been conducted by SOCCENT, SOC-
PAC, SOCSOUTH, and SOCEUR; all five activeduty
Special Forces Groups; all six active-duty
Psychological Operations Battalions (POBs);
and the active-duty CA BN. The reserve components
fully supported these operations, as well.
In Asia, for instance, SOCPAC, the 1st SFG (A),
the POB, and CA troops worked with the national
governments of Cambodia and the People’s
Republic of Laos, the UN, and many non-governmental
organizations to make people aware of
the landmine danger and to help clear mined
areas.
SOF had conducted humanitarian mine
action activities in the following countries for
FY2002: Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras,
Guatemala, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia,
Estonia, Honduras, Mauritania, Thailand, and
Vietnam.
African Crisis Response Initiative
In 1994, Rwanda experienced human genocide
of horrific proportions. As a result of these
atrocities, U.S. officials from the OSD
visited the Rwandan massacre sites,
spoke with refugees, and issued a
report that helped to focus attention on
the region. The next year, Burundi,
Rwanda’s neighbor to the south, also
experienced political unrest and
appeared to be heading down the same
road that Rwanda had traveled some
months before. By November 1995, the
Defense Department had drafted a proposal
to deal with the unrest in
Burundi, the centerpiece of which was
the training of African peacekeeping
troops. The objective was to train
African troops to conduct peacekeeping
operations within their continent. This
initial proposal would become the core for the
African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), which
the State Department launched in October 1996.
The U.S., however, worked only with those
African countries that met certain prerequisites,
including democratically elected governments,
civilian control of the military, and human
rights policies. SOF, and especially Special
Forces soldiers, became an integral part of
ACRI.
The ACRI used military assets from the U.S.
and its European allies to train battalion-sized
units from various African nations for peacekeeping
operations on their continent. The 3rd
SFG (A) implemented the ACRI plan by developing
a program of instruction and sending in
teams to conduct training. Drawing from
NATO, UN, and U.S. doctrine, Special Forces
planners developed common peacekeeping tactics,
techniques, and procedures. Training
African battalions to common doctrine and standards
assured that the different forces could
effectively work together if deployed on a peacekeeping
mission. As devised by the 3rd SFG (A),
ACRI training consisted of two phases: an initial,
intensive 60-day training period (individual,
platoon, company, leader and staff training)
followed by sustainment training and exercises.
By the end of FY2001, Special Forces teams,
along with elements of the 96th CA BN and the
4th POG, had conducted ACRI training in
Senegal, Malawi, Ghana, Mali, Benin, Kenya,
and the Ivory Coast. This multinational peace-
Special Forces instructors train Senegalese soldiers in marksmanship
and other basic soldier skills for ACRI.
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