A U.S.-funded maritime security and counter-narcotics center in the Atlantic island nation of Cape Verde is being staffed by Cape Verdeans, not U.S. personnel, and is hoped to serve as a model for future interagency coordination centers in other African nations, U.S. Africa Command's civilian deputy said during a visit June 13-15, 2010.

"Interagency operations centers like your own are a proven concept in South America and the Pacific, but yours is the first in Africa," Ambassador J. Anthony Holmes said in a written statement to Cape Verdean press June 14. "You all are setting the standard and people are watching you. We hope that your center will become a model for others."

Holmes, a former U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso, is U.S. AFRICOM's deputy to the commander for civil-military activities. He visited Cape Verde June 13-15 to tour the recently completed operations center and to meet with Cape Verdean officials, including Cristina Fontes Lima, Cape Verde's minister of defense and state reform.
The U.S. Embassy calls Cape Verde "one of Africa's success stories." The nation consists of ten arid volcanic islands in the Atlantic Ocean west of Senegal. The former Portuguese colony was uninhabited before it was discovered in the 1450s, and the island of Santiago includes the oldest European colonial settlement in the tropics, Cidade Velha, founded in the 1460s and now a fishing village reached by a cobblsestone highway and watched over by a clifftop fortress that was restored a decade ago by Cape Verdeans. Cape Verde's annual GDP, estimated at more than $3,700 per person, places it in a "middle income" category, on par with nations such as Brazil. The country is consistently ranked low on corruption and high on government transparency. It is the first nation to successfully conclude a Millennium Challenge Corporation compact, a U.S. program that uses business-like investment to promote development. The MCC compact focused on problems of inter-island transport and helping to mitigate the scarcity of water. Talks are underway for a second MCC compact.

"We regard Cape Verde as a first rate, really an excellent partner," Holmes told reporters June 14 during a visit to the Cape Verde maritime security operations center. "We have great admiration for the level of democracy and protection of human rights, openness, transparency, lack of corruption in your country. We view them as a mature partner."

Holmes stressed that the United States does not seek to force a U.S. agenda on cooperation with Cape Verde. "We're responding as the government of Cape Verde meets its own priorities," Holmes said.

U.S. Africa Command provided approximately $1.5 million to build the Counter-Narcotics and Maritime Security Operations Center (CMIC). The Cape Verdeans call it their Centro Inter-agencias de operacoes de Seguranca Maritima e Luta contra o Narcotraficio, with the acronym COSMAR. The center was formally handed to the Cape Verdean government on May 24, 2010, and is still being staffed.

Narcotic usage is not considered a widespread problem in Cape Verde, but in recent years the trading nation has become a transit point for narcotics crossing the Atlantic from Latin America into West Africa and then up into Europe. Holmes warned that any country that finds itself involved in drug trafficking eventually finds drug use seeping into its population.

The maritime security center is aimed at helping different Cape Verdean government agencies and offices, including the Coast Guard, law enforcement and military, share information and coordinate their activities. It includes inter-island communications relays. Along with concerns of narco-trafficking, Cape Verde is concerned about illegal fishing in its vast territorial waters and economic exclusion zone. The tiny Coast Guard has only four patrol craft. The United States has helped upgrade patrol boats and is donating another small high-speed vessel this summer.

U.S. Africa Command is not involved in drug enforcement in the West African coastal region. Instead, AFRICOM helps partner nations build their own security capacity so that they can patrol their own territorial waters.

In his visit to Cape Verde, Holmes also visited the port city of Mindelo on the island of Sao Vicente, where he visited Coast Guard vessels and met with Coast Guard leadership.

LINK to transcripts:

Press Availability at the Cape Verde Ministry of Defense
Holmes Meets with Reporters at Counter-narcotics and Maritime Security Interagency Operations Center, Cape Verde