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GARMISCH, Germany, 

Jan 20, 2010 — General William E. Ward, commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), said that drug trafficking threatens global security and requires international and regional cooperation at the beginning of a nine-day counter-narcotics seminar, January 20, 2010, in Garmisch, Germany.

The forum, co-sponsored by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and U.S. European Command (EUCOM), was hosted by the George C. Marshall Center's College of International and Security Studies, as part of its Senior Executive Seminar (SES). SES is a regularly-scheduled program bringing together government officials, senior diplomats, ambassadors, ministers, and parliamentarians to discuss topics related to international security.

Nearly 100 representatives of more than 60 nations around the world were in attendance at the seminar.

To read more about the event, visit http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=3893&lang=0.

The complete transcript is available below:

I feel a bit awe-struck here because this is your first day of class at the seminar, and I'm your inaugural speaker. So I'm not sure if I'm going to set the tone, or you're going to say, 'Finally, that guy is out of here, and now we can get on with the rest of the program.' It is an absolute thrill and honor, as Dr. Rose has indicated, for me to return to the George C. Marshall Center. This is an absolutely magnificent institution.

I need to tell you, ladies and gentlemen something, right from the very beginning. You do not know how lucky and fortunate you are to have been selected by your respective nations and the institutions that you represent to come here, participate in this Senior Executive Seminar, and the most significant aspect of it is the distinct privilege that each of you will have to get to know one another--to get to know one another, to get to know your seminar mates, to begin to spend time with them, to listen to them, to understand from their perspective, to take advantage of what they will tell you about their situations so that when you return to your home countries, you will have a frame of reference, a basis of understanding that far surpasses anything that you now have.

And I don't know if that's a great thing to be saying because each of you already, by virtue of your positions, have already demonstrated your great talent, your great expertise, your knowledge, your professionalism, and the fact that your nations see in you such great potential, for helping move along this most important subject in your countries. So I don't take that part for granted either. You have come here well-credentialed, obviously. You are senior executives. That name, in itself, says what this is about. But let me assure you, that come the end of this program, every one of you will be saying, 'Wow, that was a fantastic experience.' And not because Kip Ward is here. You're probably saying, 'We'll be glad when that guys gone,' but because of the opportunity that you will have to expand your network, your network of contacts, those with whom you can discuss this very important topic, and accept perspectives, accept ideas about how to deal with it in ways beyond those that you currently have.
That is the true value of this experience. Dr. Rose and his great staff at the Marshall Center will provide you with venues, a very distinguished list of guest speakers who will come here and provide you topics about which you can talk and during that process, this sharing goes on.

So if I could be so bold as to give a bit of instruction to this distinguished group, I would say take advantage of your seminar mates, those who sit to your right and your left, as I create the mirror effect. So that their perspectives can help influence, help guide, help you better understand this very complex problem that we, as nations of the world face, as pertains to the business of trafficking of narcotics--clearly a destabilizing factor for the world, to include that part of the world that my unified command now conducts its activities, the continent of Africa, but to be sure, that part of the world where in my previous assignment as the deputy commander of United States European Command, likewise as problematic, and is a global problem. Your being here will put you in such great shape to help your country, to help your region, to help our world deal with that problem that impacts us all.

So let me thank the United States Africa Command, the United States European Command, the counter-narcotics division of both of those commands, as well as the Marshall Center for their hard work that's gone on to this point to put this seminar together and make it a success. Because as I said, the bottom line to that success will be the interaction that you have among yourselves. Take advantage of that. Get to know your seminar mates. Let them get to know you, and I guarantee that this will be a success.
It's great to be in the company of folks who are interested in the stability of all of us. And that's what United States Africa Command is all about -- working with our interagency, our international, our African partners to help build the capacity and help set the conditions for a stable Africa. Now why is that the case? Well, because a stable Africa--just as a stable region, a stable country anywhere, is one that permits free and fair trade, allows access, has stronger and more transparent institutions to help counter challenges that you see in drug trafficking. Now that is not just in the interest of Africa or Americaaâ?it is in the interest of each of us wherever we are.

So helping bring about stability is a daunting task, it won't occur overnight. Drug trafficking is one of those destabilizing factors that must be addressed. It is a threat to the United States and to the international security that no country can be safe from its harmful effects. That is why countering narcotics trafficking is a subject of increasing importance. The topics that will be covered during this seminar such as examining regional and international cooperation between governments to confront the narcotics trafficking, are central to understanding how much of a challenge countering narcotics trafficking can be. It will be evident that illicit trafficking can only be dealt with successfully if we all work together to confront it.
We at United States Africa Command are fully aware of the importance of working with international partners, African partners, interagency partners to help bring about peace and stability. In fact, our mission calls for us to do our work in concert with others--those others being U.S. government agencies who also work in support of our foreign policy objectives. The United States Government uses something that we call the whole-of-government or "3D" approach. Those Ds are Diplomacy, Development, and Defense. This approach is used to address diverse needs, while also supporting United States foreign policy objectives.

U.S. Africa Command coordinates closely with the U.S. Department of State, our U.S. Embassies in each country on the programs and activities that we develop to support the overall United States government effort. I want to emphasize that we, in fact, support--support, not lead--these other government agencies so that our work is done more harmoniously and more coherently with the work being done by others, to include our international partners.

In terms of countering narcotics trafficking, in addition to our interagency partnerships, we have established relationships with international organizations that, in fact, share our interests. Organizations such as the United Kingdom (UK) Serious Organized Crime Agency, The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, the German Criminal Police and the Maritime Analysis and Operations Center for Narcotics (MAOC) in Lisbon, Portugal. While these relationships continue to develop, they provide a unique opportunity for large-scale synergy, leveraging and coordinating each of these multiple levels of support.

We believe that we must have as many partnerships as we can have, and those partnerships are important as we work together to help bring about stability that we all desire, wherever we are. So let me now go over quickly in some broad terms what we are doing and then I will highlight some of our specific activities.

As I mentioned, the United States Africa Command's is focused on building security capacity of our African partners through sustained security engagement--such as bolstering support and special staff capabilities, some of the things you are doing right here as a part of this seminar, bolstering special staff capabilities; conducting training to help ensure effective African non-commissioned officer corps; or improving military and dual-use infrastructure.

We want to reinforce success. We want to build upon those activities that have had positive results, to include promoting strategic relationships, as outlined by our strategy and national policy guidance, and most importantly, demonstrating African ownership though activities such as the African Maritime Law Enforcement Program, which I will discuss in more detail in a few minutes.

Many of our activities support the President's goal of addressing Transnational Challenges--drug trafficking to be sure. Also included: terrorism and other illicit trafficking. As these threats to peace are transnational in nature, we encourage regional cooperation through information-sharing, combined planning, exercises, operations conducted against common threats and support to standing organizations that can deal with these threats, such as the African Standby Forces.

I also want to add here, because I am often askeddâ? we have and will respond to crises when directed by our President. Our aim, however is to help prevent conflict, but we do stand ready to take action when we are directed to do so.

In responding to our African partners requests' to help strengthen their security capacity, we are conducting and are supporting myriad activities--some of which I'd like to highlight for you.

Africa Command is working with West African nations, in counter-illicit trafficking, especially maritime trafficking on their coasts. Our role is not drug enforcement; rather, we help build the capacity needed by our partners so they can maintain control over their territorial waters.

The African Maritime Law Enforcement Program (AMLEP) is a combined law enforcement program being conducted off the coasts of Cape Verde, Senegal and Sierra Leone. This program is designed to build partner maritime law enforcement capacity and help detect illicit activities within the exclusive economic zones of the participating nations. We are seeing great success with this program, and as recently as this past December, where Sierra Leone seized four fishing vessels for illegally fishing in their territorial waters without the proper licensing or the proper Sierra Leone citizens on board as those fishing activities were being conducted. I might add it resulted in substantial fines being levied that the --inaudible-- of Sierra Leone was able to use to increase its own capacity.

The African Maritime Law Enforcement Program is a good example of interagency and multinational coordination efforts. For one of our operations, France provided the cueing support through the use of their maritime patrol aircraft based out of Dakar, and Africa Command coordinated the operations with the Maritime Analysis and Operations Center there in Lisbon, Portugal. In addition, Sao Tome and Senegal observed the operations with ship riders on board, again being able to do some of what you are doing by watching others, helping to increase their capacity.

We carefully plan one of these maritime law enforcement programs each year, which also takes advantage of using one of our United Stats Coast Guard cutters as a part of that program. Most recently, the United States Coast Guard Cutter Dallas, this past November, participated in a very similar exercise being conducted off the coast of the continent. For 2010, we are planning "AMLEP 2010" with the United States Coast Guard Cutter Gallatin. It will be conducted with Morocco, Cape Verde, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. Again, with international staff from European nations on board as well during the conduct of these various legal activities.

The Africa Partnership Station (APS), another activity that you may have heard, is one of our primary efforts to help increase maritime security and maritime domain awareness off the coast of the continent of Africa. It is an ongoing program of at-sea training deployments providing assistance to coastal partner nations at their request. You will hear more about this program during the conduct of this seminar, so I won't go into any more detail than that now, but the point I'd like to highlight--again, this is about how we, the United States of America, can be of assistance to our African partners in conjunction and in coordination with our international partners, our interagency partners, to help them provide for their own security--a model that I think that many of you would see in many of your countries around the world, and clearly those of you represented here know that model, to be sure.

The Africa Partnership Station uses vessels, I mentioned that sometimes they are coast guard vessels, naval vessels, who are embarked with international staff and observers from European and African Countries. This is one of our signature programs and in addition to having it conducted on the West coast of Africa, is now also being conducted on the East Coast of Africa. When I visited the African Union in Addis Ababa, and spoke with the chairperson of the African Union as well as the commissioner of the Peace and Security Commission, and both are very interested in how we can continue to expand that program, especially given the threat of illegal trafficking that many of the nations face with their ability or inability to effectively patrol their territorial waters. We do it regionally such that that cooperation is also being--inaudible-- among the regional neighbors who are being affected by the same challenge.
This is an ever growing effort supported by many international and African partners. The Royal Navy of the Netherlands, for example, provided the Johan De Witt which acted as an Africa Patnership Platform and carried the Africa Partnership Station banner.

Obviously countering narco-trafficking and maritime security are not our only efforts. Although these remain critical, we also conduct exercises that tend to build other types of capacity, such as disaster response. And it is appropriate, as now we are in the midst of a very terrible disaster in Haiti that we all are aware of, and how devastating that has been to that small island nation. It can happen anyplace. And so how we have worked with African nations, that's another one of our examples. I'll site for you an exercise that we call Natural Fire.

It is a multilateral exercise conducted most recently in Uganda which helped train participating militaries in increasing their disaster response and humanitarian assistance action efforts, working together as regional partners. I bring this up because it is a great example of partners working together, and Africans working toward their stated goal of Africans solving African problems. It is important to keep in mind that security and development are closely linked to one another. Without either, there is no stability. The Natural Fire, I mentioned its regional application--five nations in Africa working together in this exercise. They were Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. But again, the regional aspects of this--working together, not just the military, but also a seminar, similar to what you're doing here, where civilian leadership and uniform leadership of those five countries came together to discuss how they can work regionally to deal with a natural disaster.

And now that's going on in Haiti. I might add that one of our Africa Partnership Station vessels that was just about to begin its activities in West Africa was diverted, it is now in Haiti, and I might add, it already had aboard its ship-riders from the participating nations. So right now there are ship-riders from, I think, seven African nations in Haiti working with Haiti Earthquake relief because they are a part of that vessel. Each nation said it's fine. So as we turned that vessel to go assist in the Haiti rescue operation, there are Africans aboard that vessel participating in earthquake relief operations, and are now a part of the international efforts to help those people in need, our fellow human beings.

Counter-terror is a big activity. Increasing the capacity of a security force to deal with it is only one aspect of it. And you will talk about many of those aspects. Having a capable maritime force, a capable border security force, a capable law enforcement force is only one piece of it. Counter Terror Finance law--likewise important. We don't do that, I don't make laws, but I understand the importance of effective laws so that when those who deal in trafficking are apprehended, there are effective tools in place to adjudicate that crime, punish that crime, and, if required, incarcerate, jail those who have been responsible. Clearly, a multifaceted requirement here to deal with these sorts of issues.

Senegal recently passed a Counter Terror Finance law and their Central Bank and financial intelligence unit are working hard to track down money laundering and other illicit financial transactions. I'm not an expert in this area, as I said, but I do know the link between terrorism and other related crimes, such as drug trafficking, has been recognized by the United Nations Security Council. The UN Office of Drugs and Crime recently stated that a thorough understanding is needed in order to develop solid strategies to prevent and disrupt crimes such as drug trafficking. Your participation in this seminar will help define those strategies--those aspects of an effective strategy that will help nations, your nations, the global community, deal with drug trafficking. That's why this seminar is such an important one, and why I congratulate you on your participation in it--learning and understanding together to bring about collaboration in our efforts to counter illegal trafficking, absolutely critical, transnational problem. It will take advantage of every seam, of every border gap that exists. Your being here, participating in this seminar will help your nations, will help the global community, address those gaps, the threat that we can together better prevent, stop, as best we can, illegal trafficking.

As I mentioned, the dialogue you have here, the relationships that develop during the week will continue once you have returned home, allowing each of you to expand your network of willing partners in the fight against the destabilizing drug threat.
We believe that an integrated approach is indeed the best approach. It allows us to bring together our resources and talent. None of us can do it by ourselves. Each of us can contribute to the accomplishments of this noble task, as we seek to protect our people and our institutions of government from the scourge of illegal trafficking. It also helps promote a unity of effort that encourages us to dialogue in areas where agencies and countries can bring a more coherent approach to the problem set as we account for our different views. And, to be sure, we will have different views, and that's OK. We are stronger because of that difference, and when we come together, we can use that to make our overall efforts that much stronger.

I encourage you to take the lessons learned from your discussions throughout this week such as those successes in reducing the narcotics trafficking threat, and to build upon them.

Together we will make a difference. This is not an issue that it will be nice if we would all cooperate on--we don't have an option--so it wouldn't be a good thing, let's all work together on combating drugs, let's make a deal, it won't work that way. We are obligated to work together to make a difference. And why? Our nations are depending on us, our citizens are depending on us, not as individuals, not as separate entities, but as a collaborative, a combined force. It is a threat to each of our nations, wherever we live and wherever we are. It's a threat all of our people face, our--inaudible--are threatened by this. The prosperity of our nation is threatened by illegal trafficking--global. The good news is that your nations have said it's fine to come here, to talk, to share ideas, to develop solutions--solutions that can be applied to deal with this threat. And again, it doesn't matter how large or how small your nation, that is totally irrelevant. What is relevant is that each nation has a role to play and can make a contribution in helping reduce this global threat that we are all affected by.

So, talk a lot, share those good ideas, develop those solutions--those solutions that can be applied across the range of activities, that will begin to deal with this threat that we all feel, that our people feel, that takes away our national treasure, that corrupts our institutions, that prohibits and stops the development that our people deserve. Tall order, but if it was easy someone else would have done it a long time ago. So you are here to move that along. And as I started off by saying, expand your Rolladex, grow your list of contacts, so that as these challenges are dealt with in the future, you can recall your seminar mates, pick up the telephone, send and email and say 'Remember, we talked about that. We said this might be a solution. You think this is still relevant, something we can take advantage of?' And you've got a seminar mate here who will help you understand a bit better and you can share that with those of your teams back in your home countries.

Congratulations on being here. I think this is the first time I've seen you this year, so I can say "Happy Year." It's not too late in the year to say that. And I wish you a great and successful seminar, but more importantly, a seminar that will allow you to go home and use what you've gained here, to include your contacts, to help us address a global threat that we together can defeat.
Thank you very much. I'll take questions.