Congo operation underlined airlift shortcomings

Date:18/09/03

By David Cronin

DEFENCE weaknesses were exposed during Operation Artemis in the Congo, the EU's chief of staff admitted yesterday (17 September).

The shortcomings evident during the EU's first military operation outside Europe did not, however, come as any surprise, said General Rainer Schuwirth. The inadequacy of the EU's military transport facilities was the main problem.

"The theatre of operations was 6,500 kilometres from the European mainland," explained the German chairman of the EU Military Staff.

"Deploying forces over such distances and particularly sustaining them over such distances reiterates the requirement for transport."

The dearth of Europe's air transport capability came in for heavy criticism earlier this month from NATO Secretary-General George Robertson. The Scotsman said he was "ashamed" that Europe "can call on just four military transport aircraft compared to America's 350".

Schuwirth declined to say whether he supported the proposal by Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg to have an EU military headquarters, independent of NATO, established in the Brussels suburb of Tervuren. Pointing out that EU military operations can either be launched with recourse to NATO assets or by transforming the national military headquarters of an EU country into a multinational one (as happened in the case of Artemis), he said: "Should over time, new headquarters emerge, we will have to analyse this. But I'm not able to speculate about requirements which do not really exist at the time being."

Aldo Ajello, the EU's envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region, said Operation Artemis, a French-led undertaking involving 2,200 troops, had helped calm the situation in the north-eastern Ituri province.

Ajello said that when he visited the city of Bunia earlier this year he was shocked by the sight of child soldiers brandishing kalashnikovs.

But when he returned in July - this time accompanying Javier Solana, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs - there were no longer any unauthorized weapons visible on the streets.

General Rainer Schuwirth, the European Union's Chief of Staff, admitted on 17 September 2003 that there had been shortcomings during the EU's first military operation outside Europe, Operation Artemis in the Congo.