Press Releases
550 Zambian Defense Personnel Graduate from U.S.-Sponsored Peacekeeping Training.
August 24, 2007. Lusaka
On Friday, 24 August 2007, approximately 550 Zambian military personnel from the Army, Zambia Air Force (ZAF) and Zambia National Service (ZNS), completed peacekeeping training as part of the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program, which was sponsored by the United States Government. The training was conducted at ZAF Lusaka and ZNS Kafue Military Training Camp.
This is the first Zambian battalion to participate in ACOTA. The ACOTA program provides field training for African peacekeepers as well as staff training and exercises for battalion headquarters personnel. ACOTA also provides equipment packages for future training, and for actual deployment. At the ceremony, U.S. Ambassador Carmen Martinez added that “the U.S. Government is prepared to provide other equipment for Zambian peacekeepers should Government decide to participate in the UN/AU hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur.”
The ACOTA program covers a wide range of peace support operations tasks, including small unit leadership, disarmament operations, weapons handling, management of refugees, rules of engagement and command and control. Respect for international standards of human rights is a fundamental concept throughout the training. ACOTA also stresses HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention training. An important ACOTA training tool is computer-assisted simulation exercises that help prepare defense personnel to conduct effective peace support or humanitarian relief operations.
To date, ACOTA has provided training and non-lethal equipment to over 43,000 peacekeepers from African partner militaries, including countries that have committed troops to Darfur. Besides Zambia, ACOTA partners now include Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania. These partners have sent peacekeeping contingents to varied missions such as Sudan, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Burundi, Kosovo, and Lebanon and to humanitarian relief efforts in Mozambique.
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