UNCLAS LILONGWE 000167

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR AF/S GABRIELLE MALLORY
STATE FOR INR/AA
STATE FOR ACOTA

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, MI
SUBJ: ACOTA VIP DAY A SUCCESS

REF: LILONGWE 113

1. (U) Officials from the Malawi Defense Force (MDF), the
Ministry of Defense, Parliament, and local media attended a
VIP day at the African Contingency Operations Training
Assistance (ACOTA) training on February 15. The ACOTA
training runs from February 6 - 24, and is training over 950
MDF soldiers in various aspects of peacekeeping.

2. (SBU) Ten parliamentarians from the Security and Defense
Committee, including the committee Chairman, made the hour
and a half hour trip to Salima for the training overview.
One of the five companies that VIPs observed in the ACOTA
training is scheduled to cycle into the peace-keeping
mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo next month,
replacing a Malawian company currently there.

3. (SBU) Malawian officials expressed gratitude for the
opportunity to visit the training, and some parliamentarians
noted that it was their first time to an army facility
outside the capital city. The ACOTA training wraps up on
February 24 with a battalion-wide evacuation exercise.


CLOUD