1. (C) SUMMARY: France is in the process of training a
Ugandan military unit in Uganda for eventual deployment to
AMISOM in Somalia. This is the fifth training operation of
this nature the French have conducted; the four previous ones
involved Uganda (three units) and Burundi (one unit). The
French are concerned about the elaborate budget the UN
Department of Field Support (UNDFS) has put together for the
UN's assistance to AMISOM and fear that UNDFS has gotten
ahead of itself and may be planning for a UN mission to
replace AMISOM, which France would not favor. END SUMMARY.

French Training for AMISOM


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2. (C) In response to reftel, French MFA Somalia desk
officer Thierry Caboche said on March 19 that France was
training a unit of Ugandan military for service in AMISOM.
Forty French trainers were conducting the training in Uganda.
(Caboche clarified on March 20 that this training had
already begun but he did not know where specifically in
Uganda it was taking place.) The present training program
followed four previous French training operations in
connection with AMISOM, three of which involved Ugandans,
with the fourth involving Burundian troops. The units
trained by the French consisted of between 600 and 800 troops
each. Caboche said that no other training programs were
being planned, but he did not rule out the possibility of
additional training down the road and that such training
might be carried out in Djibouti. The GOF was considering
Djibouti as a possible training site for other units to join
AMISOM but had reached no conclusion. Djiboutians, he
reported, seemed receptive to the possiblity. Caboche
remarked that the GOF had not done an internal cost analysis
of all of AMISOM-related training as it had not yet been
placed in a budget category at the MOD. Caboche said that
the GOF was preparing an update of statistics associated with
the training progams and that he would provide a copy once
one is available.

UN Assistance to AMISOM


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3. (C) Caboche took the opportunity to comment on France's
concerns about the UN Department of Field Support (UNDFS) and
what he described as its very extravagant plan and budget for
the logistical and other support the UN is supposed to
provide to AMISOM. Echoing what other GOF officials had
stated previously, Caboche said that the UN plan would be
appropriate, perhaps, for a "gold-plated, full-scale" UN PKO
but seemed excessive in the AU/AMISOM context. The UN plan
called for opening several new support offices involving
perhaps 250 new personnel, which, he commented, seemed by any
measure excessive. Equally worrisome, Caboche noted, was the
tone of the reports and plans UNDFS was submitting to the UN.
According to Caboche, they were all written as if current
planning contemplated an eventual UN successor mission to
AMISOM. Expressing a longstanding French view, Caboche
repeated that France did not favor a new UN PKO to replace
AMISOM in Somalia, and he said that UNDFS should focus on
doing what is necessary to support AMISOM and not devote its
energies, as it seemed to be doing, to laying the groundwork
for a UN PKO in Somalia.

PEKALA