Aziz had role in Africa training

[unhappycamper]

Aziz had role in Africa training
By Charlie Coon, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, August 9, 2008

STUTTGART, Germany — The leader of a military coup that overthrew Mauritania’s elected president has worked with U.S. forces that train in the African country.

As one of the nation’s top military leaders, Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz "is a senior official and we have a bilateral relationship with him as we coordinate our security cooperation programs," a spokesman for the U.S. European Command said.

Aziz, who also assisted in a 2005 coup that overthrew a longtime ruler, on Wednesday led a group that arrested President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, his prime minister and interior minister.

Abdallahi’s election in March 2007 in the coup-plagued country was considered a democratic breakthrough, the kind the U.S. military hopes to foster in Africa through its Stuttgart-based European and Africa commands. That one of their training partners, Aziz, would lead a coup against a democratically elected president was called bad news by U.S. military leaders.

"When we talk about good governance and military involvement, one of the first things we talk about — and it’s a large takeaway of what we try to impart — is ‘civilian control of the military,’ " said Lt. Col. John Dorrian, the European Command spokesman.


Rest of Africom article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=56642