African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance

The ACRI's immediate objective was to increase the number of African states with effective response capability for peacekeeping and humanitarian relief challenges, thereby improving stability and peace within their own borders and their sub-regions.

[5][6] The pressing reason for establishing the ACRI at the time had been the imminent possibility of a major genocide in Burundi, similar to the ethnic cleansing which had taken place in 1994 in Rwanda.

In 1992, following the fall of the Siad Barre regime, the U.S. opted for a military intervention which it named Restore Hope but the operation soon escalated when the focus shifted from humanitarian aid to an attempt at restructuring Somalia’s government.

Regional leaders such as Michel Micombero of Burundi, Idi Amin of Uganda, Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic and Mobutu of Zaire directly and indirectly contributed to the commencement war and genocide by taking a stance of indifference toward state-implemented criminal recommendation which had exploited myths of Tutsi and Hutu origins.

[13] ACOTA's 25 partners included Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia.