The agreement was signed on the same day by Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada and the foreign minister of Djibouti, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, in Tokyo. The month before Japan sent two destroyers to the Gulf of Aden.
Two months later Japan deployed two new destroyers, the 4,550-ton Harusame and the 3,500-ton Amagiri, off the Horn of Africa. Also last July the Japanese press disclosed that "The U.S....asked Japan to build its own facilities to carry out full-fledged operations," and that at the time "about 150 members of the Ground Self-Defense Force and MSDF [Maritime Self-Defense Force] stationed in Djibouti live in U.S. military lodgings near an airport." [4] The Japanese military announced plans to construct a runway for Maritime Self-Defense Force P-3C surveillance planes and barracks for its troops.
Although Russian, Chinese, Indian and Iranian ships in the Horn of Africa are there to protect their own and other nations' vessels and their missions are understood to be limited to anti-piracy operations and to a prescribed duration, Japan and its American and NATO allies have established permanent land, naval and air bases in the region for use in armed conflicts on the African continent.
In early 2001 the U.S. started negotiations with the government of Djibouti for setting up its first major military base in Africa at the former French Foreign Legion base Camp Lemonnier. (Until recently spelled Lemonier by the Pentagon.)
This was several years before combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden became the rationale for U.S. and NATO deployments in the region.
Djibouti is the last territory on the African continent to achieve independence (excepting Western Sahara, seized by Morocco in 1975 with the connivance of Spain's General Franco), only being granted what independence it has by France in 1977. Its population is less than 900,000.
France still maintains its largest overseas military base in the world in the nation and has approximately 3,000 troops stationed there.
Since the Pentagon moved into and took over Camp Lemonnier in 2003, it established its Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) on the base and has an estimated 2,000 troops from all four branches of the U.S. military - Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps - stationed there.
The Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa's area of operations incorporates Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Yemen and increasingly the Indian Ocean island nations of Comoros, Madagascar and Mauritius.
As the U.S. was transferring the CJTF-HOA command from the Marine Corps to the Navy in 2005 - to free up Marines for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - the then commander, Major Marine General Timothy Ghormley, acknowledged that "U.S. forces have been working with militaries in Yemen, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Comoros" [5] and "operate throughout Kenya, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Yemen and Ethiopia." [6]
France has used its base in Djibouti for deadly military interventions in Cote d'Ivoire and Chad and, because of the nation's topography, Djibouti has also been used for training French troops for the war in Afghanistan, where the nation's contingent is the fourth largest serving under NATO command.
Last December the commander of the French army in the country, Commandant Etienne du Fayet, said that "French officers are going to be training a contingent in Uganda next February and we are also going to Ethiopia." [7] During deadly border clashes between Djibouti and Eritrea in June of 2008 France deployed additional troops, warships and aircraft to the region.
The U.S. base has been used for military operations in Somalia and Uganda. In 2008 the deputy commander of U.S. forces in the country was cited as revealing that "the Djibouti base facilitates some other military activities he won't talk about.
"There have been reports of U.S. special operations forces working from the base on counter-terrorism missions in Somalia and elsewhere....[T]hat approach is the model for the new United States Africa Command...."
At the same time Rear Admiral Philip Greene took over as commander of the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa and, speaking over nine months before the formal activation of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), said "There is, I think, great synergy between what CJTF-Horn of Africa does now and what we're about and what AFRICOM will represent as a combatant command."
