allAfrica.com * U.S. Navy Brings Food for Orphans, Patients The Post (Buea) NEWS 10 December 2007 Posted to the web 10 December 2007 By Francis Tim Mbom The U.S. Navy Thursday, December 6 handed over a consignment of food to the Catholic Relief Service, CRS, at a brief ceremony on board a visiting US Naval vessel in Limbe, USS Fort McHenry. Captain John B. Nowell, the US Commanding Officer of the Africa Partnership Station, APS, programme said the gifts were donations from private individuals back in the US and destined to assist patients and children orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS. He said the consignment was made up of 15 pallets of cartons of rice, sandwiched with other nutritive additives and packed in sachets.The CRS Country Representative, Jennifer Nazaire, said the relief aid would go to assist "the poorest of the poor" in the Bamenda Archdiocese and the Buea Diocese. On behalf of the Bishop of Buea, Joseph Ndifor said the offer was very timely because the Diocese was about to begin an integrated AIDS Services programme.The Director in charge of the Southwest National AIDS Programme, Dr. Rose Forchingong, said 50 percent of an AIDS patient's body need was food while anti-retrovirals make up 25 percent and the balance of 25 percent is for psychosocial needs. The Assistant SDO of Fako, Johnson Malafa, thanked the US Navy for ferrying the food to Cameroon and said that if such partnership is continued, many more people are going to benefit. Training Besides the food aid, Captain Nowell said they were in Cameroon on a training mission that would engage 100 Cameroonian marines among other things. This is the third time in the last nine months that the US Navy is offering military courses on board their ships to Cameroonian marines. The Public Affairs Officer for the programme, Lt. Mike Morley, said this training was on a larger scale than the last two on board USS Kauffman and USS Doyle where only 20 officers were involved. Captain Nowell said the training was to give their partner countries skills and the wherewithal to combat illegal trade, trafficking in arms and drugs, oil theft and piracy among other undercover maritime activities in the waters of the Gulf of Guinea. After Cameroon, the US ship will conduct port visits to APS partner countries and carry out training exercises to bolster maritime safety. From Cameroon, the ship will go on to Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe and further on. Another high speed military ship, HSV 2 SWIFT, still for the APS programme is expected to come in February, 2008. Cameroonian Commander On Board Lt. Commander Clement Fru has been integrated as liaison officer with the USS Fort McHenry APS programme. He has been on board assisting in the training programmes for the next four months. He told The Post that the training would be very beneficial to the Cameroonian navy. Asked if the cooperation would entail the provision of hardware, Fru Fon said:"This programme is just to train and improve on infrastructures. There are other programmes to acquire military infrastructures." Fru Fon added that the business community would be integrated later on.One of the techniques the Cameroonian marines were trained in was how to use the Automated Identity System, AIS, to identify vessels that illegal merchandise like drugs, arms or otherwise. The system is capable of identifying a vessel, determine its size, contents and destination. But pressmen were told this system which works with the aid of a radar device could only identify other vessels that have the systems well installed. This means wooden vessels which are the commonly used on our waters to traffic goods would probably slip by. The officials, however, said the system can still detect the vessels but not their contents. No American Oil Interest To the curiosity that the APS programme was not because of America's oil interests in the Gulf, Captain Nowell, said it was more than that."I am Commander of the US Navy ships in this region and it is not about oil, it is something bigger than that," he said. "The maritime threats regarding illegal fishing, drug migration and indeed insecurity are threats that are common to nations in the region and it was important for the region's economic prosperity," he said. He added that many times people are wont to think that it was just about oil but which was not the case.Lt. Morley also said they were not partnering with Cameroon as an interventionist force but just to provide training and skills. He was responding to a question on whether they could be called in to intervene in the event of an attack on Cameroon like that which left 21 soldiers dead in Bakassi recently. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2007 The Post. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------