Djibouti is a small East African country with an area of 23,200 square km or a little bit smaller than Haiti, Rwanda, or North Macedonia, or a little bit larger than Belize, El Salvador, Israel, or Slovenia.
Within this space, we can find numerous military bases belonging to France, China, the United States, Japan, Germany, Spain, and Italy, including:
- U.S.: Camp Lemonnier, (4,000 troops),
- France and Spain: Les forces françaises stationnées à Djibouti, (1,500 troops),
- China: People’s Liberation Army Support Base, (1,500 troops with room for 10,000),
- Japan: “Self-Defense” Force Base,
- Italy: Base militare italiana di supporto “Amedeo Guillet,”
- France, U.S., Japan, and Italy: Djibouti–Ambouli International Airport,
- France, U.S., and Germany: Chabelley Airfield,
- Saudi Arabia: reportedly building a base,
Click here to sign and share the petition to close these bases.
For a number of these nations, the base in Djibouti is the only or most significant foreign military base in the world. For the United States, which possesses well over 90 percent of the world’s foreign military bases, its base in Djibouti is merely one of over 800.
Foreign military bases tend to result in more, not less, warfare. U.S. base construction and “war on terror” efforts in Africa, including drone murders launched from Djibouti, have resulted in a 75,000 percent increase in terrorism.
As with military bases around the world, research has documented a link between bases in Djibouti and sexual violence.
As with military bases, especially foreign military bases, around the world, these bases in Djibouti increase militarism and heighten tensions — including between nations like the United States and China that are both basing troops in Djibouti supposedly as part of a competition with the other. Already there have been accusations of hostile actions between the two in Djibouti.
These bases support a government that the U.S. government-funded Freedom House calls “Not Free,” and the U.S. State Department says engages in unlawful or arbitrary killings, arbitrary detention, harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, criminal libel, and substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association. According to the U.S. State Department, Djibouti is home to significant violence against women and girls with inadequate government action for prosecution and accountability, including female genital mutilation/cutting.
These bases make Djibouti a target for terrorism/war, do horrible environmental damage without local control, and take land from indigenous populations.
Djibouti’s government takes in over $170 million a year in rent from foreign militaries, but the people of Djibouti do not benefit, and the poverty rate is 79 percent with 42 percent in extreme poverty. In the 2018 UN Human Development Index ranking, Djibouti is ranked 209th out of 228 countries.
It’s time to close Djibouti’s bases.
Sign the petition to the governments of U.S., China, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Saudi Arabia:Close your bases in Djibouti, remove your troops, and substitute no-strings humanitarian aid for rent payments.
