Mozambique: Magala calls on transport companies to avoid accidents
While recognizing the “primary responsibility” of the UN Security Council, the Mozambican government yesterday expressed its confidence in “African solutions to African problems”, targeting a conflict-free continent by 2020.
“Whether in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Somalia, South Sudan or the Central African Republic, African men and women, under the aegis of the African Union or the United Nations, strive to achieve the desired goal of a continent free of conflict and free from the thunder of weapons by 2020,” Mozambican Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi said at the opening of the Amani Afica II field exercise assessment meeting.
Addressing some 200 delegates, including the African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security, Baloi noted that “strengthening collective mainland intervention capacity is not a rejection of international community assistance”. This included the UN Security Council, which has “the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security”.
Baloi called the Amani Africa II training exercise in Addis Ababa and in Lohatla, South Africa, in 2015, involving 5,000 civilian, military and police personnel from across the continent, a success, and a demonstration of the continent’s readiness.
“In Lohatla, we confirmed that, despite the many and complex challenges, the continent has the capacity to authorize, plan, deploy, direct, manage, maintain and remove multidimensional ‘green helmet’ missions,” the minister said.
The exercise, according Baloi, was also a way to tell the world that “the continent is able and ready” and is “evidence that African problems can and should have African solutions”.
However, the minister warned that the exercise identified challenges still to be overcome, such as military disparities between the various economic communities, regional mechanisms and member states.
These difficulties, he said, “are challenges to the effective deployment of an African peacekeeping force on alert and at full operational capability”, going on to highlight the importance of adhering to commitments under the regional and continental non-aggression pacts.
The meeting, which runs in Maputo all this week, forms part of Mozambique’s presidency of the Southern African Development Community Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation.
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