Hosia Mviringi
The SADC Extraordinary Double Troika Summit ended in Mozambique yesterday with one of the major resolutions being the immediate resuscitation of the SADC regional standby force, the SADC Brigade, to ensure an immediate and effective deployment into the terror-stricken Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique.
Speaking on arrival from Maputo Mozambique last night, President Emmerson Mnangagwa stressed the importance of collective effort and responsibility for the intervention mission.
“We agreed to have SADC to take responsibility in dealing with the threat in Cabo Delgado in the sense that SADC through it’s intervention brigade, our SADC force should be resuscitated and capacitated immediately so that we can intervene, as SADC,” said President Mnangagwa.
Asked whether a decision was sealed for the SADC Force to go into Mozambique for an armed intervention, President Mnangagwa was unequivocal.
” Yes. What is happening now is that the Defence and Security Chiefs have the responsibility to implement decisions of the Double Troika,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, the Extraordinary Double Troika Summit authorised the immediate technical deployment of armed units into the troubled regions with the aim of making detailed assessment of the situation on the ground.
A report that will be submitted to the Organ Troika Summit on April 29 2021 will guide the next steps for the force.
The Cabo Delgado insurgency remains a thorn in the flesh for SADC and therefore its timeous resolution is in the best interests of all member states.
A spill over of the conflict into neighbouring states will deal a deadly blow to the relative peace that had become a hallmark of the region.
The establishment and sustenance of the SADC Standby Force or SADC Brigade as it is otherwise known has been marred with challenges that range between internal conflicts within member states, weak regional economic development, endemic poverty and lack of commitment to security cooperation between member states.
These factors have impacted negatively on the establishment and funding of the force for effective deployment in times of need.
The development of SADCBRIG is dependent on the economic situation of member countries.
Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola undertook a costly emergency military intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998 to defend sovereignty of that country which had come under attack from foreign funded insurgents, a mission which was individually funded from domestic resources, with dire financial consequences to their respective economies due to lack of a collective funding arrangement.
Thus the insistence on a collective approach to the current challenge in Mozambique.
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