Africa-Press – Botswana. The SADC secretariat has re-affirmed its commitment to continue supporting and facilitating the work of the organ on politics, defence and security cooperation to achieve its mandate to promote and preserve peace and security in the region.
However member states were encouraged to do their utmost in exploiting the existing mechanisms and truly preserve peace and security in their area.
SADC executive secretary, Mr Elias Magosi said in his welcome remarks at the SADC organ troika summit of Heads of States and government at Luanda, Angola yesterday.
“I am very deliberate in the use of the words ‘preserve peace and security’ because once they are lost, the price we pay to reclaim them is enormous, painful and often littered with landmines and curve balls that always test our resolve as a region to want to continue,” Mr Magosi said.
As such, he encouraged member states to support the incoming chairperson, President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia to enable him to achieve the organ mandate.
Mr Magosi added that the SADC region had however generally remained stable and peaceful during the past year.
Nonetheless, he cautioned that the security challenges in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo still persisted and required continued monitoring and interventions by the region.
“There have been numerous key decisions taken and interventions made by the region including the deployment of the SADC Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC) as the regional response in support of the DRC efforts to address security challenges in Eastern DRC,” he said.
He added that the Quadripartite summit held in Angola in June, under the auspices of the African Union (AU), took a critical decision to adopt a joint framework on coordination and harmonisation of peace initiatives in eastern DRC.
That, he said, would enable SADC intervention in the DRC to be seamless and complementary to other existing players.
Furthermore, he said the security situation in Mozambique had improved significantly as evidenced by the degradation of the terrorist groups, restoration of areas previously occupied by terrorists and safe return of internally displaced persons to their places of origin.
He added that SADC troops would continue to be present in the Mozambique to support government in an effort to assume an increasing role to take full ownership and management of processes beyond the SAMIM mandate as well as ensure that the gains made were sustained.
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