KAMPALA: President Yoweri Museveni has said that the Regional Oversight Mechanism of the Peace, Security, and Cooperation Framework has not been effective in dealing with the region’s mounting security risks.
“I want to inform you that the mechanism has not worked well for four reasons,” Museveni remarked, citing the imported pseudo ideology of exclusion and sectarianism, a lack of cooperation, poor infrastructure, and a lack of social and economic transformation, among others.
The President was speaking Thursday in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at the 10th Heads of State Summit of the Regional Oversight Mechanism of the Addis Ababa Framework Agreement. President Museveni, who takes pride in being one of the most indigenous groups in the Great Lakes, referred to as “ideological bankruptcy” believes that the people producing insecurity in the region do not belong there.
In the great lakes, we know the people who have lived there since time immemorial. The ones who live in the grasslands, in the mountains and forest regions are the ones who have been promoting a pseudo ideology of exclusion. This is what caused big problems in Rwanda, Burundi, and other parts.
Museveni, who is also the outgoing chairman of the summit, said this has led to the mishandling of security issues, causing suffering and displacements.
“We are very rich in refugees. We (Uganda) have got 1.7 million refugees. “These refugees are not coming from the moon but from the Great Lakes Region, caused by insecurity and attacks by criminal groups,” Museveni said.
According to Museveni, however, the groups causing insecurity in the Great Lakes Region can all be defeated from what he has observed in the last 60 years.
“This problem of insecurity in Africa, which is becoming bigger and bigger, can be defeated. Our elders like Mwalimu Nyerere (Tanzania), Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia) and others, with friendly fighters from Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, defeated bigger problems. We were able to defeat the whites in Southern Africa and Namibia. How can we fail to defeat these reluctant groups? That means there’s something that is missing that our elders did and we’re not doing, “Museveni said, adding that there’s now more capacity than Tanzania, Botswana, and Zambia had in 1974 when the African armies defeated the Portuguese Army in Africa.
The President saluted President Felix Tshisekedi of the DRC for cooperating to eliminate the rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces-ADF.
If we cooperate, there’s no security problem we cannot defeat in Africa. I’m telling you this because I know it, “Museveni stressed.
At the same summit, Uganda’s President Museveni handed over chairmanship of the mechanism to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Felix Tshisekedi Tshilombo.
Tshisekedi saluted President Museveni and that of Rwanda’s Paul Kagame for the successful reopening of the Katuna-Gatuna border for the smooth flow of business in the region.
The two-day meeting at State House Kinshasa attracted heads of state and representatives from the 13 countries in the Great Lakes Region, including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Gabon, South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Among those present were President of the Republic of Congo Brazzaville, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, and Ali Bongo Odimba (Gabon).
Angola’s Jose Eduardos Santos, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Burundi’s Évariste Ndayishimiye, and Jean-Pierre Lacroix, UN Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.
The Regional Oversight Mechanism of the Peace, Security, and Cooperation Framework is a structure formed with a determination to end the cycles of conflict and violence that have characterised Africa’s Great Lakes region.