Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema addressed the 12th African Land Forces Summit in Livingstone, Zambia, on April 24, 2024. The theme of the conference was “Regional Solutions to Transnational Problems.” Hichilema was the first head of state to speak at the summit since its inaugural iteration in 2010. His remarks have been edited for length and clarity.
We want to express to this distinguished gathering of commanders how delighted we are that 38-plus African countries would be gathering here in our country in the days we have been here. Let me also express our delight to the choice of the theme, “Regional Solutions to Transnational Problems.”
This is an extremely appropriate theme given the challenges that we are all going through on our continent and beyond.
As chair of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security of our regional economic community called SADC, the Southern African Development Community, we are extremely active working with other member states to make sure that our region is stable. And we know the importance of keeping SADC stable so that we don’t contribute to instability to other parts of Africa, and invariably, the world.
Let me clearly state that this gathering provides a valuable opportunity to share best practices on how we can collectively foster peace across our various regions. This is extremely important because sometimes, if we have no issues in our country, we begin to feel that our responsibility ends there. Absolutely not. We are each other’s keepers, within our countries, within our regional blocs, within our continent and our global community.
Experience has shown us that if we turn a blind eye to what’s happening elsewhere, we are behaving like ostriches, sticking our heads in the sand, and then assuming that the whole body is safe. We shouldn’t behave like ostriches at all.
We need a stable Africa. That’s our declaration. And this summit cannot provide any better opportunity or platform for you to exchange notes. So, we declare as leaders that we are committed to achieving that betterment of the lives of our people. We also know that we cannot achieve this without maintaining peace, security and stability. That’s where you come in. That’s your primary responsibility as the people sitting in this hall, working with the rest of our citizens on this continent and beyond.
And as you know, we cannot work as islands. We work in unison with others, in this, our global community. Our call to action is that we urge everyone to contribute to ensuring a stable continent that upholds enduring peace, security and stability to facilitate the bare minimum economic growth.
The international community must provide or work with us on the continent in three areas. One is intelligence sharing. No. 2, sharing capabilities, including No. 3, technology. I think in today’s environment, technological applications are very important, because we can also reduce putting our men and women in harm’s way unnecessarily when we are able to apply technology to what we are doing to maintain peace, stability and security.
African solidarity is very important. We want to state that true to the African spirit, a good neighbor cannot remain passive when another’s house is on fire. Given the nature of our villages, because your roof is almost touching the roof of the neighbor, if you do not help the neighbor extinguish the fire, the fire will extend to you. Indeed, my saying — and I’m very pleased that it’s being repeated — confirms what I’ve been saying for years: that instability anywhere is instability everywhere.
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