Addressing the issue of insecurity in the region and on the African continent in general will only be successful if countries work together to develop appropriate mechanism to check security threats, rather than operating in isolation.

This was observed yesterday by the Minister for Defence, James Kabarebe, while opening a three-day national security symposium at the Rwanda Defence Forces Command and Staff College in Nyakinama, Musanze District.

The symposium, which is part of a one-year senior officers’ course at the college, brings together academics, national security practitioners, researchers, analysts and students to interact and discuss contemporary security challenges in the African perspective with a view to develop practical solutions.

Negative forces

He said that countries engage in diplomatic and security cooperation to address security threats that affect them collectively stressing it is the reason why they subscribe to bodies like the United Nations, African Union and several other regional economic communities that have political and legal framework to address regional and global security challenges.

"Our region is experiencing security threats as a result of negative forces that continue to target our people and affect our development programmes. The FDLR genocidal force and other negative forces in the eastern DR Congo are not only a threat to Rwanda but also to the region as a whole,” Kabarebe said.

The FDLR is an outfit that is commanded and composed of elements responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

"The prevailing insecurity in Burundi does not affect Burundians alone but the region as a whole; therefore, intrastate conflicts in Burundi, Somalia, Central Africa Republic, South Sudan and elsewhere in Africa require appropriate response mechanisms from within Africa itself ,” He added

He said the symposium was an opportunity for the course students to engage in academic and practical real life security issues that affect military profession.

"By the end of the three day symposium, you will have gained enough tools to enable you perform your duties in the field with clarity and understanding of the geopolitical nature of the contemporary security challenges of the continent,” Kabarebe told participants

"Those are the real challenges that you will be facing when you go back to your respective countries where you will be required to apply the knowledge you acquired from this college to bring about positive changes,” he added

Maj. Gen Jean Bosco Kazura, the college commandant, described the symposium as an additional tool to empower student officers to deal with current and future security challenges.

He said the students will take ideas and lessons from its sessions and knit them together with the view to be among the contributors to a sustainable and secure future of African nations.

"If our world today appears more threatened than ever, and if modern life brings with it so many competing pressures, then nothing would be more relevant than discussing and understanding our role in shaping it,” said Kazura.

The course, the fourth intake, brings together 46 senior officers from eight countries, namely Burundi, Kenya, Malawi, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Rwanda.

Topics of discussion, according to officials, include transnational crimes on the continent, combating cross-border negative forces through interagency cooperation; counter terrorism strategies on the African continent, cyber threats, and plausible measures.

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