After a week of intense deliberations, the high level meeting of African intelligence chiefs going under the name Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA) closed business on Friday last week here in Kigali. Lt Col. Joseph Nzabamwita, Rwanda’s deputy Secretary General for the National Security Service had this to say: "I am confident that deliberations from the meeting will go a long way in providing us with the necessary tools and practices to eradicate the threat that the genocide ideology poses.”

This was a big issue amongst the many intercontinental security challenges that the intelligence officials discussed – how best to curb insecurity generally, and genocide threats in particular, on the continent.

There cannot be any doubt that many countries want security and peace as pre-requisites for development. Rwanda wishes it, lobbies for it, lives it and teaches it to its population. How else can it be, when just next door the tinder is just ready to go up in flames again when FDLR are grouping and regrouping for mayhem targeted at Rwanda?

Well, we might be called upon here to think Africa, but charity begins at home… The Congolese population living where the FDLR marauders have made their home are suffering; the people in Darfur wish a better life; Uganda’s LRA have wreaked havoc on the northern and northern eastern people of Uganda for decades now.

It is not a matter of genocide alone, because this might tempt nations that would, and should, take a lot of interest to intervene given the threats posed in some circumstances, to hold back because the threats do not amount to a genocide. We have seen and heard similar mumbo jumboing and it is sickening; for example when the Genocide of 1994 is called not a genocide by some, but a civil war! If they are granted their wish, would a civil war have justified their silence, or even deliberate sabotage at attempts to make the situation better?

Africa is depending a lot on what such regional security meetings can put on the table in terms of bringing peace and security to the region. CISSA, Tripartite Plus Commission, and any other – we applaud such efforts, and hope that they will make a big, big difference in securing the ordinary person’s life.  


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