Hon Dr Vicent BIRUTA Talk About Congo Landscep

IGIHE

Watch Hon Dr Vicent BIRUTA Talk About Congo Landscep - IGIHE on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00 causes of these conflicts.

00:02 Why has it become so difficult for us to do that?

00:06 Because we have insurgencies that have lasted two decades, even more.

00:10 Within us as Africans, and if one may use this slogan that we love to use,

00:16 "African solutions to Africa's problems,"

00:19 we have set up standby brigades,

00:21 we have set up the Africa Peace and Security Architecture,

00:25 and all these things, they don't seem to work.

00:28 As somebody who sits in those meetings where these things get discussed,

00:32 why do we Africans usually seem to be paralyzed

00:36 when it comes to solving our own security issues?

00:39 Some of these issues are related to leadership, to governance issues,

00:45 and if we need to address them, we just need to, first of all, acknowledge them,

00:50 to agree that those are the root causes, to agree to defend them,

00:56 and then we sit and we address them by just having a dialogue.

01:01 And if we ourselves, I mean, whether concerned countries or concerned government,

01:11 don't have the leadership which is able to agree on the root causes of a certain situation,

01:21 then it will become very difficult for us to address them.

01:26 So we could not blame external actors who are trying to give us solutions,

01:33 but sometimes are just dealing with the consequences of the situation,

01:39 when we know very well the root causes.

01:42 So it comes back to the leadership, it comes back to the governance,

01:46 it comes back to the responsibilities of our governments

01:50 to be really in charge of the security of our people,

01:55 and our countries.

01:57 So once again, we need responsible governments,

02:03 we need responsible leaders who are able to look at those root causes,

02:10 because they are known if we, for example, if we look at our own region,

02:16 the situation in eastern DRC, the root causes are known,

02:20 and we don't even disagree on that issue.

02:24 But the political will to address those root causes is the problem.

02:30 And it is where issues of leadership come in,

02:35 it is where governance issues come in,

02:38 because sometimes there are invested interests

02:42 for some of the very people who are responsible to address those issues.

02:50 We talked about mining, about access to resources, and so on and so forth.

02:57 If those leaders who should address those root causes

03:03 are involved in illegal mining,

03:05 or are the ones who are running these various armed groups,

03:11 how do you expect them to just invest efforts

03:18 in ending that very situation which is benefiting them?

03:24 So it is all these, I think we need to own our own problems,

03:30 and to just take the leadership in addressing them.

03:37 Otherwise, if we understand them,

03:40 that we don't have the courage, the political will to deal with them,

03:44 and we outsource the solutions to others,

03:48 those others will probably bring wrong solutions to us.

03:52 [MUSIC PLAYING]

Category

Transcript

Recommended