{{Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, Sunday, said that Western countries have no business sending peace keeping forces to Africa when the continent has its own structures for that purpose that only need funding.}}
He said the foreign troops often inflamed the conflicts under the disguise of peace keeping and end up unilaterally removing elected governments.
He was speaking during his presentation in the peace and security plenary session at the ongoing Fifth Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD) here.
He said foreigners intervened in developing countries pretending to be peacekeepers when they had a neo-colonial agenda.
“There is another equally compelling aspect of the peace and stability debate on our continent,” said President Mugabe.
“Over many years, Africa has painstakingly constructed its own peace and security architecture with early warning training and standby military structures both at sub regional and continental levels.
“Although still underfunded and under equipped, these structures have served the continent well, helping to diffuse tensions where these have arisen and helping to contain conflicts in those areas where sadly hostilities have occurred.”
President Mugabe said in spite of the available peace and security structures, Africa had many conflicts fuelled by the “global bullies who then manipulate the whole continent for selfish interests”.
He said no country had a right to abuse its power through military intervention.
President Mugabe said Africa could not accept that foreign troops had the responsibility of peace and stability on the continent.
The foreign troops, he said, should not use the instability of the continent as a justification for their intervention.
{herald}
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