CONFUSION REIGNS AT THE DEFENCE FORCES
Secretary to the Cabinet Mr Patrick Kangwa has appointed Mr Friday Nyambe, the Director General Office of the President Special Division, as chairman of the Central Joint Operations Committee (CJOC) with immediate effect.
The Duties of the President and Commander-in-Chief are never shared or delegated, not even to the Vice-President. It is only the President who has authority over matters of deployment of the Defence Forces and their officers. CJOC was a creation of the Zambia Army and Zambia Police. Never in the history of Zambia, or any other defence force in world, has this happened.
The CJOC in Zambia consists of the Chairman, the Vice-Chairman, the Secretary, and members from other government agencies with work related to fields of border protection and inland security.
The collective body of the CJOC is headed by the Chairman (or Vice-Chairman in the Chairman’s absence), who sets the agenda and presides over meetings. Responsibilities for members of the CJOC are to take precedence over tasks of national security as a team. The Chairman of the CJOC is the Army Commander, the principal military adviser to the President, Ministry of Defence, and the Defence Council. However, all CJOC members are by law military advisers, and they may respond to a request or voluntarily submit, through the Chairman, advice or opinions to the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces.
The executive authority of the CJOC in Zambia has never changed. It is as designed the world over. In World War II, the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff acted as executive agents dealing with area commanders, but the original National Security Act of 1947 saw the Joint Chiefs of Staff as planners and advisers, not as commanders of combatant commands. In spite of this, the 1948 Key West Agreement allowed members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to serve as executive agents for unified commands, a responsibility that allowed the executive agent to originate direct communication with the combatant command. Congress abolished this authority in a 1953 amendment to the National Security Act.
Today, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have no executive authority to command combatant forces. The issue of executive authority was clearly resolved by the Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganisation Act of 1986: “The Secretaries of the Military Departments shall assign all forces under their jurisdiction to unified and specified combatant commands to perform missions assigned to those commands.” The chain of command runs through the President to the commander of the combatant command.
In Zambia, the security system has a solid foundation dating as far back as the first and second Republics. Dr Kenneth Kaunda laid a very strong foundation, which has proved extremely effective in the absence of a unified command.
It is important to mention here, or educate Mr Hakainde Hichilema and his team, that powers vested in the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces and are for the President only.
Mr Hakainde Hichilema should learn to consult from the elders before attempting to change traditions that have kept the Zambian nation together. National security instruments of power are never shared anywhere in the world. The Minister of Defence, the Minister of Home Affairs, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence and Secretary to the Cabinet, have no power to issue orders or instructions to the Defence Forces. When this happens, it marks the beginning of a downfall and break down of systems.
Disorganising the Zambia Defence Forces is a very serious weakness on the part of the Presidency. We advise Mr Hichilema to put his house in order and not to allow any person to abuse or take over his responsibility as Commander-in- Chief.
Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party