KK was a very convinced Pan Africanist – Mbeki
By Kombe Mataka
FORMER South Africa president Thabo Mbeki has described Zambia’s founding president Kenneth Kaunda as a convinced Pan Africanist.
Addressing journalists after laying wreaths on Dr Kaunda and Michael Sata’s graves at Embassy Park on Wednesday, Mbeki also observed that recognition of the values espoused by the forefathers of leadership by the current African leadership was slipping away.
Mbeki is in the country to give an inaugural
Kenneth Kaunda memorial lecture as part of the commemorations of one year since Zambia’s founding president died.
“President Kaunda was a very convinced Pan Africanist. His focus was not only about Zambia, not only about the region, the struggles in South Africa and Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola and so on; but also, with the challenge of the future of the continent,” he said. “I think that the current leadership should do what I have just said. To recall the memory of President Kaunda, to call the memory of other leaders like Julius Nyerere and say ‘what is it that we will do today to recall the memory of those excellent outstanding leaders’. I think it will be very important that we did that now because in reality I think Pan Africanist attention to the future of the content is slipping. I think our leaders today are not paying sufficient attention to what the leadership that was provided by President Kaunda and others on these matters that they have got to do basically with the renaissance of this content.’’
And Mbeki called for reflection on the conflict in Mozambique’s Cabo Dalgado region.
He said the government of Mozambique must look at the issue of social economic development in the Cabo Delgado region.
An islamist insurgency has terrorised Mozambique’s Northern Province of Cabo Delgado, known locally as Al-Shabaab, causing national instability.
“The Mozambique issue, I am very glad that there is SADC troops in Mozambique, of course supported by troops from Rwanda. It is very important to deal with that matter decisively, military terms but it is also important to look at the questions of social economic development in that part of Mozambique,” he said. “I am quite certain that a lot of young people might be drawn into wrong things like that, engaging in that kind of combat with the jihadist really driven by poverty and so on. So, it would be important if the Mozambique government looks at that. It is very good that the region is making a contribution to the restitution of that particular content which must include a political reflection. That jihadism, how has it emerged here and what challenges does the continent and the region face of that, spreading to other countries. As of now it is very important that SADC intervenes to support the Mozambiquan governments’ military to trace this matter. But there are these issues that still need to be addressed.”
And Mbeki called for the attention of SADC leaders to the conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“The continued conflict and problems especially in the eastern part of the DRC is an old problem. I think we need to convene at some point, the African states in the region here and East Africa.
We need to convene here in Lusaka to address that particular problem of the Congo as it was then. We need a ‘get together ‘ like that again because these are all problems which have not been solved between the Congo and the Eastern Congo and between the Eastern Congo and its neighbours like Rwanda. The matter does really need to be discussed together,” said Mbeki. “I notice that our leadership from East Africa met in Nairobi to discuss, but I think we need to bring in others from Southern Africa as part of that dialogue. And if you recall what has happened in the past, and I think it is only when we recall what has happened in the past, that we will be able to find solutions today.”