M’membe urges AU to discuss AFRICOM office in Zambia
By Fanny Kalonda
SOCIALIST Party president Fred M’membe hopes the AU summit in Lusaka will discuss the setting up of the AFRICOM Security Cooperation office in Zambia.
In a statement yesterday, Dr M’membe recalled that he recently urged President Hakainde Hichilema to “rethink and cancel the AFRICOM agreement that has been signed [as] it is not in the interest of the Zambian and African masses”.
“As the AU summit meets this week, we hope that the setting up of the AFRICOM Security Cooperation office in Lusaka will be tabled for discussion,” he wrote on his Facebook wall.
On June 24, 2022, Dr M’membe wrote a letter to President Hichilema on the setting up of the AFRICOM Security Cooperation office in Lusaka. “We still look forward to his response. In this letter, among many other concerns about this cooperation, I brought to the President’s attention that: It is now public knowledge that the United States Department of Defence (DoD) is about to set up an Office for Security Cooperation at the Mission in Lusaka and that he has been party to its facilitation. …That We MUST NOT trust any military arrangements made with the US on our continent. The imperialist interests of the US cannot be similar to those of the African masses. If anything, it is a new form of enslaving our continent and he should not go down in history as having been a party to this,” Dr M’membe said.
He noted that since gaining independence in 1964, Zambia has followed a non-aligned approach in its military doctrine and foreign policy.
“This is about our existence, dignity and sovereignty. Non-alignment has allowed Zambia to avoid the trappings of big-power global politics. The relative peace our country has enjoyed is to a large extent because we chose to be non-aligned in a world that was dangerously divided. As the geopolitical landscape moves towards a multipolar world, it becomes even more important that Zambia acts with great caution in how it navigates this landscape. The step he has taken on AFRICOM is therefore retrogressive and has the potential to diplomatically isolate Zambia in the region as well as endanger the security of our people in the medium and long term…” said Dr M’membe. “In that letter, I sincerely requested Mr Hakainde to 1. Rethink and cancel the AFRICOM agreement that has been signed. It is not in the interest of the Zambian and African masses.
- Make the signed agreement available to the Zambian public so people can make an informed judgment about what it entails.”