Your Main Role is to Promote Peace, President Hichilema Urges Student Officers
By Buffalo Reporter
Lusaka
Republican President and Commander-in- Chief of the Defence Force, Mr Hakainde Hichilema yesterday, 19 November, 2024 graced the launch of a book entitled “The Art of War and Peace” authored by David Kilcullen and Greg Mills at the Defence Services Command and Staff College (DSCSC) in Lusaka.
President Hichilema said the DSCSC was an ideal and conducive place to launch the book because it is where the study of strategy and operational art takes place daily, and that the College has a historical significance as it was used as a Center for liberation struggle, particularly for the African National Congress.
He emphasised the need for Africa to build the capacity to address its security challenges by investing in institutions such as the Defence Services Command and Staff College, also stating the need for home grown solutions.
“It is important for us to sustain peace, extremely important. I’m talking to military people; your main role is to fight, to protect countries, regions and continents,” he said.
In the book’s foreword, President Hichilema says “the extent of conflict in Africa illustrates the relationship between poverty, development and politics.
Equally, its prevention and its solution reinforce the link between democracy and prosperity, and between democracy and peace”.
He said historically, war has often been waged with the sole aim of achieving strategic military objectives, with little or no consideration for sustainable peace.
President Hichilema stressed that as military officers train for war and planning strategy among other tactics, it is important for them to be clear about the process of building the peace, which he added is more sustainable than anything else.
He said Zambia will continue playing her part towards peace building across the World, adding that that’s the more reason the country through Zambia Army has its troops in the Central African Republic under the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Central African Republic (MINUSCA).
President Hichilema reiterated that it is practically impossible for sustainable development to take place in the absence of peace as peace remains an essential ingredient to development.
He said because of peace, Zambia has recently seen an influx of investors in the mining sector, a development he stated has resulted in several mines being operationalised, some of which have been dormant for decades.
He said without right resolutions in the mining sector, all the funds that the treasury is drawing in terms of taxes would have gone elsewhere adding that mines like Kansanshi have even extended their life, keeping jobs and business and contributing to Zambia’s economic growth.
President Hichilema also stated the need to prioritise the actualisation and operationalisation of the National Defence University, established through a statutory instrument Number 3 of 2018.
Meanwhile, DSCSC Commandant, Brig Gen Philemon Samatamba thanked the Republican President for finding time to interact with the student officers and for choosing the College as venue for the launch of the book.
Brig Gen Samatamba pledged that the college will always stick to its standards of producing confident, professionally competent and sound military leaders.
Defence and Security Service Chiefs were also in attendance.