Meeting between EU and Mozambique
It is no doubt welcome, but is the reported announcement of further financial support to Rwanda’s military response against extremist terrorists in Mozambique’s Cabo del Gado, very little, very late?
It is now three years, since a bilateral agreement, in which Mozambique asked Rwanda to help it fight an IS or Islamic State affiliated group, that had captured the country’s northern province of Cabo del Gado.
The group is often referred to variously as Jihadists or Islamic extremists. In reality, the mainstream Islamic community in both Mozambique and beyond, see them as little more than terrorists and apostates.
The group emerged out of conditions fertilised by various ills, resulting from poor governance. They are mostly disaffected young men from Mozambique, and around the region, including Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Somalia. At various stages, they were joined by seasoned fighters, allied to IS.
Far from being devout muslims, the group terrorised the local population. Their crimes included rape, and beheadings of anyone who did not agree with their perverted idea of Islam. Adolescent children were among the victims. Their grip on Mozambique lasted the best part of five years, until Mozambique sought Rwanda’s help.
Within a few months of the arrival of the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF), the insurgents had been repulsed, government control restored, and the people of Cabo del Gado, who had been displaced, have been able to return to their homes.
The insurgents fled to other areas, not under the control of the RDF, and some returned to their respective countries in the region. But not before they had left almost 6,000 people dead, and over a million displaced.
But the terrorists are resilient, and tenecious. The war against them is expected to last an indefinite period of time. The RDF has been training its Mozambican counterparts, in the expectation that they will be better able to continue the fight, when the RDF does eventually return home.
The European Union (EU) is now reportedly set to agree a contribution of fourty million euros, to the RDF’s fight against the terrorists. This will be in addition to an earlier twenty million euros.
This will no doubt be gratefully received. Rwanda is not a wealthy nation, and it has had to foot the bill to solve a problem that affects the entire Southern African region, and given the global nature of terrorism, the world.
Rwanda did not ask for funding to help with the war effort, either from the region or the international community as a whole. It is however worth asking why no such help was forthcoming anyway, in what is after all accepted as a global war, against the scourge of terrorism.
According to a study from America’s Brown University, the so called war on terror, has cost the United States of America (USA) alone, $8trillion, making the EU’s contribution of $42.8million, small change indeed.
In coming to Mozambique’s aid, Rwanda is protecting not only Mozambique, but the region and the rest of the world. From a budget of trillions of dollars, should the world not do better than fourty million in support for Rwanda?
