Demilitarise Africa, End Foreign Military Bases, Peacepro Tells AU

The Foundation for Peace Professionals (PeacePro) has stated that the African continent will experience lasting peace when the African Union and other regional bodies make firm decisions to demilitarize the continent.

The organization suggested that this could be achieved by putting an end to the presence of foreign military bases and state-connected mercenaries on the continent.

As part of the recommendations contained in its maiden edition of the Africa Peace Insight (API) report in Nigeria, the organization believes that the demilitarization of the continent would reduce the availability of small arms and light weapons in the hands of non-state actors, thereby giving state forces fewer challenges in dealing with insecurity.

The Executive Director of PeacePro, Ambassador Abdulrazaq Hamzat, said that the AU and other regional bodies should make a firm decision on the status of all foreign military bases on the continent and set both short- and long-term targets to demilitarize the continent.

“The short-term target of the continent should be the total demilitarization of all foreign military bases within the next five years, ensuring that existing military bases are without weapons and military hardware.

“Long-term targets should be based on regional priority, ultimately leading to the total eradication of foreign military presence on the continent, both in terms of hardware and personnel.”

It was also recommended that the African Union and other regional bodies develop a joint continental gateway to the global mineral market as part of the continent’s free trade agreement, such as Mines2Market.

The report named Mauritius, Sierra Leone, Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, and Tunisia the most peaceful countries across the five subregions of Africa.

South Africa, Sudan, Mali, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the least peaceful countries across the subregion.

The Africa Peace Insight is an extracted report from the Global Peace Index (GPI), produced by the Australia-based Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP), to contextualize, simplify, and further break the GPI from a continental perspective.