30.01.25
I have observed with grave concern the escalating conflict between the DRC under President Felix Tshisekedi and the M23 rebel group that has now sucked in President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, a long standing neighbour of Congo.
The number of displaced and dead people are rising on both sides including peace keeping soldeirs from South Africa and innocent civilians as this senseless conflict on our northern backyard border continues.
On behalf of our party Citizens First, my urgent and clarion call is to the SADC to quickly sit President Kagame, President Tshisekedi, South African authorities together and find a way to resolve this conflict before it engulfs the entire region both in the east and southern regions of Africa.
I have ntoiced that South Africa is slowly also been dragged into the conflict after it lost a few good men in uniform while in the line of peace keeping duty, this is regrettable as President Cyrial Ramaphosa has already opined.
Let us sit together as leaders under SADC and beyond in Africa and realise that unless we stop all the raging internal conflicts, achieving economic development will be a pipe dream.
Let us silence the guns, the bombs and stop raining bullets on each other as soon as possible so that we can escalate regional economic growth and and job creation.
Above all, let us use the resources and avenues available to us such as SADC and not depend on the west to end our own conflicts, when we infact sometimes started them.
The raging conflicts in the region to us as CF also must serve as a warning to ‘peaceful Zambia’ our beloved country that we must never take peace for granted.
We are confident that through greater diplomacy, peace can return to the region.
Thank you fellow Zambians and regional Citizens, may peace be with us all in these trying times.
Harry Kalaba
President
Citizens First