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The regime change agenda involves the strengthening of civil society and opposition groups while at the same time inflaming civil disobedience, mayhem and dissent. The neo-liberals’ intention is to bring opposition and civil society groups under a single banner so as to enhance their chances of success at the polls.
Funding of such anti-pan-African groups is funnelled to the opposition through western-backed NGOs and their embassies. Under this project rebellious groups are strengthened and encouraged to take to the streets to denounce various nationalist leaders.
The worst regime change strategy used by these neo-liberals is the designing of programmes centred on fuelling division between ethnic groups in Africa. In Zimbabwe, one can see this evil project in the way these Western sponsored civil society groups are trying to fuel division between the Ndebeles and Shonas by using the marginalisation and Gukurahundi ploy.
Security sector reforms have also become a new strategy. Other regime change strategies include denouncing the incumbent leader, casting doubt on the legitimacy of the democratically elected African leaders; accusing them of rigging, being anti-democratic, violating human rights and serious misrule.
It is important to note that the security sector reform (SSR) is an emerging concept that has no established policy position in Africa. According to Panganai Kahuni, “the AU is still drafting a conceptual position on security sector reform which when agreed to will be ratified by heads of states.
“It is therefore instructive that no individual, group, institution or country can call for a mandatory security sector reform whose concept and strategy is at formative stage. Even Sadc cannot morally call for an SSR to be run by any country when there is no agreed policy on SSR.
“The private media and the opposition formations need to get their facts together instead of continuing to misinform the African general populace. Only those with a bane of hating a sound security and political sector write to demonise Zimbabwe and call for a security sector reform.”
According to Kanyinga and Okello, the political reform process is constantly threatened by opportunistic forces capable of overturning the hard won democratic order and freedoms, either by weakening state institutions and opposition parties or by amending unilaterally the constitution for “self-legitimisation.”
Of major concern is the deteriorating standard of the institutions, mechanisms.
According to David Zoummenov, the involvement of the army in national polity in Africa is not a product of an accident. It needs to be located in the colonial administration that based its authority on violence and used the security forces to impose itself on the people considered as subjects.
The army, police and secret service are very necessary in any given political system. Those who think otherwise are only day-dreaming. It is and will always be the duty of various security agents to see to it that peace, law and order prevail in any given state.
The security sector vary according to each nation’s context. However, it must be known that in the African context, it comprises individuals, groups and institutions that are responsible for the provision, management and oversight of security of people and state. Equally, political sector vary in context nation by nation. However, in general political sector comprises, again, individuals, groups and institutions responsible for the provision, management and oversight of political values, interest and vision of people and the state. It is the political sector that shapes the foreign and domestic policy with a strong advice coming from the security sector.
The political sector also deals with the formulation of a constitution that then becomes the supreme law of any nation. There is a symbiotic relationship between the security sector and the political sector.
An interesting observation is that most Southern African states gained independence by means of bitter-armed rebellions or liberation struggles. Contrary to this is that the neo-liberal opposition movements and the donor funded civil organisations opine that power must no longer belong to those who own the means of production, that is the African masses but must be confined in the hands of regime change funders who control the means of destruction.”
Panganai Kahuni brilliantly opined that “there is need to sound a screaming caution here: that conceptually much as security sector reform may be relevant to Africa, the concepts are not entirely of our origination but that those who invented them and continue to popularise them have a reason.
“They are the primary beneficiaries of the gains of their adoption, and we are secondary in the scheme of their realisations in their current form. The point is plain and simple: From which centre do the concepts security sector reform hail? And the answer is: the West.
“As it stands there is no officially articulated African theory (let alone position) that explains security sector reform although, the concept of security sector reform or relationship is not new to Africa; and that in fact this concept predates colonialism in Africa.”
The question that arises is why the western-funded civil organisations and the Western engineered regime change opposition movements are crying their voices hoarse hollering for security sector reform?
Part of the answer is that given a levelled field of play in elections they will always play second fiddle to liberation movements that not only have sound ideological policies but are visionary and are aware of the plight of the general African citizenry.
This explains why they are now carrying out becoming very mischievous and are involved in a lot of violent activities. What they must be aware of is that our security sector are tried and tested, they will never fold their arms whilst they disturb the smooth running of day to day activities on our continent.
They will act and protect the good and progressive African citizens from these western sponsored lampens. This is why Gaddiagala and Mathlosa observed that electoral violence has become a serious threat to political stability in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Opposition movements want a weakened security sector in Africa that will always be a servant of the West, executing military coups when the West want to execute a regime change.
This is the political system that opposition movements and the donor-funded civil organisations are paying homage to, a political system that must be resisted by all progressive Africans who love their continent because it is a threat to their survival, interests and their existence as a people. This is why Kahuni argues that “in as much as a country and its citizens aspire for peace, justice and security within their borders, there is always an enemy waiting for an opportunity to pounce and there are always those who will seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the nation.
“The debate for security sector reform in Africa is being pushed not by citizens but individuals who have ties to the colonial regime and those whose organisations depend on Western donor funds.”
It is because of this realisation that committed African academics, researchers and politicians must search for home-grown solutions that will benefit the African citizens.

l Darlington Mahuku and Bowden Mbanje are lecturers in International Relations and Peace and Governance at Bindura University of Science Education.