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Isdore Guvamombe Reflections
Back in the village, in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve, wisdom is wealth! Subsequently, self-determination and internal conflict resolution and management is prudent.

There, the one thing this villager respects deeply about Africa is the treasure of the wisdom our ancestors have handed down to generation after generation.

While some of our leaders may have forgotten them, the rest of us don’t need to.

From prudent sayings on wisdom itself, to judicious encouragements, warnings and even quirky advice on learning, patience, unity, wealth, poverty, community, family, love and marriage, African wisdom inspires growth and prosperity.

As Africa leaders meet in South Africa, it should be incumbent upon the leaders to seek self- governance in resolving the various conflicts on the continent’s hot spots.

It goes without saying that Africa should rise from the ashes of using colonial masters in resolving current conflicts and create its own continental army or brigade, whichever the semantics, to deal with conflicts.

While African leaders have been actively involved in prescribing solutions through talks, they have dismally failed the continent and its people when it comes to military interventions.

Almost all military interventions have been directed by foreigners who have their own interests to serve.

The Europeans and Americans have often come disguised as peacekeepers and they end up seeking fortune for their countries and, where they see African governments as stumbling blocks in their fortune seeking agenda, they end up engaging in regime change.

By that token Africa will never be able to determine its future until it put in place self-run military brigades to deal with conflict areas.

It will be a shame if the current crop of African leaders fails to diligently deliver a long time vision to have an African military brigade, while continuing to turn to NATO or the French or American governments to intervene militarily in African conflicts.

Africa has vast natural resources that need to be ring-fenced by a stable self-protecting system and that can only come when Africa is able to control and resolve its conflicts on its own.

There is no doubt that this will assist Africa achieve its total independence. It is very simple for African leaders to use regional blocs as the starting point. It is easy to have the Sadc standby brigade, the East Africa, Central Africa and West Africa, then integrate them into a single structured army.

For as long as Africa has not tapped into regional blocs to come up with an AU military brigade, it remains wishful thinking and yet, the political will has always been there, given the speeches by African leaders on the need for self-governance and total independence. What seems not to be there is the financial will.

It is fact not fiction that for more than a decade now, Africa has been facing a subtle insurgency from African Command (Africom), the United States of America’s military entity, established to exclusively deal with Africa. It is headquartered temporarily in Stuttgart, Germany, while a strategic African country is being sought to host its headquarters. The US saw a gap in Africa and through its holier-than-thou attitude, sought to convince Africa to host the Africom.

The US’ tactic was selling Africom as a protector of Africans against those who want to kill them and also to help them with development projects, yet in fact, all that is hogwash.

That talk is a smokescreen behind which the US wants to hide its quest to access Africa’s vast natural resources and out-compete fair play suitors like China and Russia.

One could easily ask why the US would want to specifically use a military unit with superior weaponry? Why, why and why?

Now the latest attempt by the US to establish new offices in Africa and to seek accommodation of NATO representatives in the African Union, disguised as coordination officer- officer co-ordinating between AU and NATO, is not only nonsensical but a highly counterproductive move meant to give NATO and the US all information about the happenings in the AU.

Those will be mere spies. Eventually it will give the US the needed depth and impetus to strengthen its military stranglehold on Africa.

So, indeed the solution for Africa is nothing other than simply coming up with its own military entity that can control its own resources, protect its people and solve its military conflicts from the hot spots without necessarily inviting outsiders.