The Sahel and Silencing the Guns (STGs) in Africa: A Critical Reflection on the Activities of Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF)
摘要
The progress towards attaining sustainable and inclusive economic growth and development across the African continent involves preventing genocide by ending civil and violent conflicts, human rights violations, wars, and humanitarian disasters. This is encapsulated in the African Union’s (AU) ‘Lusaka Master Roadmap,’ a guide for African countries towards ‘Silencing the Guns’ (STG), a pillar of the AU’s Agenda 2063 in tackling fundamental governance challenges. Erosion of democracies, entrenched poverty, illicit arms trafficking, cybercrime and threats and environmental degradation. There is a positive case for mechanisms like the Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC), operationalised through multilateral local, regional and international bodies and an Ad-hoc Security Initiatives (ASI). Operationalised in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) through the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), in trying to arrest these fundamental governance challenges associated with non-state actors responsible for violent insurgencies and conflicts. Drawing on documentary and contextual analyses of interviews, writings in journals, publications and newspapers, an analysis of the possibility of reaching the aims of STGs and Agenda 2063 through the prism of transboundary Internal - External Security Nexus (TIESN) is undertaken. This paper argues that the civilian component of the task force, the Civil Military Cooperation (CIMC) and a regional stabilisation strategy can be fine-tuned towards ending the hindrance of violent conflicts on the African continent. Achievable through the instrumentality of non-kinetic operations by the MNJTF paired with interventions of non-military actors in reaching the goal of ‘Silencing the Guns’ (STG). A fundamental pillar of the Agenda 2063 comprehensive 50-year plan for sustainable and inclusive economic growth and development for Africa.