Mudavadi urges international community to help fragile states in war against terror

ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

Amani National Congress leader Mr Musalia Mudavadi now wants the international community to be more proactive and collaborative if the security threats caused by terror groups across the world are to be addressed.

Mr Mudavadi also noted that individual nations’ challenges can no longer be looked at as their own “isolated business” against which travel advisories can be issued against affected countries while assuming that “we are safe away from those spaces because terrorist groups are now internationally networked.”

He made the comments on Wednesday as he presented a paper on terrorism at the University of Massachusetts, US, with a special focus on Kenya and the East African region.

Noting that unemployed and frustrated youth all over the world are easy targets for the recruitment and radicalisation into terrorism tendencies, Mr Mudavadi says the international community must help in addressing the challenge of dysfunctional and fragile states that have become the hotbeds of terrorism.

“The international community can no longer afford to ignore fragile or failing states just because they are thought to be too far,” Mr Mudavadi says adding; “every state and its stability must today be everyone’s concern.”

According to Mr Mudavadi, recent examples in Europe and in the US show that “terrorists, bred in countries so far will in the fullness of time be deployed against us.”

Terrorists ranging from Al-Shabaab, in the Eastern African region to Boko Haram in Nigeria and al Qaeda in the Maghreb have posed major and complex challenges to international peace and development.

For instance, Somalia that has been unstable for over three decades, has been fighting Al Shabaab since the fall of the regime of her former leader- Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

“We must nip them in the bud by denying them breeding grounds and the factors that make states fail everywhere in the world,” he said adding that whatever predisposes any one country to the breeding of terrorists must concern the whole world.

Dealing with terrorism, therefore, implies that if it is state failure, there must be collective responsibility to correct it. This may include bad governance, corruption, poverty, unemployment or ailing economies.

The paper notes that the proliferation and expansion of terrorist groups will continue to remain major threats to peace and stability in the country and the region.

“There is, therefore, need for proactive interagency and intergovernmental efforts across the region to reverse the spread of terrorist activities. This calls for continued adjustment of strategy and deployment of resources to effectively block the growth of terrorism and create a secure environment.”