Africa must avoid returning to a situation where armies and soldiers played a role in politics, thus undermining stability, African National Congress president Jacob Zuma said on Thursday.
Speaking during a visit to the Oliver Tambo Institute of Leadership in Kawaweta, Uganda, he said the role of the army in a democratic state was to defend its people against foreign threats and to defend the institutions created by a democratic dispensation.
”The soldier’s motto is to serve and to protect. That is the fundamental role of the army in a democratic dispensation.
”It is exactly what we did, when we assumed the levers of power in our country, we ensured that our army became a professional army which had a responsibility of protecting the country’s supreme law — the Constitution — and the citizens of the country.
”I know, that this is a perspective we generally share with most former liberation movements,” he said.
Zuma said the army did not interfere in the affairs of the state, leaving this to those elected officials.
Zuma an army should be the pride of the nation and accepted by all its people.
What informed this view was the fact that as a liberation movement in Africa, the ANC saw many instances of national armies becoming instruments of dictators, and instruments of trampling on the rights of
people and the democratic state.
”We are convinced that we should not go back to that period when armies and soldiers played an active role in politics and thus threatened the stability not only of their countries but also the stability of the whole continent,” Zuma said. – Sapa