The roundtable discussion began with welcoming remarks from Jan-Ole Voß, Director, KAS RP SIPODI East Africa, who introduced the work of KAS and thanked the numerous participants for their attendance. Afterwards, Prof. Dr. Énio Chingotuane, Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at the University of Joaquim Chissano in Maputo, presented in a keynote speech the main elements, developments, and challenges of regional counterterrorist operations. The security expert summarized key dynamics and challenges of regional military operations based on the experience of the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) that seeked to counter the Islamist insurgency in northern Mozambique. He emphasized the fact that military operations alone are unable to solve complex socio-economic problems and warned that regional military missions might be replaced by bilateral military cooperation agreements in the long term.
The second keynote speech was given by Prof. Dr. Liazzat Bonate, Professor and Senior Researcher at the University Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo and Expert on Islam, Matriliny and Gender in Africa. Using an historical-cultural approach, Prof. Dr. Bonate recalled the radicalization process of East African Muslims while highlighting the global character of Islamism. She presented the root causes of the Islamist insurgency in northern Mozambique and argued that the latter should rather be considered as an internal problem of the country than a result of globally expanding Jihadism.
The roundtable discussion was further enriched by insightful questions and remarks from the audience, which were thoroughly addressed by the two keynote speakers. In his closing remarks Jan-Ole Voß thanked the two keynote speakers for their expertise and the audience for its active participation.
In addition to the implementation of the roundtable discussion, the staff of KAS RP SIPODI East Africa held various high-level courtesy exchanges with Mozambican academics and European institutions throughout its stay in Maputo. The exchanges included insightful discussions with representatives of the German Embassy and the EU Delegation in Maputo, and the EU Military Assistance Mission in Mozambique (EUMAM Mozambique), as well as with Mozambican experts in security and strategy.
About this series
The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, its educational institutions, centres and foreign offices, offer several thousand events on various subjects each year. We provide up to date and exclusive reports on selected conferences, events and symposia at www.kas.de. In addition to a summary of the contents, you can also find additional material such as pictures, speeches, videos or audio clips.