UNITED NATIONS, March 30 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Thursday called on the international community to support Africa's leading role in its own peace and security in a high-level open debate of the Security Council on the impact of development policy on the implementation of Africa's Silencing the Guns initiative.
Africa is a rising continent, a fertile land of hope brimming with vigor and vitality. Without peace and development in Africa, there will be no stability and prosperity in the world, said Liu Yuxi, special representative of the Chinese government on African affairs.
Under the current circumstances, the Security Council needs to give serious thought to questions such as how to strengthen international coordination to better help Africa meet its challenges, how to forge synergy between development policies to address the root causes of conflicts, and how to advance the UN's cooperation with Africa to provide stronger support, he said.
It is important to support Africa's leading role in its own peace and security. Africans know Africa best, and African countries are core forces for maintaining their own peace and security, said Liu.
The international community should adhere to the principle of seeking African solutions for African problems, and provide assistance on the basis of respect and trust, rather than interfere in other countries' internal affairs in the name of human rights or even overstep their authority. For post-conflict countries, there is a need to support their own choice of development paths and governance models that suit their own national conditions, rather than find fault with them, still less engage in so-called democratic transformation, he said.
It is important to support African countries' security capacity-building, which is the only way to address both the symptoms and the root causes of the conflicts in Africa, he said.
"We need to help African countries build a professional, efficient and strong security sector to tackle real security threats such as terrorist extremism and intercommunal conflicts," he said. "The UN peacekeeping operations in Africa need to respect the views of the host countries and support their efforts to strengthen security-sector development and reform. The arms embargoes imposed by the Security Council on Sudan, South Sudan and other countries have hindered the development of the security capacity of these countries and should be adjusted or lifted in a timely manner." ■
