30 Jan 2017

Ambassador Pierre Voillery of France has re-affirmed his country’s position to freedom of expression, human rights, pluralism, democracy, tolerance and the rule of law.

“They are the foundation and the heart of our democracies, by attacking innocent people, police officers, women and children the terrorists set out to tear down these universal values, but they will not succeed,” he said.

Mr Voillery said this at the reception that marked the closing of a three-day regional workshop on counter terrorism, where 12 member countries participated.

“To that end, our action must continue to be part of a global and multi-dimensional approach, based on the fight against radicalisation and on strengthening of all resources to tackle the action of the different forms of terrorist networks,” he said.

He further said the panelists with active participation of the delegation, managed to go through the latest trends of terrorism due to high level of expertise of speakers, best practices from law enforcement perspective to address the terrorist threat.

“Various and critical topics of interest were deeply discussed such as, the issue of foreign terrorism fighters, the prevention of terrorism cases, operational feedback on police intervention in the case of hostage takings and mass murder crime scene and the funding of terrorism,” he stated.

Mr Voillery said the workshop complied with the Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation (SARPCOO) training course on counterterrorism that aimed to build the capacity of police in the region and strengthen the regional coordination and promote strategies for the prevention and combating of terrorism in Southern Africa.

For his part, the representative of SARPCCO, based in Harare, Mr Selebatso Mokgosi made an assurance that they shall continue to support other member states on the terrorism initiative of fighting terrorism.

Mr Mokgosi said their main objective of SARPCCO was to fight cross boarder crime in Southern Africa with terrorism being one of their priorities.

“In this regard we place ourselves available to assist in anyway especially in funding programmes that are of interest to SARPCCO. We came up with six recommendations which will be presented to the police chiefs at the SARPCCO annual general meeting to be held soon,” he said.

On one hand, Botswana’s deputy commissioner investigations, Mr David Mosele said the financing of terrorism was critical adding that sustenance of terrorism depended on its availability for it to be financed.

On financing of terrorism, he said those who participate in terrorism either as sponsors, participants should be dealt with accordingly. Inculcation of money laundering interventions in strategies should not be left behind, he said. BOPA