Online Reporter
DEFENCE Forces Day, celebrated today, reinforces the ties between Zimbabweans and the security establishment, as well as reminding us why we have them and what they have done for us.
In an uncertain world, we still need defence forces, although the external national threats to Zimbabwe are fairly minimal since we are surrounded by friendly fellow SADC countries.
But we still have responsibilities under SADC to support any of our threatened neighbours.
We have also seen in recent years the sudden emergence of private groups of insurgents not supported by a nation state.
So far, Zimbabwe has been fortunate that none of these groups have been operating in the country or along our borders.
In any case, Sadc has had to respond and Zimbabwe has had to make commitments.
In the first years after independence, the threats to Zimbabwe were far higher, largely due to the failing Apartheid regime in South Africa lashing out, attempting to destabilise neighbours both to provide a dire example to its own citizens and to ensure that the neighbours could never act effectively.
Zimbabwe’s defence forces quickly recognised that they could only respond effectively if they were superbly well trained, highly motivated and paragons of professionalism.
The professionalism is sufficiently high that Zimbabwe often is given training roles for other regional forces, showing that the standards we set are the highest possible.
We were also used by the United Nations in some peace-keeping missions, again a sign of trust in professionals.
The nature of our defence forces will change over time as different threats arise and need to be dealt with and the regional environment changes.
But the core of the relationship between the defence forces and the people will not alter.
The defence forces are part of the people. They are recruited from the people.
Some effort has been made to ensure that battalions and brigades are spread out over Zimbabwe, both to ensure that there are forces on hand if there is a sudden emergency or a sudden threat, but also to ensure that all units are part of a local community and interact with that community.
This avoids what can be a problem, and what has been a problem in some countries, of a military that stands apart from the general population, that is not engaged with its civilian neighbours. Ours is.
We even have defence forces football teams playing the civilian leagues and the defence forces schools can always fill spare places because they are regarded as among the best.
This community involvement is so critical for a healthy relationship between the defence forces and the general population that it cannot be over-emphasised.
One form of engagement in more recent years has been an arrangement that military units will support local development through deployment of forces with appropriate technical skills.
Quite often a school or clinic or something similar has managed to acquire the building materials, but is then faced by the fact that, while the community is willing to do some of the work, there is not really anyone with the technical skills to lead the work or perform the more complex operations, and bringing in competent strangers will be expensive.
Here the military can help and because it is often a near-by unit doing the helping, there is already a relationship which is a big help in such work.
The Ministry of Defence is now looking at upgrading this informal arrangement that has been built up with the establishment of a Construction Brigade.
Defence Forces are a bit like an insurance policy.
When you need them you really need them and they need to be trained and ready when they are needed.
But for the rest of the time they can be used in other work, so long as their readiness and training is not compromised.
Considering that more and more likely operations will probably involve construction-related work, a Construction Brigade would not be out of place.
But what is important is that the defence forces and the people remain together and here Defence Forces Day plays an important role, when the defence forces at both the national level and at provincial level interact with the people.
The interaction is entertaining, but it goes far beyond that.
So we hope that, as usual, there is a good turnout for the Day and that those attending and the forces themselves going through their paces both enjoy themselves.
