British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday announced plans to set up a Commonwealth unit targeting the extremist “scourge.”
Commonwealth countries have “a vital role to play in broadening international efforts to counter extremism,” Cameron said as he arrived in Malta for the biennial summit of the Commonwealth.
He said that the U.K. would put 5 million pounds toward the unit that will work with smaller countries struggling to combat terrorism.
“The fight against extremism is something that affects us all,” he said.
French President Francois Hollande was due to address Commonwealth leaders last night ahead of the U.N. climate change conference beginning in Paris next week.
He was scheduled to hold separate bilateral meetings with President Muhammadu Buhari and Pakistan’s Muhammad Nawaz Sharif on the margins of the summit .
Following Paris’s deadly attack, Hollande is on a mission to tackle global terrorism. The French government has declared readiness to synergise with the Armed Forces to tackle global terrorism.
France Director of Military Intelligence, General Christophe Gomer said most terrorist attacks were not anticipated and the phenomenon of global terrorism was gradually catching up with all nations that were napping.
“It’s something we did not prepare for, including developing countries like Nigeria,” he said. “We have to evolve new ways of tackling them, stamp them out of existence.”
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the Commonwealth should become more relevant to the aspirations of its citizens.
“The Commonwealth must have an agenda with clear priorities, especially in the fight against radicalization and the tackling of the migration phenomenon, which can be challenged through education and employment,” Muscat said.
“Terrorists are more scared of well-educated girls and boys who manage to get a good job than they will ever be of any army,” he said.
Declaring the summit open,Queen Elizabeth praised the accomplishments of the 53-nation Commonwealth and her happy associations with Malta.
“Prince Philip and I first came to live here in Malta in 1949, the year the Commonwealth was founded,” she said, hailing a vast advancement in freedom and human rights in the decades since then. “I have been privileged to witness this transformation and to consider its purpose.”
The organization appointed its first female secretary-general yesterday when leaders chose Dominica-born lawyer Patricia Scotland to take over the running of the 53-country organisation.
Scotland, a former attorney general to the British government, takes over from Indian diplomat Kamalesh Sharma on April 1, 2016.
“I am incredibly proud to be the first woman to hold the post of secretary-general,” Baroness Scotland of Asthal told reporters.
“Can I just say what a huge privilege and a pleasure it is for me to be entrusted with one of the most burdensome but wonderful roles that there is in the international world?” the 60-year-old asked rhetorically.
“There is much to do but I hope all 53 of us will look together at the vision, will look at what we need to do on climate change, on education, on science and technology and we will make this a better world for our children.”
