been affected by different historical experiences. SSR processes [therefore] need to be tailored to the unique histories and cultures of each national context.”4 Over the past two decades a wide range of security sector transformation processes have been undertaken across the African continent, ranging from customs and border management reforms in east Africa and Mocambique to the introduction of community policing in several countries and more substantial reform processes in South Africa, Namibia and Ghana. The principal lesson of all these processes has been the danger posed by externally driven SSR and the need for nationally driven dialogue and ownership, confirming the AU warning that each African country must determine its own challenges and needs. Significantly the AU policy framework also specifically prohibits the use of security sector reform to promote ‘regime change’. It was precisely this ‘regime change’ threat which prevented Zimbabwe from either engaging in the continental debate on security sector transformation or indeed in developing its own national framework for dialogue and engagement on the challenges facing the country in the arena of security sector governance over the past decade and a half. ‘Regime change’ was indeed the stated policy objective of several western governments at the time and ‘security sector reform’ was acknowledged to be a means to such regime change. As a result ‘security sector reform’ was a no-go area in recent years in Zimbabwe and anyone suggesting the need for assessment, review and transformation of the security sector was quickly denounced as an enemy agent. The issues and challenges of security sector governance in Zimbabwe were therefore largely ignored and frequently suppressed. This ostrich-like reaction to real and perceived challenges has not only stifled innovation, modernization and transformation of the security sector but prevented education, training, research and national dialogue on the actual challenges and needs of a nationally owned transformation process, and ironically has made Zimbabwe less secure and less able to resist external influence and intervention in this critical arena. This however was not the only missed opportunity for transformation of the security sector and it is to this aspect that I will now turn. The colonial and liberation legacy In assessing and understanding post-colonial transformation prospects and realities in the security sector in Zimbabwe it is essential that we take account of two specific legacies and capacities, that of the colonial state and that of the liberation movement itself. 4 AU Policy Framework on Security Sector Reform (SSR), adopted by the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government, 20th Ordinary Session, 27-28 January 2013, Addis Ababa. 6