SAVE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY

SAVE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY

By Paul Amoru

The vagueness which continues to engulf the East African Community (EAC), nine years after it was re-launched, is good reason for anyone who wishes it well to lose sleep.
The latest set back being the May 30 Constitutional Court ruling in Kampala which threw out all the nine members of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA).
The Court held that the seven MPs from the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) and the two from the main opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) were improperly selected and ordered them out of the assembly.
The ruling followed a petition by one time opposition UPC lawyer Jacob Oulanya whose attempts to secure a seat in the regional assembly was thwarted by NRM which he had newly defected to.
It marked a second hurdle for the EAC after the East African Court based in Arusha also pinched the Kenyan process and declared null and void the process through which the country had arrived at its representation to the regional body.
These developments have every potential to bring the community again to its knees especially if taken lightly.

“The only thing we learn from history is that we are doomed to repeat what we don't learn from history,” that is according to German philosopher Georg Hegel.

On the eve of the launch in November 1999, Tanzania's Vice-President, Dr Omar Ali Juma warned the partner states not to allow the community to collapse again.

But the re launch came amidst suspicion and misgivings as the leaders charged with the elephant task of rebuilding the community were reading from different scripts.

President Museveni for example believed that a political federation could easily fast track the economic and other socio-economic integration efforts.

But his Tanzanian counterpart believed the political federation could come last.

Tanzania should be priding in its experience learnt out of the union of Tanyanyika and the islands of Zanzibar.

So while Kampala wanted a fast approach, Tanzania insisted on a slow process and in 2007 succeeded in applying brakes on a fast tracked process.

But a development that could have stirred the suspicion further was a report that appeared in the Kenyan Daily Nation of September 14, 2007.

In that story, Museveni was quoted saying that Uganda and Kenya could move on with the plans of an East African political federation and leave out Tanzania until it is ready.

Uganda’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of East African Affairs, Mr Eria Kategaya on September 18 in what could be interpreted as ignoring Tanzania’s position told reporters in Kampala that Uganda had not ruled out establishing a political federation with any other willing partner state.

“Tanzania did not agree with the speed but the option of beginning with those who are willing cannot be ruled out. The debate is on going,” he said then.

But one of the unresolved issues a head of the political federation is the question of political predictability among the different partner states.

While Tanzania observes a strict two five-year term limit on its Presidents, Uganda changed its constitution to revolving term limits.

Kenya also 2001 witnessed a peaceful change of leadership from former President Moi to now the embattled President Kibaki.

In 1967 East Africans were much more integrated than even the European Community which had only joint discussions, subsidy policies and agricultural policies, but had no joint assets.

But it failed because the three countries were not mature enough to have such an integrated system.
For instance, Kenya had a market-oriented policy; Tanzania had a centralised economy - more socialist-oriented; Uganda under Idi Amin had no policy at all.

Revived on January 1, 2005 after tortuous negotiations, the EAC has the ambitious goal of modelling itself on the European Union and eventually instituting a common currency and forging a political federation.

In 2007 trade ministers met to discuss dismantling trade barriers between the member states. However their deliberations were shadowed by trade disputes, pitting Kenya and Tanzania against Uganda, and Kenya and Uganda against Tanzania.

Analysts in the region saw signs that the same divisions that had caused the original EAC to collapse in 1977 had once again opened up, threatening the success of the fresh experiment.

Dust was thick in the air after Nairobi claimed that Kenyan exports were being delayed from entering Tanzania, it is unlikely that this dust has now settled.

Nairobi suspended imposition of tariffs on external imports of pharmaceuticals.

This forced Tanzania to threaten a legal suit aimed at protecting its nascent pharmaceutical industry.

That is why the latest court ruling adds on an already sick wound which may take time to heal.
What also comes to mind is a committee on fast tracking the EAC which gathered views from the over 120 million citizens Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

About 80 per cent of Tanzanians in a referendum voted against fast racking political federation.

Policy makers and key players at the EAC political scene should therefore get more serious and do the right thing before it is too late.

After all, strong ties among the East African states date back to 20 century.

Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda enjoyed a long history of co-operation under successive regional integration arrangements.

These included the Customs Union between Kenya and Uganda in 1917, which Tanganyika later joined in 1927.

The East African High Commission 1948-1961 and the East African Common Services Organization 1961-1967 leading to the previous East African Community that lasted from 1967 until its collapse in 1977.

However, limited participation by people in decision-making, and a lack of compensatory mechanisms for addressing inequalities in the sharing of costs and benefits of integration ruined the gains of the community and the same signals are again visible today.

The Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community emphasizes peace, security and good neighbourliness as the cornerstones of the regional integration and development process.

But the principle of peaceful co-existence, good neighbourliness and peaceful resolution of disputes as articulated in the Treaty still seems far from practice.

For example, Aid agencies in Nairobi on July 28 said over 2,000 people were displaced and several others detained in Uganda following a cross border raids by Kampala soldiers.

This is aggravated by suspicion and economic inequality. Pushing the political agenda too far could ruin the community again.

What experience and history teach is this; that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.