EA defence chiefs may send military to countries in crisis

Venturing into previously sensitive territory, defence chiefs from the East African Community member states have signed off on a radical policy proposal that creates the framework for military intervention if a member state falls into crisis.

This was one of the decisions arrived at during a high-level meeting of chiefs of defence forces and their technical staff and defence liaison officers.

They were drawn from the EAC Directorate of Peace and Security, EA parliamentarians, permanent secretaries from various EAC ministries and senior EAC Secretariat officials.

The meeting concluded its sitting in Kampala at the end of last month.

The experts agreed to widen the scope of the proposed Protocol on Defence Co-operation to allow military intervention, subject to the approval of the Summit.

Separately, Kenya’s military spokesman Bogita Ongeri said the joint squad was one way of laying out strategies that will ensure that peace and tranquility prevails among East African member states.

In a telephone interview in Nairobi, he confirmed that there have been several meetings on for unity and a common stand on regional security matters.

The Karen-based East Africa Standby Brigade, in which Kenya has been assigned the planning role, is a case on which the joint unit is being established.

The Kampala concord follows last year’s directive by the EA Sectoral Council on Defence to technocrats to define how the new co-operation will work in practice.

Intervention under the envisaged defence pact will not be confined to ending conflicts but can also seek to prevent them — meaning that member states will need to work out under exactly what circumstances they will be willing to surrender key elements of their sovereignty to a supranational military force. 

“It is because of the previous history of outbreaks of violence in the region that this Protocol is being rushed,” Stephen Niyonzima, assistant commissioner for political and legal affairs in Uganda’s Ministry of East African Community Affairs, told The EastAfrican. 

Mr Niyonzima would not say who among the member states originated the proposal.

He added: “It is in anticipation of a possible breakdown in the rule of law, good governance and democracy that we believe this Protocol should be concluded in time. It is a pillar of political co-operation.”

Uganda goes to the polls next year in what analysts predict will be the most bitterly contested elections in its recent history, at a time that memories of the violence that followed Kenya’s December 2007 elections are still fresh in politicians’ minds.  

The EastAfrican was told there is a determined effort to get the proposals though at the earliest date.