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.

The Sectoral Committee on Defence, which meets from March 13-17 to review a draft of the revised Protocol, is expected to present it to the Council of Ministers who will sit in Arusha from March 19-24. 

The Council of Ministers will then present it to the Heads of State Summit for endorsement.  

According to our sources, the pact’s operational guidelines borrow heavily from the structures of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and the Southern Africa Development Community.

All these blocs have in the past sanctioned military interventions in the affairs of member states experiencing severe political disorder.

Thus Nato intervened in Yugoslavia while Ecowas has frequently intervened in conflicts in its region.

More recently, SADC quelled civil strife in Lesotho under an AU mandate; and SADC member Tanzania led an intervention in the Comoros.

Under the present EAC arrangement, military and security institutions are limited to joint training sessions and sharing of military facilities and intelligence information.

The peace and security legal framework of the region has proposed a standby force to lead humanitarian actions. 

“These moves are part of preparations for our ultimate goal — the political federation,” said Beatrice Kiraso, the EAC Under Secretary General for Political Affairs.  

The new item adopted in the legal framework creates mechanisms to address external, internal and inter-state aggression, under which direct intervention to preserve stability in the region and avert possible conflicts will be encouraged.  

“That is the main intention of this Protocol, although I am not aware that the decision was taken,” said Lt. Col. Felix Kulaigye, Uganda’s defence and army spokesman.  

But in a separate interview, Col Kasura Kyomukama, Uganda’s liaison officer at the EAC, said the resolutions would contribute to the final legal framework, although he declined to discuss their substance.

He said: “These are still resolutions of a high level meeting and they will guide the drafting of the final Protocol on co-operation in Defence. It is still premature to discuss such issues.”

Mr Niyonzima said the decision to allow military intervention was being rushed to avoid a possible vacuum if civil conflicts arising especially out of election violence lead to a breakdown of institutions that facilitate democracy and good governance.

Four of the five East African member states are expected to hold elections between May this year and April next year, with the exception of Kenya, whose elections take place in 2012.

Critics, especially opposition politicians, have expressed fears that the outcome of those elections could trigger a volatile situation in the region.

In Uganda, the main opposition flagbearer, Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change, has already warned of severe consequences should there fail to be fair play.  

It is because of such fears that the defence chiefs of the region have agreed to conclude the defence protocol and have it approved by the Summit by June this year so it can be ratified before the year winds up. 

Uganda’s Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga, who presided over the Kampala meeting that looked at ways to upgrade the Memorandum of Understanding into the Protocol, requested that the final draft proposals be presented to the Sectoral Council of Defence much earlier than the designated date of May.