{UAH} Pojim.....Tanzania is East African; let’s go play out in the hood, not with ourselves - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Tanzania+is+East+African+let+us+go+play+out+in+the+hood/-/434750/1983036/-/15bjj34/-/index.html

  

Pojim;

Generali Ulimwengu,has spoken!

Ocen

Tanzania is East African; let's go play out in the hood, not with ourselves - Comment

It is now a regular topic of discussion among East African professionals every time they meet around the region. Tanzania is being isolated, or allowing itself to be isolated by its partners in the East African Community.

That what are becoming regular summits involving the partners but without our head of state being invited — or not attending — is taken as a manifestation of a trend among our neighbours to chart their own future without necessarily dragging us along.

This situation is here now, but it's been a long time coming.

Over time, since the inception of the revived regional economic group, not so low whispers have been heard intimating that Tanzania has been dragging its feet, dithering on the speed of integration and braking several steps that the other member states think should be taken with dispatch.

When, six months ago, Kenya voted into office a young administration that seems to ooze ambition and a desire to show results fast, the complaints about Tanzania being a wet blanket became more strident.

It soon became clear that the new constellation in the region was in favour of vigour and speed. And soon our neighbours, especially Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, were swinging into action.

A couple of meetings have already taken place at summit level, suggesting many more have come to pass at ministerial and technical levels, and the immediate area of intended action is apparently infrastructural development.

A rail link between the Kenyan coast and Kigali seems to be on the cards, and reports suggest the financial architecture of the effort is fast taking shape.

This is happening at a time when Kigali and Dar es Salaam are sulking at each other since Jakaya Kikwete made a speech in Addis Ababa suggesting Paul Kagame and his government talk to the armed bands that helped kill around a million people in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a piece of advice that Kagame's government vehemently rejected.

Since then, Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa have sent troops into Congo to help neutralise — or something — the M23 rebels, whom the Rwanda government is accused of supporting, which can hardly be considered favourably by Kigali.

To make matters worse, Rwandese "illegals" have been given marching orders, forced to abandon families and property.

All this is strange, happening between countries that have for a long time now been vowing to work towards greater and closer integration within the EAC and whose declared eventuation is the formation of a political federation, the only such regional group in Africa to have that as a goal.

So, what is to be done to defuse the tensions and get the region moving in step again? In a meeting of the East African Law Society in Mombasa, Kenya, this past week, the issue came up for discussion.

The president of the society lamented "the recent moves by the heads of state of Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda to engage in moves that are viewed as isolating Tanzania."

He informed the assembly that he had written to the Secretary General of the EAC, Richard Sezibera, warning him of the divisive effect of such moves.

Promptly, another senior lawyer countered that the EAC treaty allowed for "multiple-speed" integration so that those who were ready could move faster and those who were not could come along at their pace.

In other words, ditherers may dither and dodderers may dodder, but hammerers will hammer.

But wait a minute, wouldn't this amount to trying to stage Hamlet without the prince? Tanzania is the only partner state with a border with each one of the other four, which makes it rather like the glue that holds them together.

Does it matter? Maybe not. South Sudan is mooted, Somalia too. And Ethiopia, and eastern Congo. We could cajole ourselves by turning to the south and SADC, but that is not the direction that our historical, linguistic, cultural and sentimental pointers indicate.

We are quintessentially East African, and whoever wants to lead us must lead us deeper into this region and not out of it. It is time we quit playing with ourselves and went out to play in the neighbourhood.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: ulimwengu@jenerali.com

Tanzania is East African; let's go play out in the hood, not with ourselves - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Tanzania+is+East+African+let+us+go+play+out+in+the+hood/-/434750/1983036/-/item/1/-/vb3udc/-/index.ht

Tanzania is East African; let's go play out in the hood, not with ourselves - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Tanzania+is+East+African+let+us+go+play+out+in+the+hood/-/434750/1983036/-/15bjj34/-/index.html