Last week in Nairobi at a summit of the leaders of the East African Community (EAC) countries the envisaged political federation of the region was given a new push. A committee has been set up to look at the modalities and submit its report to an ordinary summit of the leaders to be held November 30 this year.

This is a landmark progressive development with implications for other regions of Africa (ECOWAS, SADC, IGADD, etc) and the whole of Africa through the African Union. It is a good example that should spread and do so quickly. Unfortunately the media in the region and outside of it are not giving the matter the due consideration it deserves.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a firm believer in the federation, was so incensed by the media's lukewarm attitude that he branded Ugandan journalism and journalists 'useless' for not giving proper coverage to the issue. As a freelance member of the profession I will not go as far as the president who is not known for saying 'room for improvement ' where 'very bad' will fit. I don't think the local media is 'useless' instead I will say that it suffers from two serious (but politically curable) diseases: petty localism and external ideological dependence.

One makes it grab as headlines any local issues no matter how silly. The other makes it victim of 'download the downloadable' from the internet about any other issues that are an 'inch' outside the national boundaries and even more embarrassingly sometimes, national issues outside of the capital city!

In the 1960s the former British colonies of East Africa through the East African Community (EAC) were a beacon of regional integration envied by other regions, not just in Africa but even internationally. This was a period of nationhood and nationalism as former colonies asserted their right to govern themselves and exercise sovereignty over their affairs. Supranational organisations that required loss of sovereignty were not popular. In practice they operated as multilateral bodies cooperating on specified issues rather than integration agencies.

The late AM Babu, a radical icon in African Nationalism from Zanzibar and later a minister for Economic Development in Tanzania after his small island country was united with mainland Tanzania in the mid 1960s, used to reminisce about the early years of the East African Federation and the Pan Africanist dreams that inspired many of them in those days. He told us how ministers from the West European countries used to ask him and his colleagues how they were managing their federation without too much squabbles. These were days when the European Union was little more than a trading cartel around steel. By that time the EAC already had a common educational system and university, a common airline, and a communications and transport system.

Unfortunately, as the crisis of neocolonialism deepened across Africa the real gains of the union, rather than be a continuing source of further integration, became victim of bad politics and governance leading to its break up in the 70s. But even after its break up the remnants of the federation, in spite of division of assets, survived through infrastructure, both human and material. For instance telephones between the three countries remained local but more than this trade, commerce and movement of people have continued to defy the colonial boundaries and the internecine power struggles between the leaders over many years.

Indeed the political instability of a country like Uganda for most of the 70s up to the mid 1980s and Kenya in the Moi years succeeded in creating new regionally aware people who have had to live outside their countries among their neighbours. Many of the leaders were educated in each other's countries and therefore made friends across the region. This people to people contact and the force of interactive economic activities ensured that regionalism continued to survive in spite of the state elite. For instance Museveni remains popular in Tanzania especially in his old University of Dar es Salaam whereas Tanzania’s Benjamin Mkapa is more popular at Makere University. Many of the political leaders and activists were contemporaries at these universities.

After the overthrow of Idi Amin in 1979 mostly through the efforts of the Tanzania Army and Ugandan exile groups based in Tanzania it was hoped that EAC would return to its glory days. But those were times when Kenya was a cold war darling of the West and had delusions of surviving and doing better than her neighbours. So ideological suspicions did not help rebuild the Union. The Obote 2 regime was also too unstable internally to be a credible regional player.

However with relative stability returning to Uganda from the late 80s under Museveni the idea of a renewed EAC began to flourish. Moi's Kenya, though the regional economic power with more to gain from further integration, remained suspicious of its neighbours and for much of the 80s and early 90s Kenya's reluctance slowed the movement back to integration. But Kenya was fast losing its 'oasis in an ocean of crisis' status as Uganda under Museveni became a new darling of the West with Aid money and 'generous' IMF/World Bank facilities turning the once basket case of Africa into another 'miracle'.

At the same time the pressures of globalisation were beginning to take their toll just as the cold war was thawing after the collapse of the Eastern bloc. Like in all regions of the world the East African states were being driven by the forces of economic necessity in a predatory globalisation to move closer to each other. Consequently ideological and political suspicions were thrown aside as new efforts took place to restart the romance long suspended between the states. This culminated in the East African Cooperation treaty.

By this time Museveni's revolutionism that Moi had feared had become an economic counter-revolution with vestiges of his revolutionary past only surviving in his no party movement politics. Tanzania had also abandoned its Uhuru Na Ujama as privatization took roots and historical anti capitalist ideology of the country turned against collectivist solutions deemed socialist. The economic convergence of the states made it easier for them to see and deepen their integration efforts. Collective survival dictates the tempo.

There were cautious steps initially in order to avoid problems of the past and rebuild bridges but progress has been incremental since the late 1990s. The EAC has a parliament appointed from among elected legislatures in all the three countries. It has agreed to set up an East African court. It has signed Custom Union agreements and has a timetable for a common market and monetary Union. The final bloc in its regional integration efforts is a political federation of the states. It has also set conditions under which other states in the region can ascend, to membership. Rwanda, after its elections last year, should not have any obstacles in its ascension to full membership. If Burundi's peace process culminates in an elected government acceptable to the people it should also be able to gain full membership.

The bigger prize should have been the DRC but in the current circumstances one has grave doubts. However some of its regions, especially the volatile Eastern region, are culturally and economically part of the EAC therefore some real politic will be needed to accommodate that reality.

Uganda, that was the bane of the old EAC, has been very upfront and almost impatient in the current drive. In a twist to history, Tanzania that has been the home to both regionalism and Pan Africanism in the region, later became the one slowing down things. This was mainly due to the relative weakness of its emergent bourgeois interests who feared that Kenya capitalists would swallow them up.

There are many challenges ahead but regional federation is indispensable for a Pan African Union envisaged by the Constitutive Act of the African Union.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa ([email protected] or [email][email protected])

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