BY DAVID KISANGA
11th November 2013
This was said by Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Amina Mohamed, during a joint press conference with her Tanzanian counterpart Bernard Membe in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
Mohamed, who led a Kenyan delegation sent by President Uhuru Kenyatta said her one-day official visit was meant to show how her government was touched by President Kikwete’s Thursday speech on the EAC.
Mohamed’s visit came few days after President Jakaya Kikwete faulted the three East Africa Community (EAC) member states of Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda of going against the bloc’s protocols and sidelining Tanzania and Burundi in the integration process.
“We have carefully gone through President Kikwete’s speech on EAC matters and quite agreed with his arguments,” she said.
“As EAC member states, we are fully in support of Tanzania’s stand regarding the EAC community integration process and would not want to see a situation where we part ways with Tanzania,” she told journalists.
She assured the Tanzanian government and its people that Kenya will not isolate Tanzania in the community.
She pointed out that Tanzania is the most significant EAC partner state that the other states depend on in fostering the the community.
Mohamed said EAC states, particularly Tanzania have come a long way and still have a lot to work on to consolidate the community.
According to her the EAC states are there for the development of member states and their peoples.
The Kenyan minister noted that there is no need for Tanzania and its people to worry over being isolated in the EAC because “we are still together and the community will grow strong,” she said.
On Thursday last week President Jakaya Kikwete explaining Tanzania’s position in the East African Community (EAC), following regrouping of Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda ‘to tackle matters that they thought were of common ground’ said Tanzania has no plans to leave the regional body or let the partnership fall apart.
Kikwete’s statement came amid speculations from some quarters that Tanzania and Burundi might opt out of the EAC following the new stand by Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda.
The latter three, skipping the former two, had met three times and discussed a number of projects and programmes, some of which, if implemented could impinge on the EAC scheme.
“I want to assure you that Tanzania has no plans to quit the EAC. Tanzania has done nothing wrong against any EAC member state. We are loyal to the community…Tanzania will continue to be part of and work with the EAC and strengthen it on the basis of the agreed protocols,” Kikwete had told the Parliament in his speech.
“Some of these leaders are said to be accusing Tanzania of dragging its feet on the integration of the EAC. Such arguments are baseless. We do not have problems in fast-tracking the EAC federation. However, this should be done according to the East African Federation Protocols,” the President had stressed.
Speaking at the joint news conference, Tanzania Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister Bernard Membe said Kenya has realised that it was misled in conducting the meetings that discussed a number of issues that are of EAC nature without inviting Tanzania and Burundi.
“Kenya has realised that it was misled. No wonder it has sent the minister’s delegation to Tanzania. In my meeting with her she stated as much,” Membe told journalists.
According to Membe, before President Kikwete spoke in Parliament last week, Kenya was not fully aware that some of the meetings that involved it Uganda and Rwanda were against the EAC federation protocols.
In another development, minister Mohamed said the Kenyan government is has thanked Tanzania for being in the forefront in supporting Kenya in the trials involving crimes against humanity facing President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Vice President William Ruto at the International Criminal Court.
The cases were a result of the post 2007 General Election violence that left over 1000 Kenyans dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.
“We depend on Tanzania for its support in ICC trials,” she stressed.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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