"The collapse of the East African Community (EAC) was inevitable" Discuss

Approach:

Points to consider.

The EAC was a comprehensive attempt at promoting regional co-operation among East African states; it was on 6th June 1967 that the treaty establishing it was signed. Present were the three East African heads of state namely Kenyatta, Obote and Nyerere. Mr Mathaura was appointed as its first Secretary General. The Community was hoped to act as a framework for social, political, cultural and economic co-operation between the East African countries, to improve trade development, transport and enhance global influence of member states, increase investment, productivity and promote regional peace and security. There were numerous reasons for the collapse of the EAC
Ideological differences among East African leaders and divergent paths taken by member states precipitated the collapse of the EAC.
Unequal level of development and distribution of benefit among the member states left room for doubt among them.

Neo colonialism also undermined the operation of the Community. This was witnessed, firstly, in the role of Multinational Corporations from USA and Britain.

The East African Development Bank's weakness must equally share the blame. The bank was established to oversee the development process of the region; to act as resource base.

Shortage of foreign exchange (1969-73) undermined the continued existence of the EAC. This arose from inflation on the world market when Arabs reduced oil supply as a way of fighting Israel.

The resultant global economic recession also affected East Africa and led to foreign exchange shortages. The financial crisis that arose undermined the role of the East African Development Bank while the fuel shortages, on the other hand made it difficult to maintain the railway system.

Member countries began trading with foreign countries: Western Europe and USA. Tanzania in particular turned to China as a foreign partner. This undermined inter-territorial trade.

Institutional weaknesses accounted for the problem of lack of effective regional planning. This included weal-messes in transport institution e.g poor management and corruption in the railway sector; the railway would not make profits because of Kenya's preference for road transport.

Lack of experience/commitment among member states was enough to fail the community's continued existence. The Community collapsed because it lacked the political goodwill of the leaders who apparently refused to first consider the effects to the people of East Africa of its break up.

Obote himself, one of the founder members, had began considering domestic affairs in Uganda as being paramount as soon as he embarked on the Common Man's Charter.

Moreover, Amin who had the Community less at heart overthrew him.
Surprisingly too, some prominent Kenyans did not favour the Community and as such they were pleased when Nyerere refused to convene the East African Authority.

Others individuals were not interested in its success but had personal interests to this end, institutions like the East African Airways were beset by corruption.

The weakness of OAU contributed to the collapse of the EAC. OAU failed to maintain its stand on regional integration and interterritorial understanding.

It is surprising that member states, led by Tanzania, could opt to demonstrate their hatred of Amin through threatening to boycott the OAU conference that had been scheduled to take place in Uganda in 1971. In this regard, the OAU could not be a forum for reconciliation.

Furthermore, OAU failed to completely destroy forces of nee-colonialism hence the intervention of foreigners in the affairs of the Community that eminently saw it collapsing.

The conflict between Amin and other East African leaders was instrumental in leading to the collapse of the EAC. Amin claimed parts of Western Kenya and the rift valley; Kenyatta responded by cutting off oil supply to Uganda to bring Amin back to his senses. The Uganda-Kenya boarder was closed; trade between the two countries was frozen and tourists from Kenya would not enter Uganda.

With all the buffoonery, Amin antagonised himself with Kenyatta without regard to Uganda's being a land- locked country! Amin also conflicted with Nyerere; the latter refused to recognise Amin as the leader of Uganda because he had ousted, through illegal means, Obote, a personal friend. Such conflicts militated against joint action within the EAC.

The absence of measures for collecting and sharing customs revenue in accordance with the pre-negotiated formula exposed the Community to chances of collapse. Kenya continued collecting revenue from the Community's services and used it for own benefit. This raised suspicion and disagreement from Tanzania and Uganda that put the Community at the verge of collapsing. The Income Tax Department split up in 194 and from the same year it became difficult to transfer funds from the Community or to its headquarters.

The running of the Community was an affair of only leaders. It was a Community of 3 presidents; it did not involve the masses, each head of state started determining the state of the Community. Moreover, the Community lacked an organ for decision-making. This sufficed to make it crumble down.

Duplication of resources militated against the survival of the East African Community. To guarantee market and realise economies of scale, it had been agreed that each country should specialise in the production of a certain commodity. But there was duplication whereby Uganda and Tanzania began establishing inefficient industries producing similar goods and began competing for foreign markets.

Trade protectionism weakened the EAC. The principle of free movement of goods failed. Partner states started charging (axes on goods brought within their boundaries/those passing through their territories so as to protect the economy of each member state. This undermined economies of scale hence the subsequent collapse of the EAC Achievements of the Community

The long existence of the EAC was another achievement. The community survived for 10 years and despite its collapse in 1977, it had succeeded to lay foundation for the formation of the current EAC. The latter has its origin in the Mediation Agreement for Division of Assets and Liabilities of the EAC [defunct EAC] signed on May 14th 1984; in that agreement there was provision that Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania should explore areas of future co-operation.

It was on this basis that the 3 heads of state held a mini-summit in Harare in 1991 during which they announced their intention to revive the Community. In November 30th 1999, in Arusha, they signed a treaty for the establishment of the EAC in Arusha.

Other countries were inspired by the treaty that established the EAC e.g Burundi, Somalia, and Zambia only that they never joined the Community. The community became a model of other regions in Africa took the same trend of development e.g independent West African states formed ECOWAS in 1976 and has become partly responsible for the development of West African member countries.

Led to increase in international trade. The value of inter-state trade in manufactured goods from 690 million shillings in 1967 to 855 million shillings in 1973. This increase was mainly a result of industrial development in Kenya.

Further still, the EAC established the East African Development Bank to act as a financial resource base for member countries.

The EAC also promoted education in East Africa. It promoted inter-university exchange programmes; some students from Uganda [Makerere university] were exchanged with those from Kenya [Nairobi university] and Tanzania [Dar-es salaam university] and vise versa. In Tanzania, the Amani institute of research was established to facilitate research. The Community also established the East African Examination Council to deal with exams in the region. This was Pan East Africanism in progress.

The Community promoted political stability to some degree. It established the East African Court of Appeal to solve regional conflicts. This not only gave chance to those who were dissatisfied with Judgements of lower courts to appeal to this court but also represented an attempt to maintain justice.

Political stability some how existed among the East African leaders before the Idi Amin coup. Even when Amin conflicted with Nyerere, the two accepted Kenya's mediation though misunderstandings remained.

The Community established various institutions. The major ones included the East African Authority made up of three heads of state of the member countries. Its task was to direct and control the performance of the Community. There was the East African Legislative Assembly, which was composed of 3 Community Ministers, 3 Deputy Ministers, 9 representatives appointed by each member state. It made laws for the Community. The Assembly did some useful work notably in its 1973 Select Committee to probe into the mismanagement of the East African Airways. Corporations that were established included the East African Posts and Telecommunications with headquarters in Kampala, the East African Airways with headquarters in Nairobi etc

In the final analysis therefore, the collapse of the EAC was attributed to a multiplicity of factors ranging from the weaknesses of member states themselves to external influence and since such weaknesses outweighed its achievements then its collapse was inevitable

"It was primarily the conflict between Idi Amin Dada and Julius Nyerere that led to the collapse of the East African Community" Discuss

How to answer the Question:

Points to consider

Nyerere refused to recognise Idi Amin as a tine leader of Uganda. This made Amin to face difficulties on the diplomatic front immediately after the coup. Nyerere branded the new Ugandan regime as "an illegal regime, which has no excuse for staging a revolution.

To many Ugandans even among Nyerere's admirers this outburst appeared to be hypocritical in the extreme because unlike Nyerere, Obote whom he continued to recognise as the legal president of Uganda had been made president by his troops just like Amin.

Nyerere refused to sit together with Amin on the same table. While addressing a huge rally in Dar-es-salaam, Dr. Nyerere told his enthusiastic audience; "how can I sit at the same table with a killer?

Whom will Amin be representing? I cannot sit with murderers." He also stormed that he would never sit at the same table with the military usurper next door who was "little better than an imperialist stooge." To this end,

Nyerere's dislike of Amin created problems for Kenyatta. In the first place, during the momentous days of the military coup in Kampala, Kenyatta shed no tears over Obote's downfall, for had there not been speculation that Uganda was giving house room to Kenyan desidents plotting to overthrow the Kenyan government?

But Kenyatta understood that if Kenya welcomed Gen Amin with open arms when Tanzania and Uganda were at daggers drawn, Tanzania would claim that Kenya and Uganda were conspiring against her. This meant that in order to play his cards right, he had to wait for the right moment. When he finally brought the two leaders together, he did not make the mistake of having them on the same table for this would have been disastrously premature!

The gap between Nyerere and Amin was widened when Nyerere rejected the convening of the OAU. The OAU was the body formed in 1963 to, among other things promote unity in Africa and had achieved this in the event of the formation of the EAC. However in the wake of his diplomatic setbacks which he attributed to Nyerere and his friend Obote, Amin’s delegation was not seated at the OAU ministerial conference. The OAU summit itself was relocated to Addis Ababa instead of Kampala where it had been scheduled in May 1971 after many states led by Tanzania refused to accept Amin and threatened to boycott the summit. Accordingly, if Nyerere could not cooperate with Amin within the OAU framework, then how would he cooperate with him in the EAC framework?

Amin's contemptuous character militated against co-operation between him and Nyerere. He despised Nyerere and sought to humiliate the intellectual president: "I love you very much; had you been a woman I would have married you inspite of your grey hair". Amin didn't stop at that, he challenged Nyerere to a boxing bout as a means to sort out their differences once and for all! Amin's act of undermining a fellow head of state earned him wide spread hatred hence throughout Tanzania Amin was referred to as "Nyoka" [snake], This worked against the Community's stand on promoting inter-territorial understanding.

Maintenance of peace in the East African region became difficult for the EAC. The conflict between Amin and Nyerere had reached a crisis amidst reports in Uganda of an impending Tanzania's invasion. Amin lived in constant fear of such invasion. The threatening statements issuing from Tanzania convinced Amin that his opponents were not in Uganda but in Tanzania. On the other hand Obote's thinking from the moment he landed in Nairobi was to master an invasion force to oust his Amin. On 17th September 1972 Obote's followers who had not blessed the regime with deep recognition launched an abortive invasion in Uganda. To this end, the EAC would not effectively operate in an environment of political instability.

Nyerere's strong intimacy with Obote made the differences between him and Amin irreconcilable. It should be recalled that Nyerere, Obote [on top of being members acting within the EAC], and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia were in a political club called 'Mulungushi' which was critical of colonialism. Thus when Amin overthrew Obote, this had an adverse impact on the club on grounds that Nyerere felt that there was a missing link in the fight against colonialism. This laid ground for the strong hatred that Nyerere harboured for Amin.

Nyerere blocked Amin's appointees to head the EAC positions. He refused to endorse Uganda's nomination for senior posts in the Community until Uganda had approved the community's budget white Uganda refused to do anything of the sort until Tanzania accepted her nominees. On the other hand Amin had also put a ban on Mr Malacella. the Tanzanian Community's finance minister from visiting Uganda. In effect, the morale and the efficiency of the Community staff begun to crumble. Important ministerial meetings would not be convened because the Ugandan representative had not been confirmed in his post by Tanzania.

Give other factors as explained in the previous number.