EAC ‘too weak’ to intervene in Burundi, says law body

Arusha. The East African Community (EAC) cannot intervene and stop the on-going killings in Burundi because it lacks the powers to do so.

“There are drawbacks in the Treaty to cover situations like this,” said Tito Byenkya, the chief executive officer of the East African Law Society (EALS), said the premier bar association in the region.

He told The Citizen that what is happening in Burundi was not entirely unexpected because the lawyers’ body had forewarned of the potentially worrisome situation in the EAC member state way back in 2011.

“At our an annual general meeting at Ngurdoto we raised a red flag on the increased level of state intolerance on human rights defenders especially the lawyers”, he said when reached to comment on the ongoing turmoil in the country.

Mr Byenkya said given the deliberate violation of human rights there, EALS took the matter to the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) under Article 6 (B) and 7 (2) of the Treaty for the Establishment of the Community.

The Court ruled that the EAC Secretariat should commission a verification team to Burundi to find out on the growing cases of human rights abuse and suppression of civil society groups and political parties.

To date the EAC has neither formed nor sent the verification team as ruled by the regional Court, he said, noting that it reflected the nature of the powers inherent in the regional organization.

“The policy making process of the EAC is largely political. The Council of Ministers and the Heads of State cannot pronounce themselves against one of their own”, he said.

Burundi, which joined the EAC alongside with Rwanda in 2007, has been wracked by bloodshed following a controversial extension of tenure by President Pierre Nkurunziza to a third five year term. The former bush fighter during many years of civil war has been the president since 2005.

“Tanzania should be in the forefront in talking on the situation in Burundi having played a role in the Arusha Accord of 2,000,” said the executive secretary of the East African Trade Union Confederation (EATUC), a regional organisation based in Arusha, Ms Caroline Mugalla. The Accord brought peace in the country considerably.

She said East Africa should be scared of insecurity in Burundi. “Insecurity of an EAC partner is insecurity to all countries”, she said, warning that policy makers in the region should not wait until the situation degenerated into a genocide as was the case in neighbouring Rwanda in 1994.