Following publication of my article titled “It’s time to rethink the East African integration and federation project” some commentators have advised privately that there is need to look more closely at the ‘real’ motive(s) behind the federation or closer union project in East Africa. The instruction by the Burundi East African Summit for fresh guidelines has rekindled interest in the need to reexamine the entire project going as far back in history as available information allows. Questions of nationalism, immigration and citizenship, land ownership and jobs, nation-state and a supranational authority etc have been raised.
The idea was first made public by Harry Johnston when in 1899 he called for closer union between Kenya and Uganda. With Tanganyika falling under British influence after WWI, the idea gathered momentum. Many aspirations were expressed by individuals and officials for creation of a ‘New Dominion’ to include Kenya, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Uganda and Zanzibar. The geographic area would run from the Limpopo to the Nile. The hidden agenda was to create a (white) settler-dominated, self-governing federation. Lord Delamare and Cecil Rhodes among others expressed this interest. To present it openly would have created a problem in Africa and possibly in Britain and elsewhere. So the economic and administrative justification for a closer union was substituted.
The chief champion of the federation project was L. B. Amery before and after he became Secretary of State for the colonies in 1925. He argued for closer union in economic terms which he thought would conveniently cover up the real scheme of white settler dominion. He argued that the poor countries in the region would do better economically through economies of scale under closer union. All the commissions including Ormsby-Gore, Hilton Young, Samuel Wilson and Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament concluded that “there was no support for a political federation, and little enough for closer economic union”.
Serwano Kulubya speaking on behalf of Buganda “stressed the constitutional difference between his country and Kenya, and expressed the wish of his people to retain direct access to the Secretary of State” Sir Donald Cameron Governor of Tanganyika rejected Amery’s idea of federation because “it was contrary to the obligation of Britain as a trustee”. He added that closer union would undermine development prospects for Tanganyika in the interests of Kenya. The common fear was that with federation, Kenya, the Southern Rhodesia of East Africa, would dominate others.
With Amery’s departure from the colonial office, the passing of Kenya’s Delamare and the economic depression of the 1930s the scheme lost steam and was placed on the back burner. The Second World War required a central administrative institution to coordinate common services resulting in the establishment of the East African High Commission in 1948 which operated apolitically lest it be misunderstood as a step towards federation. The 1953 ill-timed statement by Lyttleton of a possible political federation in the future raised a storm of protest especially from Buganda with serious constitutional and political repercussions in Uganda. Buganda position hardened in the cabinet of Obote and made it impossible for Uganda to collaborate with Kenya and Tanzania to establish a federation of East African states in 1963. The East African federation project, to the very disappointment of Julius Nyerere, its pre and post independence architect, was quietly shelved. Attention was turned to the East African Community which was established in 1967 but collapsed in 1977 for economic imbalance, personality and ideological differences.
During his address to Uganda ambassadors in 1996 Museveni instructed them to focus on commercial and not political diplomacy, giving the impression that he was interested in trade and investment, not political matters. Suddenly on April 4, 1997 Museveni announced “My mission is to see that Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and Zaire (DRC) become federal states under one nation” (EIR Special Report 1997), putting political federation ahead of economic integration through commerce and investment which he had stressed a year earlier. The proposed geographic area from DRC to Eritrea almost coincided with the colonial idea of linking areas between Limpopo and the Nile.
Some commentators have reasoned that he let the cat out of the bag prematurely, just as Lyttleton did in 1953. Museveni’s announcement of a federation in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region has been linked with his well known desire to create a Tutsi Empire initially in the Great Lakes region. The fact that he has demanded that negotiations for political federation be fast tracked ahead of economic integration (reversing the order of negotiations which should begin with economic integration and end up with political federation) has raised eyebrows. There are stories that Rwanda with a Tutsi dominated government like Museveni’s in Uganda has officially supported fast tracking East African political federation. Justifiably or not fear is mounting that the East African federation, if it happens at all, will be dominated by Tutsis. It was fear that the East African federation would be dominated by Kenyan whites that killed the idea during the colonial days.
In the midst of this political atmosphere seeking new guidelines by the Burundi East African Summit was a wise decision. East Africans from all walks of life should take a closer look at the real motive(s) for the establishment of the East African economic integration but especially the East African political federation. If the latter happens, some commentators have asked, does it swallow up nation-states as we have known them? In other words will Uganda disappear? If it does not how much sovereignty will it retain? Are we ready to become East Africans immediately? Is there a possibility that Tutsis who have become aggressive politically and militarily will dominate the federation at gun point? Will Kenya dominate the rest economically because of its current advantage? If nation-states remain in one form or another what are the exact gains and losses for each member state politically, culturally and economically? Are there areas such as land ownership that can be excluded from negotiations? Are there possibilities to “opt out” whole or in part if dissatisfied? Is referendum the appropriate method to resolve such complex issues in authoritarian Ugandan environment where the ballot box has lost meaning? Asking these questions is not being sectarian. It is the right thing to do by all patriotic people.
Ugandans especially those elected to represent the people and those negotiating on behalf of Uganda have a solemn responsibility and legacy to ensure that the outcomes do not disadvantage Ugandans politically, culturally and economically for present and future generations. Ugandans must develop a dialectical approach that enables us to look for and find those agendas that are hidden from public view because the truth more often than not is found in what is not said.
Since Uganda’s (and other member states) immediate goal is to meet basic needs largely through agriculture and associated industries, infrastructure and institutions as well as appropriate technologies which are best done at national level, regional cooperation should in its initial phases strengthen their capacities to do so instead of rushing into creating supranational bodies.