An EASBRIG meeting in Addis Ababa prepares for the Kampala summit
A high-level Legal and Political Experts Meeting of the Eastern Africa Region Brigade (EASBRIG) was held last week in Addis Ababa. The meeting was convened according to the directives of the 2nd Extraordinary Meeting of the Assembly of Heads of States and Governments to discuss EASBRIG on 17th March in Moroni, in the Comoros. The Summit directed that a committee should be set up to review progress towards producing a policy framework for EASBRIG. One high-level legal or political expert should be drawn from each member state under the chairmanship of Djibouti. The committee was to be assisted by AU Experts. It was agreed that an Extraordinary Council of Ministers meeting review the report by the end of June and report its finding to the AU Kampala Summit in July. In line with EASBRIG’s rules of procedure, Djibouti chaired the meeting with Ethiopia as Vice-Chair. In the absence of the Union of Comoros, Brigadier General Silver Moses Kayemba, the former Rapporteur from Uganda, was unanimously chosen to serve as rapporteur.
The Director of EASBRICOM, Major-General (rtd) Cyrille Ndayirukiye, in his opening statement, welcomed all participants to the Expert Working Group meeting. He reminded participants that the report of the meeting had to be presented to the Heads of States and Governments during the AU Summit in July for consideration and adoption. He underlined that the main purpose of the meeting was to maintain the cohesion of the region, and to create a structure that can accommodate all types of peace and security operational requirements before, during and after missions. Ethiopia’s Minister of State for National Defence, Ato Kasahun Dender, welcomed all participants to the meeting and summarized the achievements of EASBRIG, highlighted the successful conduct of the Command Post Exercise (CPX) in 2008, and the Field Training Exercise (FTX) in 2009 in Djibouti. The military PLANELM has been fully staffed, the civilian and police components have been developed to full capacity and approval has been made to develop an EASBRIG Maritime Concept. The State Minister recognized the fact that the draft of the proposed revised Harmonized Policy Framework Document has been under discussion for almost three years without any consensus. He reminded participants that they had been tasked with an important role over the following three days. As key advisers to EASBRIG, they needed to critically review the matter and forward well-thought out recommendations to the Summit. He urged the meeting to treat their mandate with the seriousness it deserved and produce a balanced and unbiased report for the decision makers. He expressed the hope that the experts would come up with recommendations that would further enhance the cohesion of the region and help it move forward together in unison.
The meeting came to the conclusion that the revised Harmonised Policy Framework could not serve as the working document since it had not been developed by the member states of the Eastern Africa Region. Instead, the meeting considered the Policy Framework on the Establishment of EASBRIG (2004) and the EASBRIG Memorandum of Understanding (2005). It decided that these two documents should be updated to incorporate the developments that had occurred since they had been originally adopted. There were extensive discussions on the changes needed for EASBRIG according to the AU’s Peace and Security Council’s protocol and EASBRIG’s MoU with the AU, as well as necessary changes arising from various decisions made by the Council of Ministers of Defence and Security. The experts made a number of amendments to be considered by the upcoming Council of Ministers meeting to be held on the side-lines of the AU Summit. The meeting was concluded in a spirit of cooperation and constructiveness for the mutual benefit of the organization and of all member states.