Regional lawmakers on Tuesday, June 7, urged the EAC Council of Ministers to ensure that partner states conduct many joint meetings among border communities to sensitise and enhance their understanding of a regional protocol for the prevention, control and reduction of small arms and light weapons (SALW).
This follows findings by the East African Legislative Assembly’s standing Committee on Regional Affairs and Conflict Resolution, which concluded that the rapid increase in small arms and light weapons is threatening the region’s development.
The Committee Chairperson, MP Fatuma Ndangiza (Rwanda), presented her team’s findings last year in March but debate on findings of the oversight activity conducted in the six partner states in September 2021 was postponed.
Among others, her committee recommends that putting in place a regional forensic laboratory for verification of SALWs would go a long way in helping countries that don’t have such a facility.
On Tuesday Ndangiza noted that the biggest challenge has been funding for such programmes.
She said: "We want the Council to strengthen its support and its funding.”
Betty Maina, the Chairperson of the Council of Ministers, referred the matter of SALWs within the partner states as a "weighty” one.
She said: "It is not the first time that we are dealing with it. It is encouraging that EALA is also adding its voice to this matter and you have made strong and useful recommendations which, I promise to commit to our Sectoral Council so that we see to it that it is done.”
South Sudan
There was special attention on South Sudan on Tuesday.
The Nairobi Protocol on SALW, one of the most comprehensive legally-binding regional agreement on small arms and light weapons, was signed in 2004 and entered into force in 2006 when the country was not yet a sovereign state. It attained independence in 2011.
Mismanagement of stockpiles of weapons collected from disarmament exercises and poor records of the arsenals of forces in the country, it is noted, led to increase of small arms within communities.
MP Pierre-Celestin Rwigema (Rwanda) who was part of the team that traveled to South Sudan for the oversight activity also said there are very many small arms and light weapons among civilians in the country and the Council of Ministers needs to work out a plan for helping deal with the problem.
"We have to see what can be done to help South Sudan. It seems to be on its own. We need to find ways to curtail the availability of small and light arms in every corner of South Sudan,” Rwigema said.
"I add my voice in urging the Council of Ministers to take a joint effort to fight this threat of small arms and light weapons mainly on the porous borders of some countries especially Somalia, Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan and DRC. And I think the Council of Ministers should put in place a regional forensic lab for small arms and light weapons verification.”
Besides the burden of poor infrastructure, as noted, total breakdown in law and order is another big challenge in the country’s disarmament exercise.
MP Gabriel Alaak Garang Diing (South Sudan) pleaded with the Council of Ministers to "pay so much attention to how we can get arms out of the hands of the civilians of South Sudan."
Pointing to cases such as the situation in north eastern Uganda and eastern DR Congo where armed groups are causing havoc, he noted: "How can East Africa be secure? How can you move forward with the integration process when you see such number of arms in the hands of people? They are said to be small arms but after a while you will find that they will be heavy arms in the hands of these people.”
"I hope the Council of Ministers will take these things seriously. When we are staying here, in Arusha, Tanzania, we move (easily) from Mombasa through here to Kenya, to Uganda and to Rwanda. But move in South Sudan and you will see all civilians with light arms. And they cause a lot of insecurity. So, when we are sitting in the comfort of this beautiful place, let us also remember South Sudan.”