EAC to set up Panel of Eminent Persons

CRISIS MANAGEMENT :Draft instrument adoptedEAC Partner State experts have adopted a draft instrument for the establishment and functioning of a Panel of Eminent Persons.The instrument is geared at providing the Community with the capacity of conducting preventive diplomacy and peaceful resolution of conflicts that may arise in the region. The Panel will is expected to perform a role similar to the one that was played by the African Union’s team headed by a former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the retired Tanzanian head of State Benjamin Mkapa and the wife of South African icon Nelson Mandela in resolving the post election violence in Kenya in 2008.The draft setting up the Panel was adopted at a two-day meeting in Bujumbura, Burundi recently.According to the provisions of the instrument, the Panel is mandated to advise the Summit, the Council and the Secretary General on issues relating to the promotion and maintenance of peace, security and stability in the Community, including promotion and protection of human rights, respect for the rule of law, as well as key elements to the process of EAC political integration.In an interview with The New Times, Richard Owora who is in charge of communications at the EAC secretariat, the member countries by the end of this year required to provide the names for the Panel.“They are still working on the modalities. The Council of Ministers will have to approve it before countries select their own representatives,” he on phone from Arusha. The establishment of the EAC Panel of Eminent Persons is consistent with the provisions of the EAC Treaty (Articles 6, 123 and 124), the Strategy for Regional Peace and Security; the draft Protocol on Peace and Security; draft Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution (CPMR) Mechanism; draft Early Warning Mechanism and the draft Protocol on Good Governance.“The Panel may, as and when necessary and in the form it considers most appropriate, pronounce itself on any issue related to the promotion and maintenance of peace, security and stability in East Africa and related matters,” reads in part the 12-page Draft Modality. The Panel will be composed of one Eminent Person from each Partner State who is a highly respected independent personality, of high integrity and who has made outstanding contribution to the cause of peace, security and development at national, regional, continental or international levels. However, where a particular situation warrants, the Panel may propose additional persons from within or outside the Community for appointment by the Summit. The members shall not hold active political office at the time of their tenure. The Deputy Secretary General in-charge of Political Federation, Beatrice Kiraso, said the EAC Panel of Eminent Persons seeks to provide the region with its own capacity to conduct preventive diplomacy for the purpose of defusing potential violent conflicts at their nascent stage, but also in case they have already blown out, to manage and transform them peacefully. “The Panel of Eminent Persons will particularly play a major role in preventing and managing election-related violence,” Kiraso noted.

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EAC to set up Panel of Eminent Persons