{Tanzania is considering pulling out of the East African Community (EAC), in the face of what political leaders in the country regard as “sustained isolation” by Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.}
Although there have been simmering tensions between Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete and his Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda counterparts, on Wednesday Tanzania’s minister for EAC Affairs, Samuel Sitta, confirmed the worst fears.
He told a charged Parliament in Dodoma that Tanzania will not wait for a “divorce certificate” from Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, but will shoot before it is shot.
The minister spoke on the same day President Uhuru Kenyatta, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Salva Kiir of South Sudan signed a host of protocols and agreements in Kigali, including free movement of goods and persons, infrastructural development and transformation into a single Customs Union.
The pacts were signed on the sidelines of the three-day “Transform Africa Summit” to which Tanzania and Burundi, both EAC member states were not invited.
And Sitta confirmed that not a single Tanzanian minister attended the Kigali event. The only senior government official at the function was the permanent secretary in the ministry of EAC Affairs.
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