East Africa: Is the Time Ripe for South Sudan to Join the EAC?

A little-reported development on South Sudan's application to join the East African Community bloc raises some interesting perspectives.

The EAC Secretary General, Dr. Richard Sezibera, led a high-level technical mission from the regional body to meet senior officials of the South Sudanese government to discuss the country's application for membership.

It was reported that four technical sub-committees were formed dealing with legal, security and political affairs; trade, finance, economic and productive sectors; environment, health, education and culture; and infrastructure and services.

A Secretariat has also been established to coordinate the work of the technical teams. Less than three months ago, the Summit of EAC heads of state held in Arusha said that the South Sudan government had sought postponement of the process until September/October ostensibly to allow time for national preparations and consultations.

The more plausible explanation, of course, was that the country was seriously embroiled in civil war and needed to focus its attention on solving the crisis. Again, member states of the EAC would have been uncomfortable admitting a country into its fold that was in the middle of such ferocious self-destruction.

The logical thing was to politely postpone the process of admission of South Sudan until it first sorted out its problems. Now that activity towards South Sudan's admission to the EAC seems to be picking up even before the September/October date given by the region's heads of state, it is only logical to ask whether those problems that were bedeviling our northern neighbour have now been resolved.

To the best of our knowledge, the civil war is still raging in parts of the country. Although there is relative stability, the ceasefire agreement is still not being respected to the letter, with frequent breaches reported.

Hundreds of thousands of the country's refugees are yet to return home, and many more live in deplorable conditions as internally displaced persons in various camps. In the circumstances, the terms under which the talks are being done to advance South Sudan's application for membership need to be clear to avoid splitting the current members of the Community.

There are those countries that argue against quickly expanding the Community, saying there is nothing to be gained by bringing in partner states that are close to becoming failed states.