By Fred Oluoch
Countries in the East African region have increased their effort to mop up light weapons in the wrong hands to tame conflicts seen as a major impediment to regional integration.
Research has revealed that within the East African Community countries, the most visible challenge to both cross-border and internal security is the uncontrolled and illegal spread of small and light weapons and their misuse.
Consequently, all the five EAC member states - Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda - have been engaged in disarmament to mop up arms in the wrong hands and destroying them. The EAC programme on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) has seen the destruction of more than 10,000 weapons in the five countries.
Currently, three out of the five members have developed national action plans to deal with small arms, with Tanzania being the leading in implementation. But these efforts can only be bolstered by the harmonisation of laws and other measures because the spread and trade in small arms and light weapons is mainly a cross-border problem.
Kenya has burnt confiscated and surrendered light weapons on many occasions while it is currently carrying out disarmament in the pastoral areas in the north that has experienced many clashes due to the culture of cattle rustling.
Uganda last year held similar destruction of confiscated arms while Burundi on April 17, destroyed 1,000 out of the 21,000 arms and tonnes of ammunition that have been surrendered by the people who are keen on restoring peace in Burundi.
One of the obvious causes of conflicts is elections where politicians compete viciously for leadership, the latest example being the Kenyan post-election violence. According to the EAC deputy secretary general in charge of Political Federation, Beatrice Kiraso. "It is time the leaders in the region stop fighting for power which creates more widows and miserable orphans."
Recently, internal security chiefs in the region met in Bujumbura Burundi to discuss how to ensure peace and security in the region and eliminate socio-political causes of conflicts.
This was in pursuant to the Treaty for the establishment of EAC recognises peace and security as essential to the promotion of trade, investment and other regional development efforts.
The EAC has been acting in accordance to the declaration in by African Union heads of state submit in Addis Ababa in January that committed itself to unshackle the continent from perennial conflicts.
As result, the year 2010 was declared the year of peace and all the five regional economic communities instructed to put in place mechanism to end conflicts in their respective regions.
One of the leading organs co-ordinating the eradication of small weapons is the Regional Centre on Small Arms and Light Weapons (Recsa) in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa based in Nairobi.
Recsa conducts awareness campaigns on the menace of small arms and light weapons inBurundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania.