DR Congo now regional body member
By Story Agencies, July 13, 2022Arusha, Tuesday
The Democratic Republic of Congo is officially a full member of the East African Community (EAC) after depositing its instruments of ratification with the bloc’s secretariat on Monday.
A delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Foreign Affairs Christophe Lutundula presented the documents during a ceremony at the EAC headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania.
This means DR Congo becomes the seventh partner state of the EAC and has full and equal rights as an EAC member in addition to full obligations and privileges.
The country will benefit from the free movement of people from the DR Congo to other countries without a visa, in addition to free movement of goods especially to its eastern region, which relies on the Dar es Salaam and Mombasa ports for imports and exports.
The DR Congo will also be able to nominate nine members to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) and judges to the East African Court of Justice, the bloc’s judicial organ.
“Today is a very significant day for the Community and for the DRC. It marks the completion of the processes and procedures towards DRC becoming a full member of the East African Community,” EAC Secretary-General Peter Mathuki said.
Mathuki noted the addition of the DR Congo will bring a lot of “value” to the bloc and thanked President Felix Tshisekedi and his administration for a speedy ratification.
“Although the date envisaged to submit the documents was the month of September, you are depositing the instruments two months earlier. Therefore, that demonstrates your commitment and willingness to be part of the East African Community,” he said.
He pledged to initiate a speedy process to fully integrate the DR Congo into the programmes and activities of the bloc, including beginning the process of having the DR Congo’s EALA members in office to commence their duties in December. Lutundula, on his part, reiterated the DR Congo will respect and honour all its commitments and pledges in joining the regional bloc.
Mathuki said the EAC does not intend to halt its expansion following the inclusion of the DR Congo but did not elaborate further on which country may join.
“The DRC joins the Community at a time that the Community, actually, is looking at expanding. We hope that DRC will not be the last member to join the Community. We will be having other partner states joining.”
Among others, it means that from now on, the DR Congo will fully participate in all EAC programmes and activities and also join various areas of cooperation with the bloc. The vast country now joins the EAC and the cooperation by all the partner states in all the sectors, programmes and activities that promote the four pillars of regional integration – the customs union, the common market, monetary union and political federation.
The EAC Secretariat had already developed a draft roadmap for DR Congo’s integration into the bloc. Congolese officials will now go through the document with their EAC counterparts to design a final document that gives a proper timeline on each process and the related costs.
The BBC understands that General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, the former head of UK Special Forces, was briefed about the alleged unlawful killings but did not pass on the evidence to the Royal Military Police, even after the RMP began a murder investigation into the SAS squadron.
General Carleton-Smith, who went on to become head of the Army before stepping down last month, declined to comment for this story.
BBC Panorama analysed hundreds of pages of SAS operational accounts, including reports covering more than a dozen “kill or capture” raids carried out by one SAS squadron in Helmand in 2010/11.
Individuals who served with the SAS squadron on that deployment told the BBC they witnessed the SAS operatives kill unarmed people during night raids.
They also said they saw the operatives using so-called “drop weapons” – AK-47s planted at a scene to justify the killing of an unarmed person.
Several people who served with special forces said that SAS squadrons were competing with each other to get the most kills, and that the squadron scrutinised by the BBC was trying to achieve a higher body count than the one it had replaced.
Internal emails show that officers at the highest levels of special forces were aware there was concern over possible unlawful killings, but failed to report the suspicions to military police despite a legal obligation to do so. The Ministry of Defence said it could not comment on specific allegations, but that declining to comment should not be taken as acceptance of the allegations’ factual accuracy.
An MOD spokesperson said that British forces “served with courage and professionalism” in Afghanistan and were held to the “highest standards”.
In 2019, the BBC and the Sunday Times investigated one SAS raid which led to a UK court case and an order to the UK defence minister to disclose documents outlining the government’s handling of the case.
For this latest investigation, the BBC analysed newly obtained operational reports detailing the SAS’s accounts of night raids. We found a pattern of strikingly similar reports of Afghan men being shot dead because they pulled AK-47 rifles or hand grenades from behind curtains or other furniture after having been detained.