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Heads of state from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania met in Dar es Salaam on Sunday to review the progress of fast tracking their envisaged regional integration that mounts to a political federation between 2010 and 2013.
The fact that the scheduled two-day summit was packed into a single-day meeting between Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa revealed that there might be some hitches.
It was the third extraordinary summit held by the EAC heads of state since 2000.
Though no details of the consultation subjects were officially confirmed, it was believed that issues high on the agenda included review of fast tracking of EAC federation and admission of Rwanda and Burundi into the three-country East African Community (EAC).
Reporters waiting outside the conference room for almost a day were first told that the summit would end on Sunday with a press briefing along with an official communique.
But after a lengthy dinner break, reporters were told that the briefing and the press communique would be given only on Monday morning.
One official explained that the summiteers needed more time to prepare their communique.
When asked whether the Rwandan and Burundian presidents would come and join their equivalents from the EAC countries, the official said that there would be no meeting between the EAC presidents and the presidents from Rwanda or Burundi.
Both Rwanda and Burundi handed in their applications to join the EAC last November when the sixth EAC Summit was held in Arusha, northern Tanzania.
The EAC has sent a fact-finding team to Rwanda last month and will soon send another team to Burundi, to assess the conditions for admitting the two countries into the EAC that is now undergoing economic integration.
Local analysts believe that the three EAC countries risk witnessing their integration falling apart again should they rush their integration into a political federation without thorough preparations.
The EAC, first set up in 1967, collapsed in 1977 due to ideological and economic differences. The current EAC was revived in 1999.
(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2005)
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