By Ray Naluyaga,

Former President Benjamin Mkapa has warned East Africa that the championed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) by the European Union is another Berlin Conference for the scramble of Africa.

He said the fact that the EU is bracing for equality of trade agreements with the East African block, means that the European Union was seeking to weaken the EAC which is striving to strengthen itself economically.

Mr Mkapa was speaking here yesterday as a panellist during the Pan Africa Media Conference 2010 organised to mark the 50th anniversary of the Nation Media Group (NMG), themed “Media and the African Promise.”

Referring to the famous 1884 Berlin Conference, Mr Mkapa said: “If you fool me once, shame is on you, fool me twice shame is on me.”

He said Africans were taken for a ride during the Berlin Conference and that should serve as an important lesson to them when they negotiate trading partnerships with developed nations.

He said Africa should not be cajoled into EPA because there was no way underdogs could do fair business with developed nations.

He Africa will not emancipate itself from poverty and chains of colonialism until it chooses to reconsider its position in the world today through regional integration towards a United States of Africa.

“I am a realist optimist, now that regional blocks exist throughout Africa, the goal must now be to strengthen them towards a single African State,” he said.

Mr Mkapa said Africa must embrace self reliance and denounce charity while civil societies must hold accountable both the rulers and the society in order to be able to take Africa forward.

Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are being negotiated by the European Commission on behalf of the European Union, with six groups of African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

Four of the groups are African countries. The two other groups are the Caribbean and the Pacific regions. EPA negotiations started in 2002 and were expected to be concluded by Dec 31, 2007.

According to EPA, ACP-EU trade relations are supposed to be based on arrangements that do not need waivers or derogations from the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Trade relations between the ACP and EU, under the Lome Conventions from 1975 up until now, have mostly been covered by waivers or derogations from WTO rules, but it is felt by the EU that the international economic order has changed and requires trade arrangements that comply with WTO rules.

Other eminent persons who participated in the debate included President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, Kenya prime Minister, Raila Odinga and Nobel peace prize laureate Prof Wangari Maathai of Kenya.

Mr Mkapa remarks come only a month after the East African Community (EAC) was pressed to end a stalemate and give a clear timetable for signing a new trade deal with the EU.

Mr Timothy Clarke, the EU’s head of delegation in Tanzania, said EPA was initialled by EAC members Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda in 2007, securing EU market access.

The deal was meant to be signed in July 2009, but the deadline passed due to a standoff over trade and development issues.

“The present stalemate needs to be broken and a realistic timetable put into place for signing the initialled agreement,” Clarke said adding:

“The status quo is not an option. Failure to move the EPA process forward at this stage... would in the (European) Commission’s view, be a major setback for the regional integration process.”

The EAC has a gross domestic product (GDP) of $73.3 billion and a population of close to 127 million. It has a customs union, and a common market is due to take effect in July.

Opening the conference earlier, President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya challenged the participants to examine how new media, which he termed as citizen journalism, can be used to deepen democracy on the African continent, in fighting the vices of corruption and nepotism, and in addressing the environmental challenges Africa must deal with due to the effects of climate change.

“The advent of citizen journalism has become possible because of tools such as SMS, blogs and social networking websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Myspace,” he said.

Nation Media Group founder The Aga Khan announced plans to establish a new Graduate School of Media and Communications that will be based in East Africa.

The school, the first of its kind in the region, will have its first campus in Nairobi by next year and later be integrated in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Aga Khan University to be created in Arusha.

The proposed Graduate School of Media will offer a Masters Degree program, serving recent university graduates as well as media owners, managers, and mid-career journalists.

He said the new School would also work on the cutting edge of media technology, embracing especially the new on-line world - its complications and its potentials.

"Let me sound a word of caution. Freedom, in any area of human activity, does not mean the moral license to abuse that freedom.  It would be a sad thing if the people of Africa in the name of freedom, were expected to welcome the worst of media practices, whether they are home-grown or imported,” he said adding:

“I am convinced that the best way for media, in Africa and elsewhere, to maintain their independence is to prove their indispensability.”

Among those in the packed plenary hall at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre during the morning session were President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, ex-Presidents Joachim Chissano of Mozambique, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and Information and Communications minister Samuel Poghisio.

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