|
|
East Africa: Regional Police Heads Meet in Burundi
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
New Vision (Kampala)
27 August 2007
Posted to the web 28 August 2007
Jean Pierre Nkunzimana
Kampala
Delegates from 11 eastern African countries including Uganda are in Burundi for the 14th East African Police Chiefs' Council (EAPCCO) meeting beginning today. The two-day meeting precedes the EAPCCO annual meeting which will be held at Bujumbura Hotel tomorrow. It will bring together ministers in-charge of the Police.
EAPCCO is an affiliate of Interpol, an international security body, with 186 member states. Somalia, which registered last year, is the latest entrant to the regional body.
Gen. Guillaume Bunyoni, the director general of Burundi police force, said the objectives of the EAPCCO included fighting trans-border crimes.
"Today trans-border crimes have taken a multiple dimension due to the lack of consultation between our different police forces. We need to work in synergy to reverse the situation," he said.
Bunyoni pointed out the other reasons for joint policing as the need to check drugs and human trafficking, terrorism, proliferation of small arms and light weapons, illegal trade in fauna and flora and forgery of documents.
"The workshop will assess our performance in implementing those objectives. We shall look at the successes and constraints and analyse how we can address them," said Bunyoni. Awad Dahia, the head of Interpol's regional bureau, urged participants to review the resolutions they made during the 8th EAPCCO summit in Kampala in September 2006.
At the time, the participants agreed to implement regional training programmes to build police capacity. The training and planning sub-committee was also tasked with working out methods of holding EAPCCO cultural and sports events.
Dahia said the sub-regional bureau, based in Nairobi, was mandated to check human trafficking in the region. Dahia urged the Police chiefs to harmonise legislation so as to check on poaching and curb illegal trade in wild flora and fauna. The acting head of the Criminal Investigations Department in Uganda, Okoth Ochola, who is also the acting head of delegation, said he was satisfied with the progress made. "Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya established the operation 'Umoja' which organises joint operations to fight crime.
|
"It is working well and we shall extend to other member states. We are the architects of EAPCCO and we are here to ensure that it leaves a milestone," he said. The Inspector General of Police, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, was yet to arrive in Bujumbura.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2007 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
