TA 33 cover
Mwinyi Launches Ambitious New Development Plan
And Reshuffles his Cabinet
Nyerere Lays Down the Law in Zanzibar
If the Union had Never Happened
Tanzania and Japan
Cotton Processing – Rehabilitation Programmes
Taking a Broom Dance to Tanzania
Amnesty International 1988 Report
The Census – Preliminary Results
President Mwinyi launched an ambitious new US$ 1.3 billion Five Year Development Plan in the middle of April 1989 which aims to raise gross domestic product growth to six per cent a year by 1992-93. Exports which rose 8% in the first year of the Economic Recovery Programme to US$ 388.0 million in 1987-88 are budgeted to rise to US$ 681.0 million by 1992-93. Reviewing progress during the past few years President Mwinyi told Parliament “Problems are still there but what is emerging is that our efforts are not for nothing.” The Financial Times wrote recently that the reforms are working. Real growth is expected to reach 4% in 1988-89 compared with years of negative growth in the early eighties.
(At time of going to press we do not have the details of the Plan but hope to review it in our next issue – Editor)
The Daily News reports that President Mwinyi made ‘sweeping’ cabinet changes on March 6, 1989.
A new Planning Commission under his own chairmanship has been set up. The Vice-Chairman will be Mr. Kighoma Malima who was, until the Changes, Minister of Education. Other commissioners lnclude former Minister of Communications and Works, Mustafa Nyang’anyi, former Minister of State for Finance, Damas Mbogoro and former Principal Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, Pius Msekwa.
The new Minister of Education is Mr. Amran Mayagilo, formerly Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development and the new Minister for Communications and Works is Mr. Stephen Kibona who was Deputy Minister for Defence.
New Ministers of State include Messrs Hassan Diria (Information), and Mateo Naasi Qaresi (in the restructured Ministry of Local Government, Community Development, Cooperatives and Marketing) and Mrs Fatma Said Ali (Civil Service). There are also new Deputy Ministers for Defence and National Service (Mr. Ernest Kisurno) and Agriculture and Livestock Development (Mr. Charles Shija Kabeho).
Meanwhile, in a separate event at the same time, the Third National Congress of the Tanzania Womens Organisation (UWT) Mrs Sophia Kawawa was re-elected Chairperson for five years by a vote of 905 to 3.
Party Chairman Julius Nyerere spent the first five days of March 1989 in Pemba, The front page headlines in the Daily/Sunday News tell their own story of what happened.
March 2: Nyerere Dismisses False Propaganda
March 3: Mwalimu Warns Agitators
March 4: Pemba Elders Want Severe Punishment For Detractors
March 5: Regional Commissioners Free To Detain Trouble Shooters
He is reported to have made the following remarks in addresses to various Party meetings in Pemba. (He was responding, among other things, to the demand by Party elders for punitive action to be taken against ‘traitors, detractors and hypocrites’ on the island).
He said that Party members should ignore false propaganda being spread by disgruntled elements against the Party and its leaders. Government organs would book opportunists disturbing political stability on the pretext of promoting democracy. “Democracy is not chaos …. Frankly, I personally don’t care what he (referring to former Zanzibar Chief Minister Seif Shariff Hamad’s reported mud-slinging campaign against the Party and its leaders) says … He can stand on top of Kilimanjaro and shout himself hoarse, but there is a limit to which the utterances will be tolerated” . Hamad and his clique, who were expelled from the Party last year, were motivated by impetuous greed for power … they had been given every opportunity to reform. Mwalimu said that Hamad had written abusive letters to him and to Party Vice Chairman Mwinyi. Mwalimu added however that the Party would protect the constitutional rights of Hamad and his group.
Later, in Zanzibar island, Mwalimu told Regional Commissioners to apply state powers, including detention, against political cheats and opportunists who were waging a smear campaign. He warned that Commissioners failing to book the culprits would be treated as accomplices using their positions to protect the detractors. The Party Chairman said that the culprits should first be warned to desist from the slander campaign, failing which they would be detained. He said the R.C’s should renew the initial 48 hour detention orders on a given culprit as often as necessary to bring him under control. Under the law R.C’s can seek presidential approval to hold culprits for longer periods.
Responding to questions in a wide ranging 40 minute interview on Television Zanzibar, Mwalimu denied accusations that he was spearheading a crusade to turn the CCM Party into a Catholic Church movement. He said it was sinful for a grown-up person to tell lies and wondered how people could speak of such serious charges when both Christianity and Islam preached against lies.
Mwalimu also denied that he had influenced the appointment of Seif Shariff Hamad as Isles Chief Minister in 1984 or that of his successor, Dr. Omar Juma. “It was President Mwinyi who picked Seif. As for Dr. Omar, I did not even know him. Why give me credit for things I did not do, Mwalimu wondered. He admitted however that, after the 1985 elections he had strongly argued for the re-appointment of Seif following the misunderstandings created by Seif and his clique aimed at stopping the election of Zanzibar President Idris Abdul Wakil. “I did this not because I feared Seif but for national unity. If this was a miscalculation on my part, I accept the responsibility” he explained.
Various organs of the press outside Tanzania have been giving their views.
Sometime before these events African Concord stated that tension in Zanzibar was under control but that security measures had had to be taken in response to rumours of impending strife. It quoted President Mwinyi as having said that “The government is not taking any risks. Every possible precautionary measure is being taken to guarantee public safety and the security of the state”.
The Financial Times in its January 17 issue stated that Zanzibar feels that it deserves a larger slice of development aid than the US$ 50 million which was allocated to island projects in 1988-89. It quoted an economist in the Zanzibar Finance Ministry as complaining that the case put to the IMF was not based on the economy of Tanzania but on that of Tanganyika. But the newspaper went on to state that Zanzibar, despite a more liberal economic policy than that of the mainland, would be hard pushed to go it alone. ‘Zanzibar currently relies on import of food, electricity and fuel from the mainland for which it pays in shillings, while it spends more than a third of its foreign exchange on rice from Thailand for the discerning local palate. Perhaps more pertinently, Zanzibar does not control its own defence. To overthrow the government would be impossible. For the opposition leaders, who drink tamarind juice beneath the Sultan’s old palace and gaze out across the sea to the mainland, this must be all too clear.’
Africa Analysis, however, in its March 17 issue stated that it considered that Mwalimu Nyerere’s recent public utterances were unlikely to dampen widespread agitation against the Party and the Tanzanian authorities.
Editor
Tanzanians (and friends of Tanzania) have just been celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar which created Tanzania. It happened on April 26, 1964, and, by intent or by chance, a revealing new book has just been published (US Foreign Policy and Revolution: The Creation of Tanzania by Amrit Wilson. Pluto Press) which takes us back to the days of the founding of the Union.
The book gives us the author’s interpretation of the events of the time on the basis of declassified US State Department and CIA documents . It also provides (in an Introduction and an Appendix) a typically combative view of the events as seen by one of the main protagonists – A.M. Babu – although, apparently, he was away abroad at the time that the Union was created. We have dealt with this matter before in Bulletin No. 30.
The creation itself was clearly a matter of immense International importance at the time because, according to the book, the United States Government was intent on ensuring that, under no circumstances could Zanzibar, which only three months earlier had had a violent revolution, be allowed to become another Communist Cuba. It is important to remember that we are talking about the period when the ‘Cold War’ was at its coldest. Some of the most revealing documents indicate the intense world-wide repercussions of what was happening in Zanzibar:
February 4, 1964: US Secretary of State Dean Rusk to US Ambassador, Tanganyika: The President continues to be gravely concerned about the Zanzibar situation ….
February 5: US Secretary of State Rusk to British Prime Minister Douglas Home: I am sending you this personal message to let you know of my deep concern over the possibility that Communists may consolidate a strong position on Zanzibar ….
March 30: US President writes to British Prime Minister. (The British Government seems to have been remarkably resistant to American pressure on Britain to take action but the book does not contain any British official communications): The US ambassadors in Nairobi , Dar and Kampala have seen Kenyatta, Nyerere, Obote respectively and stressed desirability their acting promptly to make Karume (the then President of Zanzibar) see dangers of present trend towards Communist domination. State Department has instructed US Embassies approach Nigeria, Liberia, Ethiopia, Congo and Tunisia attempt to get them establish physical presence on Zanzibar. Following Embassies requested reemphasise to host governments desirability assigning resident representatives Zanzibar and offering aid if possible: Brussels, Copenhagen, Oslo, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, The Hague. Circular telegram sent following posts in attempt stimulate responsible Asian countries establish missions in Zanzibar: Tokyo, New Delhi, Canberra.
April 3: State Department cabled US ambassadors in Bangkok, Canberra, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Tokyo, Wellington and Manila urging them to establish diplomatic presence Zanzibar soonest.
The book is not able of course to reveal the content of telegrams then being exchanged between Communist countries but we learn from it that the Soviet Trade Mission had agreed to purchase 500 tons of Zanzibar cloves, that China was providing US$ 500.000 in assistance and that the East Germans were very active in the housing field. There were also rumours about East bloc arms being introduced into the country. In the context of a cold war none of this is surprising. The book makes virtually no reference to any action the Eastern Bloc was presumably making to frustrate American aims. The book is concerned strictly with US interference in Zanzibar’s business. The author also seems to have been unsuccessful in making contact with any of the main participants in the events described except for Mr. Frank Carlucci who was then US Charge d’Affaires in Zanzibar and subsequently became President Reagan’s Secretary of Defence. He was interviewed by the author in August 1986 and described the person at the centre of the drama – the then President of Zanzibar, Karume – as “a very decent, somewhat phlegmatic man … I spent a lot of time with him on a one to one basis”. The book quotes however a cable from Mr. Carlucci to Washington on March 30th urging them to make an ‘impact offer’ (or, says the book, in plain language, a bribe ) to Mr. Karume to help separate him from ‘the radicals surrounding him’ . A possible offer might be a helicopter with an American pilot!
Babu asks why the US was more worried about a possible socialist success in Zanzibar, a small island perched off the coast of Tanganyika, than about Mozambique, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe or the Seychelles. The answer he says is to be found in the role Zanzibar has played historically in influencing neighbouring countries. It used to be said ‘When they flute in Zanzibar they dance in the lakes (Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika)’. According to Babu the Zanzibar revolution had been the first of its kind in modern Africa. ‘Zanzibar patriots did not revolt simply to overthrow a politically bankrupt government and a caricature monarchy. They revolted in order to Change the social system which oppressed them and for once to take the destiny of their history into their own hands … the revolution turned Zanzibar into that s ingle spark that would start a prairie fire.’
He goes on to write about the Union. ‘Even if the masterminds of the Union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika were motivated by the best intentions (the book implies that the Union was instigated largely by the US government) the manner in which it was effected was far from conducive to a stable unity’ … it was sprung on the people of the two countries in the form of an indigenous coup d’etat…. the arbitrariness, secrecy and resultant suspicion coupled with the colonial and alien nature of the constitution that was to bind the two countries together, all constituted essential ingredients for the tensions that have accompanied it ever since’
The American objective was achieved. Zanzibar did not become a Communist state. But one wonders what would have happened if it had. Would it have been a success? The book, which is dedicated to ‘the people of Zanzibar in solidarity with their struggle’, hints that it would have been. Babu writes lyrically about ‘a huge vista of hope and potential to create a new social order’. Would Zanzibar have become another Cuba? Would it have been totally isolated from most of its neighbours for a long period? Would the Soviet Union have been able to afford to give to another island aid on the massive scale it provides to Cuba? Would it have become a show place for socialist values? Would it have got into very serious trouble after being accused of fomenting revolution elsewhere in the continent? Armed intervention was a serious policy option being discussed by the western powers according to the book. Would Mwal1mu Nyerere have had an easier or a harder time in steering Tanganyika through all the problems it has faced in the last twenty-five years? Would Mr. Gorbachev have been visiting the island in 1989 and recommending its government to adopt Perestroika and Glasnost? We can never know.
David Brewin
When the Editor of this Bulletin asked me to let him have some information on Tanzanian activities in Japan I was worried because I have never been to Tanzania and didn’t know very much about it!
Luckily my husband found three articles about Tanzania in recent issues of the ‘Japan Times’, one of four English language daily newspapers in Japan. You will have seen extracts from these in Bulletin No. 32.
I decided to phone the author of the articles, Mr. Hidaka, to ask him if he could put me in touch with any other Tanzania related activities. First however he told me that he was planning another article about Tanzania and this subsequently appeared in the ‘Japan Times Weekly’. It was about the Masuguru (North West of Dar es Salaam) settlement of South African PAC (Pan Africanist Congress of Azania) refugees. He quoted one resident in the camp as saying that “we have two enemies. One is the white-controlled government in South Africa. The other is the wild animals here!” Mr. Hidaka had been told that the PAC had another camp in Tanzania where military training was being conducted but his informant had refused to reveal its whereabouts.
THE JAPAN TANZANIA ASSOCIATION
Later I heard that there is in Japan an association like the Britain-Tanzania Association with a similar name – the Japan-Tanzania Association. I called the Tanzanian Embassy in Tokyo to find out its address. On contacting them I learnt that it had been established as long ago as 1978. The Association’s membership comprises 26 Japanese companies with business ties to Tanzania and includes three former Japanese ambassadors to the country. The Chairman is Mr. K. Ikeda, President of the Nippon Koei Co. Ltd whose offices house the Association. They produce an annual newsletter – usually a single or a double sheet; half is in English and half in Japanese.
A TANZANIAN EXHIBITION IN TOKYO
At the beginning of this year a photograph appeared in the ‘Japan Times’ showing the opening ceremony of a Tanzanian exhibition in Tokyo. It was being held from February 1st to March 3rd 1989 and was the first Tanzanian exhibition organised by the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) for sixteen years. So I decided to go and have a look.
On arrival, because I wasn’t sure what to do and because most of the people seemed to be gathered there, I went first to the shop. There was a good display of Tanzanian products for sale. I bought a bracelet and also a greetings card made from Tanzanian paper to send to the Editor to indicate that I was doing my best!
By this time I was quite relaxed and ventured into the main hall of the exhibition. It wasn’t very large – about the size of two fair sized rooms. I saw a beautiful large scale photograph of Kilimanjaro, an exhibition of Tanzanian paper, jewellery, leatherwork and there were two video tapes. I was given two glossy brochures full of beautiful pictures and informative articles. There weren’t many people at the exhibition but those who were there stayed a long time.
I learnt that there remains a heavy imbalance in trade between the two countries. Japan exports (mostly vehicles, electrical goods and machinery) almost ten times what it imports (mainly coffee but also shellfish, fabrics, sisal, various raw materials and animal products). For us Tanzania is the 51st most important export country; for imports to Japan Tanzania stands in the 101st position.
Included in one of the brochures was guidance to potential Japanese tourists. Prices were said to be very high but with recent devaluation it was becoming cheaper. A typical eleven day tour costs about £2,000. Potential tourists were warned that there is only one radio station in Tanzania – in Japan we have nine! – and television can only be seen in Zanzibar. The most popular souvenirs as far as Japanese visitors are concerned are Makonde sculpture and painting (there is a Makonde museum in Nagoya, Japan’s third most important city) batiks and Zanzibar chests.
Twenty Tanzanian firms had taken stands at the exhibition. I spoke to a representative of JETRO and showed him a copy of the Bulletin of Tanzanian Affairs. He was very impressed because it was being produced by British people interested in Tanzania on a voluntary basis. He implied that this was something more likely to happen in Britain than in Japan where commercial motivations were very pronounced. The representative said that the Tanzanian exhibition was the most successful one they had organised during the last year in terms of sales from the exhibition shop.
THE SAVANNAH CLUB
He also told me that the real centre of activity for Japanese interested in Tanzania is the Savannah Club in Tokyo. This was established some twelve years ago and attracts lots of Japanese businessmen, photographers, air hostesses, anthropologists and others who have been to or love East Africa. It is a social club with some seven hundred members which meets every two months and has visiting speakers on East African subjects. They publish an eight page journal every two months. The issue I saw contained articles on their 82nd meeting, new books, including one on chimpanzees in Tanzania, and their Christmas party at which the Tanzanian Ambassador and his wife had apparently been the first on the dance floor ! The Chairman is Mr. Yukio Togawa, a well-known writer. I was put in contact with Mrs. Kitamura, one of the members of the club, and it was through her help that I was able to meet Mrs Uno who later provided a personal memoir of her period in Tanzania. (This is given below in a rather abridged form because of space limitations – Editor).
Keiko Collins
TANZANIA AND I
First I would be most happy if you could know that here in Japan there are so many persons like me who are interested in and love Tanzania.
As for the relations between Tanzania and I, I have to go back to the year 1967 when I started my voluntary activity as one of the members of the Japanese Overseas Volunteer Cooperation – JOVC. I stayed in Dar es Salaam teaching housewives (who are not high society women) sewing at the biggest community centre. At that time, as Japan had almost no relations with Tanzania and had no colonies in Africa, Japanese people, except a few knew only that Tanzania is the country of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Lake Victoria, the land of Masai and wild animals by reading books and seeing pictures.
When I was dispatched there by the Japanese government as a member of the first group of JOVC, my friends asked me why I chose that country in Africa and advised me I had better stay here in Japan. However, as soon as I stepped out in Tanzania I found that almost all the preconceptions that Japanese had about Tanzania were wrong. Really, seeing is believing.
I was much impressed with the hospitality that Tanzanians showed me. Human relations full of love that I could recognise easily; their greetings in Swahili to respect others, especially the aged; the traditional way of living and cheerful and open minded nature. I felt some similarity in their attitude, philosophy and customs compared with the ones that old Japanese had and it made me feel at home.
Although they were not rich at that time they seemed to know how to enjoy life and to have special talents in making things turn to good condition with their originality and inventions, things we have forgotten for a long time in our developed society. The words ‘pole pole’ in Swahili mean slowly and before my departure from Japan I was told Tanzanian people do everything ‘pole pole’ and there is no development at all. But when I got there, although it was sometimes true, I found that quite often things had to be done ‘haraka haraka’ (quick, quick). Moreover I recognised that people were clever enough to do things as well as people in the developed countries. Opposition to them is for the reason that because of their lack of education in colonial days foreigners assumed that they had neither common sense nor cleverness.
My Tanzanian students invited me often to their houses. I should say often it was not a house but a room (housing situation was very bad at that time); even if there was only one fish with them for five family members they warmly welcomed me always. Really I had a splendid time with them, eating Ugali by hand ….. I still have beautiful memories, especially their broad and warm heart. I must say that these good relations with them were caused by Swahili language which I had used instead of English during all my stay. If I had used English they would not have treated me as a friend nor showed me their real ideas or life. Truly they had keen eyes to judge whether this man is good or enemy. All of this came about because of their detestable time under colonialism. Without me speaking their national language this good relationship with them would never have existed.
Of course I have climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, crossed Lake Victoria, did safari in many national parks and enjoyed African dance and music. After returning to my mother country I started my new life by working at Radio Japan (The Japanese National Broadcasting Corporation’s overseas programme) Swahili section and my new relation with Tanzania also started. I found that Japanese still had biased imagination against Africa, so, in order to let them know the real situation in Tanzania I have written a book in Japanese under the title ‘My Beloved Tanzanian Mamas’.
In 1970 the World Exposition was held in Osaka, Japan and Tanzania took part. Then James Ikanga, a famous marathon runner, visited Japan several times and thus the name of Tanzania became much more well known in Japan.
More than that , Japanese assistance to Tanzania has increased. The number of JOCV volunteers has increased each year to more than 600 now. Similarly, students from Tanzania have come to Japan invited by the government and private companies. Members of the Savannah Club have bought patrol cars and binoculars for East African game parks.
I myself have visited Tanzania many times privately. When I visited Tanzania about six years ago I felt so sorry for Tanzanians for they were having a very hard time to live because of the lack of daily necessities and water, a Sunday driving ban due to lack of petrol and increased crime on the streets. People had to make a line to buy sugar and rice! They looked very sad and tired out with life. In the national parks I saw many carcasses because of the famine. In these bad conditions people lived by helping each other, dividing foods and other things among them.
Last year I had a chance to visit Tanzania again. My friend had started collecting money for the partial renovation of the UWT hostel building in Dar es Salaam by selling telephone cards (which are used here instead of coins in public telephone boxes). Each card costs 800 Yen (£3.50) of which 300 is a contribution. In two years the campaign has raised seven million Yen. UWT women welcomed us and we had a really nice time with them.
Throughout this trip I felt at ease as I could see that people were happier than at the last time though life is still not so comfortable and many troubles are not yet resolved. The town had become more beautiful and neater than before, and at the port there were so many ships at anchor. People had regained their smiles and become more vivid.
Thinking of my good friends of Tanzania who are living so far away from Japan I can’t stop praying for their happiness and prosperity.
Midori Uno Hitomi
Mrs KEIKO COLLINS teaches English in five universities in Tokyo. She has also translated some 17 books into Japanese.
Mrs MIDORI UNO has been employed by NHK Radio Japan – the Japanese equivalent of the BBC’s World Service.
(Readers of the Bulletin will be familiar with some of the problems which have been facing Tanzania’s cotton industry during recent years. A comprehensive paper on the subject, with particular reference to cotton processing, was presented to Britain’s Tropical Agriculture Association at a meeting at the Linnean Society of London on January 19th 1989. Extracts from the paper are given below – Editor)
THE SITUATION IN 1982
From a high peak of 415,000 bales in 1972/73 Tanzania’s cotton production had declined to 196,000 bales by 1982. But exacerbating this decline in production has been the state of the processing (ginning) industry. The 23 roller ginneries and 2 saw ginneries originally had a potential capacity of 400,000 bales in a 26 week ginning season but in 1982 they struggled to achieve 120,000 bales. The difference between the two different types of ginnery is that roller ginneries are slower acting and more gentle with the cotton and are particularly well suited to long staple and hand picked cotton, whereas saw ginneries provide a much higher throughput but do not retain the lint quality. Furthermore, in order to gin 120,000 bales the ginneries had to work all through the year. The crop should be ginned in only 26 weeks so that the process is completed before the next rains and at the best time for marketing. The old age of the ginning machinery, much of it built in the 1940’s and 50’s but some dating back as far as the 1920’s, caused frequent breakdowns leading to a decline in production and increased marketing costs and maintenance requirements. Poor maintenance, the lack of spare parts and of fuel and lubricants plus the numerous changes that the industry has experienced compounded the problem.
THE BEGINNING OF REVITALISATION
To determine the nature of the problems and suggest possible measures to revitalise the industry the Government of Tanzania in 1982 commissioned the British Cotton Growers Association (BCGA) which was originally formed in 1902 but is now part of the Cargill Group of companies, to carry out, with World Bank assistance, a comprehensive study of the industry. At the same time the Government of the Netherlands instigated a US$ 20 million Emergency Rehabilitation Programme to sustain production and processing. BCGA were retained as consultants to this project also.
The emergency aid programme provided funds for ginning machinery and replacement parts, machine tools and materials for a central workshop, new vehicles and a team of specialists comprising eleven BCGA engineers to provide training and to assist with production maintenance and in rehabilitation of the ginneries.
The team have experienced a number of problems. These include delays in the co-operatives ordering and arranging delivery of spare parts, the chronic short age of fuel and lubricants for the diesel generators which supply power to the ginneries and difficulties the Cooperative Unions face in sending their vehicles to the Central Workshop in Mwanza because of the poor state of the roads. Also the inability of the Unions to recruit and retain staff for training due to poor pay and conditions and the remote location of the ginneries and the poor prospects for future advancement.
But the Emergency Rehabilitation Programme has made good progress. Some 600 roller gins have been overhauled and made operational out of a total of 817 and in the 1986/87 season the Unions were able to gin 300,000 bales and to improve productivity and quality.
The 1987/88 crop increased to 450,000 bales but the equivalent of 200,000 bales remained unginned at the end of the season and had to be carried over to the following season. A crop of some 500,000 bales is forecast for the 1988/89 season.
NEW GINNERIES
As existing ginning capacity, even after rehabilitation, will not be able to cope with present and future production, in 1987 the Government of the Netherlands commissioned BCGA to design and plan new ginneries (at Manawa, Balumba, Mwanhuzi and Buchosa) under a US$ 15 million project to be managed by BCGA. Two roller and two saw gins are planned. One of the four (Buchosa) will be financed by a loan from the European Investment Bank. Britain’s Overseas Development Administration (ODA) has asked BCGA to do a feasibility study for the rehabilitation of the Manonga Ginnery and Oilmill and an appraisal of the justification for a new ginnery at Nassa. Sweden funded a study in April 1988 to assess the condition of existing plant and equipment in the Eastern cotton growing area of Tanzania. The World Bank funded a study on cotton pricing and marketing in September 1988.
COTTON SEED OIL
Much of the cotton seed from which valuable cotton seed oil and cake can be extracted is being destroyed each year because of inadequate milling capacity and to make s pace for the new crop of cotton in the limited storage facilities. Some 80,000 tons remained unprocessed in 1988 and Tanzania is forced to import large quantities of vegetable oil. BCGA is currently undertaking an appraisal of the edible oilseed processing capacity in Tanzania and hopes that this will result in donor aid for the Tanzanian oil milling industry.
COTTON TEXTILES
Tanzania’s textile industry is also facing problems. It uses only some 60,000 bales of cotton at present although its capacity is 100,000 bales. The causes are similar to those faced by other parts of the cotton industry particularly shortages of power and fuel. The World Bank is financing a study aimed at rehabilitating the textile industry.
J. W. Turnbull
Mr. J. W. TURNBULL is Divisional Director at the British Cotton Growers Association Ltd. He was previously a consultant with Minster Agriculture Ltd.
(Extracts from a paper presented at the International Conference on the Arusha Declaration)
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere characterised colonial education as emphasising values contrary to those of socialist Tanzania. He argued that colonial education was based on the assumptions of a capitalist society that encouraged the ‘individual instincts of mankind instead of cooperative instincts’.
Emphasising that traditional African values were based on group, not individual, goals he declared that colonial education was a deliberate attempt to change those values and replace traditional knowledge by the knowledge from a different society. It was elitist and was designed to meet the interests of a very small proportion of those who entered the school system. Nyerere argued that Tanzanian education should develop socialist attitudes of cooperation, equality and responsibility.
This changed role of education was to be achieved by reorganising schools, restructuring the educational system and changing the actual content of learned information.
Among the many reforms initiated was the introduction of se1f reliance activities in the school curriculum. These were designed to overcome elitism, integrate schooling with village life, engender a cooperative mode of living and enable schools to contribute to their own upkeep.
How far have reforms in the education system succeeded in achieving these objectives? Studies done in the wake of various educational reforms generally painted a rosy picture conveying the idea that, even if the ideal has not been reached, it is only a matter of time before a few adjustments in the system will bring it about.
Most commonly sited problems were said to be: misunderstanding by both students and teachers of the philosophical basis of the policy, persistence of the white collar complex and disdainful attitudes towards manual labour, poor project planning with no student involvement and so on. Most authors saw these as attitudinal or technical problems. My own research (in the early 80’s) however, reveals that the problems were structural and political and that technical changes alone would not have solved the problem. Our understanding of the school and education is incomplete unless we site education in the total functioning of the society. specially in its link with the economy. This link between what goes on in the school and what goes on in the villages is very strong.
MSWAKI UJAMAA VILLAGE
Mswaki is 22 miles west of Handeni. In 1971 it had 40 houses and 200 people. During the villagisation programme of 1974-75 scattered settlements nearby moved into the village so that by 1984 it had 318 households and a population of 1,566. In November of 1975 it had become recognised as an ‘ujamma village.’
Agriculture at Mswaki is governed primarily be the amount of rainfall. In good years there is enough food but most of the time there are food shortages. Maize is the primary food and cash crop. Communal farming activities were begun in 1972 as a condition of receiving food aid. As the food situation improved communal farming was abandoned. The second phase of communal farming began in 1980 as a result of pressure from above. The government directed that every village should have at least 100 acres of communally cultivated farm. Work on these farms was to be compulsory with 75% of the land to be put under maize and 25~ under an export crop – tobacco.
The growing of tobacco encountered a great deal of resistance. Because tobacco needs three times as much labour as maize peasants argued that the growing of tobacco would leave very little labour for maize and hence risk food Shortages. During 1983 six peasant s were sent to jail for not growing the required acreage of tobacco. One old man described how:
“Militia came to our houses at five in the morning banging on the doors and asking us to come out. I had a kettle with water with me as I was preparing for the morning prayers. One militiaman asked me where my tobacco farm was. I said I would show it to him after I had said my prayers. He kicked my kettle and asked me to march like a frog for my insolent behaviour. After this punishment I went and showed him my tobacco plot”.
Each individual was expected to cultivate a quarter acre of tobacco. In the 1982/83 season the Party Ward Secretary alleged that the village leaders were cheating in measuring the plots. Measuring had been done by pacing but village leaders were accused of using the shortest person in the village to do the pacing. For the 1983/84- season the Ward Secretary therefore used a rope of the requisite length to measure the size of the plots.
The resistance of the peasants to follow government directives was explained away by government and Party officials as backwardness, stubbornness and ‘not knowing what was good for them’.
EDUCATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Despite the changes that have occurred within the schooling system, schools continue to reproduce peripheral capitalism in Tanzania by equipping the bulk of the citizenry with basic skills in a manner that restrains their aspirations and reminds them of their largely rural agricultural future.
In 1984 Mswaki Primary School had 377 pupils. There was a school farm and pupils in the upper classes were expected to spend two hours per week on self-reliance activities. In 1983 three and a quarter acres were cultivated partly in maize and partly in beans and tobacco. The farm was cultivated in the exact manner the peasants had always done. Pupils clearly had not learned any new agricultural skills or techniques. All decisions about the school farm were made by the teachers. In all the self- reliance activities observed teachers never participated but guided. A similar situation was observed in the classroom activities of the pupils. The teacher talks and the pupils listen. Failure to obey results in punishment. Corporal punishment is widely employed. Every teacher carries a cane and uses it often. Teachers are the only source of knowledge. The school lacks books of any kind and although it has a radio provided to listen to school broadcasts there are no batteries. The village receives no newspapers.
Nearly all teacher s have projects besides teaching. All have farms. The carpentry teacher makes and sells furniture. Another teacher buys and sells maize, often to the neglect of his teaching. During a four year period not a single pupil from the school had been selected for secondary education.
Both parents and children reject this practice under which primary education becomes a preparation ground for peasants in a peripheral dependent capitalist economy rather than education for self- reliance. This rejection is manifested in two ways. First, there is a general apathy towards sending children to school and secondly, those who finish schooling are unwilling to stay on in the village and become peasants. The main problem facing the school is absenteeism. In 1983 six parents were fined or sent to jail for not sending their children to school. If the parents cannot persuade the child to go to school the pupil is caned six times. In 1983 there were ten court cases in which children were whipped. In the following year however the attendance of Sixty pupils registered in standard five was only 19 – one third of the enrolment.
Of 64 pupils interviewed only three were interested in going to secondary school and the majority were expecting to leave the Village after completing standard seven. They expected to get unskilled jobs as factory workers, domestic workers, vendors, barmaids etc. One said:
“Life in the village is difficult. Here you are forced to do many things … grow tobacco on your farm … cultivate a quarter acre on the Village farm …. grow your own food … to do all these satisfactorily is very difficult. Even when you work hard you hardly get enough money to buy clothes”.
A teacher added that the coercive nature of the village leadership was not conducive for the participation of youth in the village activities.
We can see that both in the functioning of the village and the school there are features that are similar:
– authoritative and hierarchical decision making;
– emphasis on export crops both in the village and in the school;
– rejection by parents and pupils of their assigned roles;
– coercion to ensure compliance;
– a feeling of superiority on the part of those in authority – resistance by the peasants is explained in terms of cultural backwardness amongst the Zigua people of Handeni.
CONCLUSION
Education for self-reliance has not led to fundamental transformation of the educational system. There are several reasons:
– the dependent nature of the economy; the role of the schools becomes to produce pupils who are users of technology rather than creators of technology;
– education for self-reliance reforms were initiated from above; bureaucracy, which is itself organised in a hierarchical and top down decision-making form cannot implement reforms that were intended to democratise the school system;
– education for self-reliance does not sufficiently address the question of knowledge; we are users of technology and therefore produce pupils for that role; most of the knowledge that is taught comes from the West; most of our books come from capitalist countries thus making us retain English as a medium of instruction; can there be self-reliance in education without the country being self-reliant in the production of knowledge? meaningful self-reliance is not possible with a dependent economy;
– what kind of society are primary school pupils being educated for? is it the society of the future or the past? the policy states that students should be integrated back into the community from which they come i.e. from the society of the present and of the past which is not a socialist society; this has meant in practice preparing students for a role in a dependent peripheral capitalist economy;
We have shown that notwithstanding the almost universal support for the view that it is possible to remake society by remaking the educational system, even educational reforms that are successful in terms of their immediate goals may not fundamentally a1ter the structure of society. Schools reflect society as much as they affect it.
Suleman Sumra
Dr. SULEMAN SUMRA is a Senior Lecturer in the University of Dar es Salaam and was formerly a primary and secondary school teacher.
Late in 1988 the British Council arranged a two week visit to Tanzania by the four-person Mellstock Band. With no recent history of Council managed music tours in Tanzania, choosing the Mellstock Band was something of a gamble. But folk music fascinated large and wholly Tanzanian audiences. Wherever there were workshops with Tanzanian musicians, discussions quickly progressed beyond the superficial. The Mellstock Band debated the role of traditional music in a culture increasingly influenced by modern popular music; thus, similarities in outlook rather than differences in musical expression were always evident.
The band’s itinerary covered Dar es Salaam, Bagamoyo, Zanzibar, Iringa and Mzumbe. That the schedule was adhered to was something of a miracle. It felt like an act of faith when we finally stood in a crowd around the seafront bandstand in Zanzibar. The bandstand hadn’t been used for performances since the early 1960’s, yet a 500-strong audience was there and obviously entertained by what it saw. The Band’s programme included traditional instrumental dance music, vocal unaccompanied carols, a mummers’ play, the Dorset broom dance and an acted and sung ballad featuring one of the characters in drag. Audiences appeared to enjoy the variety. Attention only wandered when someone fell from the harbourside in Zanzibar into the sea; all the children in the front rows ran from the performance to peer at the police fishing out the unfortunate non-swimmer.
The Bwawani Hotel, Zanzibar was the venue for the most bizarre event of the tour. In return for free accommodation the band had agreed to give a concert which turned out to be a televised ‘English Night’. Publicity for the event read: ‘We had an Indian Night (they said it was wonderful); a Chinese Night (they asked how we managed it) ; a Fisherman’s Night (they asked “When again?”). Now we have an English Night with the Mellstock Band.’ A stage was built in the garden of the hotel and lit with red and blue fairy lights. The British flag was hung as a backdrop, and ancient posters of National Trust properties were pinned on trees and around the stage. A buffet was served, with surprisingly good English food, including the best bread pudding we had ever tasted!
As the tour progressed we realised that the repetition and mesmeric rhythms in the dance music had a wide appeal. Displays of virtuosity were greatly applauded, whether on the tambourine or in physical dance movements. The Broom Dance, planned as an encore, became the highlight of the show.
The mummers’ play, a traditional Dorset Christmas play, began with the four characters shrieking and banging long sticks as they stormed onto the stage. Children in the audience scattered in all directions and we realised later why they did this, when we saw the police keeping order with similar sticks. The mummmers’ play tells of a battle, and depicts the death of a warrior who is subsequently brought back to life by a doctor. The basic elements of death and rebirth were understood, even if the stylised speech was not; sympathetic magic central to the idea of the mummers’ play was probably more accessible in Tanzania than in the band’s native Dorset.
Everywhere we went people wanted to show us what they could do in return. We were treated to performances of traditional music and dance in Bagamoyo, Iringa and Zanzibar. This was an unplanned mutuality and one that affected the band profoundly. Nowhere more than on these occasions were we made aware of the poverty around us. No commercially made instruments were available, drums being made from tin cans or oi1 drums and beaten with sticks. We were enthralled by the complex and intricate rhythms created with these simple tools. The Mellstock Band will be holding benefit dances to raise money to buy instruments for the musicians of Zanzibar so I hope that readers of the Bulletin will look out for them. And if anyone has an unwanted brass instrument, do let us know.
Highlights must include flying through a rainbow over an azure sea to Zanzibar, dancing our hearts out at a Mellstock barn dance in Dar es Salaam and singing with a hall of seven hundred children whom the band had encouraged to join in their music. Our seven-hour drive to Iringa over pot-holed roads was rewarded when we entered the teachers’ college and discovered decorated signs reading ‘Welcome Mellstock band and feel at home’. The banner over the door as we left said ‘Goodbye to our friends. Please come back soon’
Anna Pincus
LEGALISING SUNGUSUNGU
The Tanzanian News Agency (SHIHATA) reports in its April 10th issue that President Mwinyi has given an assurance that traditional security groups known as Sungusungu will soon be protected by law. They have been active in stamping out cattle rustling in the Lake regions.
CRITICISM OF NEW GOVERNMENT MEASURES TO BOOST TOURISM
In a major move to stimulate the otherwise inactive tourism industry the Government has decided to give a consortium of companies management contracts for eight out of the 14 hotels run by the Tanzania Tourist Corporation. The eight are the first to be rehabilitated under a US$ 25 million, 13 year scheme to be funded by the companies which come from Yugoslavia, Germany, Switzerland, France, and West Germany. The European Investment Bank is also likely to be involved.
Tourism officials have said that the objective is to co-manage the hotels with the multilaterals as the most viable, short cut way of transforming them from what the Government periodical ‘Frontliner’ describes as their present pathetic state.
The hotels to be rehabilitated include the Kilimanjaro, Mount Meru, Arusha, Lake Manyara, Lobo Lodge, the Ngorongoro and Seronera Wildlife Lodges and the Mafia Lodge. An island a few kms off Kunduchi will be transformed into a casino, the first ever in the country.
But the local media have been critical. ‘Do we need foreign hotel managers?’ asked J. M. M. Kamala in the Sunday News of January 15, 1989. ‘Foreign Managers, Will they do Miracles?’ asked the same paper a month later. “All ATC hotels that are to be leased have been making a profit. They have been paying taxes. Their bed occupancy rates have been between 70 and 95%. They have competent trained managers and staff. This is a paradise compared to some pathetic parastatals. The problem has been lack of foreign exchange to rehabilitate them …. the claim that foreign management will improve services is far fetched. With devaluation, our breakfast costs 1.5 dollars. The same costs 10 dollars in Botswana.
Foreign investors must come to expand the existing infrastructure using their own funds instead of coming like camels and stand the risk of being kicked out of our own tent!”
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 1988
Tanzania comes out comparatively well in the Amnesty International Report for 1988. Tanzania occupies less than a page in a voluminous document describing breaches of human rights in many countries.
The Report states that two detained persons were adopted as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty. In August Amnesty was informed that their detention orders had been rescinded but they were then held under the Deportation Ordinance which allows citizens to be restricted to specified areas (in these cases Mafia and Ukerewe) for security reasons. Five other detainees appeared in court in February charged with assisting two suspects accused of treason to escape from custody in 1983. They had been held in detention since that time. Three were released in December.
At least seven people were sentenced to death for murder in Tanzania in 1988, but, as in recent years, no executions were reported. In March the Zanzibar House of Representatives amended a 1969 l aw which allowed the death penalty for smuggling cloves and substituted a prison sentence. No one was known to have been executed for this offence.
ILLEGAL TRADE THREATENS CHIMPANZEE EXISTENCE
The world renowned scientist Dr. Jane Goodall writing in the maiden issue of Kakakuona, a magazine of the Tanzania Wildlife Protection Fund, has stated that the illegal export of infant Chimpanzees is likely to lead to extermination of the primate in Tanzania within a few years. For every infant captured for sale to dealers at least three mothers are killed she stated. “If hunters catch say five infants in one month fifteen females are killed while trying to protect them. At that rate all existing chimpanzee mothers in Tanzania (except those in national parks) would be gone in less than three years. There would remain only bands of male chimpanzees, ever decreasing in numbers, until the last one of the community would die, alone and miserable.
POPULATION CENSUS REVEALS THERE ARE 23.2 MILLION PEOPLE
The Minister of State in the President’s Office has unveiled the preliminary results of the population census carried out in 1988. The new total of 23.2 million people compares with 17.5 million in 1978 – a growth rate of 2.8% This compares with earlier growth rates of 3.2% Sunday News
MASSIVE FOREIGN EXCHANGE INTERCEPTION
The Daily News has reported that a Sierra Leone-born, Liberia-based Lebanese national aged 24 has been caught red-handed at Dar es Salaam airport together with his alleged Air Tanzania Corporation pilot accomplice, on a KLM plane smuggling out a vast quantity of foreign currency and gold. Some US$ 164,350 and large quantities of gold and sapphires with a total value of Shs 42 million have been intercepted by Customs officials – the largest haul for many years. The Sunday News further reported that the Lebanese national had been travelling frequently between Tanzania and nine other countries since 1984.
DEATH OF WELL-KNOWN DOCTOR
The Daily News has reported the death on January 21, 1989 at the age of 64 of Dr. Nathaniel Benjamin Akim, the first Tanzanian to be appointed Chief Medical Officer in the Ministry of Health. He served in many different posts in Tanzania and was from 1974 to 1986 with the World Health Organisation in Ghana and Gambia.
UNUSUAL SEQUEL TO SONGEA MP CASE
The former Songea MP, Mr. Abdurabi Yusufu, recently appealed against his sentence of 9 years in prison (The case was described in Bulletin Nos 30 and 31 – Editor) for being in possession of 105 elephant tusks in his official Landrover. He raised six grounds in his appeal and stated that he was on duty at the time trying to arrest trophy dealers. According to the Daily News of March 24, 1989 the Court of Appeal of Tanzania set aside the original sentence and increased it to twelve years. Justice Makame said “We only wish to say that one needed very unusual courage to swallow such a fantastic story”. The six grounds raised by the appellant in his memorandum to the Court were “devoid of substance.”
PUBLIC FIRMS ACCOUNTS IMPROVING
According to the 20th Tanzania Audit Corporation’s Report for the year ending June 30th 1988 the state of parastatal accounts is improving. This was said to be a positive and encouraging response to the Presidential Directive of November 1985 requiring parastatals to up their accounts by December 31,1987. As at June 30th last year the accounts of 129 out of 482 audited parastatals were in arrears for one year or more compared to 141 by June 30, 1987 and 163 by June 30, 1986. This is the smallest number of parastatals in arrears at the end of any financial year in the last eight years – Daily News,.