The ECONOMIST wrote at length about Tanzania in its September 28 issue. Brief extracts: ‘For the moment, Tanzania is one of East Africa’s few good-news stories. That isn’t saying much. The country remains wretchedly poor, inefficient, with little medical care in its remote areas, few roads and with frequent power cuts, even in Dar es Salaam. But donors, disillusioned by the corruption and/or brutality that goes on elsewhere, are happy to pour money into somewhere that is, at least, both peaceful and stable. And in Jakaya Kikwete, Tanzania has found a president committed to doing his best to cut poverty. Continue reading →

According to an EAST AFRICAN STANDARD report on 2nd July, not all was sweet and light in CCM before President Mkapa voluntarily opted out of the chairmanship of the party a year earlier than an election was due. Extracts: Mkapa was quoted as speaking about the poisoned political atmosphere in the party in 1995 when founding President Julius Nyerere had decided to back Mkapa for the presidency, despite Jakaya Kikwete having won the nomination. The grudge was said to have persisted to this day. Continue reading →

In reviewing the probable future of the East African Community in the Kenyan THE NATION (March 26) Gitau Warigi concentrated on Tanzania’s new leader. Extracts: ‘Kikwete has started off doing some sensible things, like cracking down on crime and police corruption. He has also ruffled his country’s male establishment by appointing a host of women to powerful government positions. For me, Kikwete’s main problem is that he is a populist. The worry is whether he will allow this populism to play havoc with sensible governance. Most of the extravagant manna he promised during his presidential campaign is clearly not something poor Tanzania can afford right now. This populism could turn problematic in other ways. There is a powerful political and business lobby in Tanzania, which takes it as its calling to raise red flags about Kenya and its presumed designs to suffocate its neighbours economically. Continue reading →

Uganda’s THE MONITOR published an article in June under the heading ‘The Grave of Kiswahili’. Extracts: ‘One of the jokes that Tanzanian army officers told after they overran Uganda and threw out dictator Idi Amin in 1979 was that they had also discovered the ‘grave of Kiswahili’…..After the beautiful language was born in Zanzibar and grew up in Tanzania, it had been killed in Kenya and buried in Uganda…. But the Kenyans are not the only guilty ones in practicing ‘lingocide’, and nor are Ugandans the only lingual undertakers in the region. The Tanzanians themselves are guilty of a similar offence. What Uganda and Kenya did to Kiswahili, the Tanzanians did to English. Suppose you met this smart young lady dressed in a business suit on Parliament Avenue in Kampala and, on asking her for directions, she smiles apologetically and says in her language that she does not know English! It would be odd, wouldn’t it? In Dar es Salaam it would not be. They killed English decades ago. It was the language of colonialists, exploiters and all those things. They reasoned that English is not the same as knowledge and went ahead to promote Kiswahili as the official language in which everything is transacted. Coupled with massive primary education, they soon achieved 100% literacy, probably the highest in the world ever. All citizens could read and write Kiswahili and everybody was happy, for a while. Continue reading →

A well-balanced five-page article in the July issue of PROSPECT added many more accolades to the ones President Mkapa is receiving as his final term of office approaches its end. The author, Jonathon Power, who writes for the International Herald Tribune, compared Tanzania as it was 20 years ago with what it is like today. ‘Since coming to power in 1995, Mkapa has left his reformist mark on everything from tax policy to privatisation, from the bureaucracy to human rights, from political freedom to the free press. Of Nyerere’s well-meaning but autocratic Christian socialism there is hardly a sign left. As Deputy Foreign Minister Abdulkader Shareef put it to me, as we sailed across to Zanzibar, “Nyerere was redistributing poverty….. we are not anti-socialism…… But before distributing wealth we must create it.” Continue reading →

The London GUARDIAN, writing about global warming (March 14) published a photograph which it said showed that the snowy cap of Mt. Kilimanjaro, at 5,895 metres (19,340 ft) was now all but gone – 15 years before scientists predicted it would melt through global warming.

Kilimanjaro photo in Guardian

The paper reported that 34 ministers at a G8 energy and environment summit meeting in London were receiving a book – published by the Climate Group and entitled Northsoutheast-west: a 360-degree view of climate change – that included a picture depicting global-warming. The book’s text described the devastating speed of climate change documented by ten of the world’s top photographers. Continue reading →

NEW GAME RESERVE
A new 1,574 square kilometre Mpanga/Kipengere Game Reserve which aims to protect the water catchment of the Rufiji River Basin has been gazetted according to the EAST AFRICAN (October 28). The main river draining into the Basin is the Great Ruaha, which is fed by several rivers and streams originating from the new reserve’s catchment area, later joining the Rufiji further downstream. While the two rivers and their adjacent basins have been adequately protected downstream, their catchment within the new reserve and further upstream is unprotected. The Rufiji river basin is the largest of all nine drainage basins in Tanzania, with high and often controversial utilisation of water by multiple users, including irrigation farmers, livestock, wild animals in protected areas, hydroelectric power generation and towns and municipalities. The entire basin covers 177,420 square kilometres and is fed by four major rivers – Ruaha, Kilombero, Luwego and finally Rufiji itself. The Great Ruaha is central to the ecology and tourism in the Ruaha National Park and provides over half the water for Mtera and Kidatu hydroelectric power stations, which have a combined capacity to generate 284 Mw of electricity. In 1993, the Great Ruaha dried up completely in the Ruaha National Park and has since then been drying up every year. Continue reading →

Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a top al Qaeda terrorist suspect, one of the world’s most wanted men with a $25 million price on his head, was taken into custody in Pakistan on August 6th for his suspected role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. He was arrested along with 13 others after a 14 hour gun battle with security forces in Gujarat, 110 miles southeast of Islamabad.
Ghailani’s mother in Tanzania was quoted as saying that her son was a harmless, religious boy who had gone abroad to study six years earlier. “What I look forward to is my son getting a fair trial and that our (Tanzania) Government will ensure that my son is not tortured. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation had visited her house on several occasions over the last six years, ever since Ghailani left home, she said. Ghailani goes by the nicknames ‘Foopie’ or Fupi and ‘Ahmed the Tanzanian’– see also’ Tanzania in the International Press’ below – Editor

Needless to say the arrest in Pakistan of Ahmed Ghailani (from Zanzibar), who is accused of having masterminded the bombing of the American embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi attracted massive coverage in the media all over the world. The heaviest coverage, over several days, was in Pakistan’s newspapers. After the capture of Ghailani the Pakistan DAILY TIMES (July 31) quoted the Pakistan Interior Minister as saying: “We have now been quite successful in apprehending some of the most important figures of the Al-Qaeda including Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Ramzi Al-Sheban and many others…. Pakistani security forces had been acting on a tip-off when they raided a suspected militant hideout. Ghailani, his Uzbek wife, and up to eight other foreigners, including two South Africans, were among those arrested according to Pakistan’s NATION newspaper (August 6). ‘They were strangers, and they acted as such, keeping mostly to themselves,’ the newspaper said. Investigators were scouring a computer and several disks seized from Ghailani and the others after a 14-hour gun battle with security forces in the city of Gujarat, 175 km southeast of Islamabad. Ghailani’s driver led police to his hideout. Among those found in the house were three women and five children. Ghailani had brought two other foreign comrades to his ‘safe house’ after the group became nervous that security forces were closing in on the hotel in Gujarat where they had been staying.
The security forces have also caught his local contact, Ejaz Warraich, a member of Millat-e-Islamia who rented the safe house for Ghailani. Ghailani, who reportedly could not drive a car at the time of the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, was probably the most senior Al Qaeda operative caught in Pakistan since the arrest in March 2003 of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. “It is a big achievement for our security forces,” Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told the Pakistan National Assembly. It seems to have led on to the arrest of several other suspected terrorists.

The attack by pirates on a party of British students in Pemba in July received massive publicity in the British press. The DAILY EXPRESS filled its front page and two inside pages with articles under the headline ‘Shot by pirates – Terror ordeal of teenage British girl on gap-year trip to paradise island’. The article in THE TIMES on 5th July under the heading ‘Britons on gap year are shot by African pirates’ wrote: ‘The 25 students taking part in a gap year diving expedition were forced to bury their heads in the sand while the pirates stole money, jewellery and watches. “When the shot went off, everyone thought it was some sort of celebration,” one of them said. “Then, without any warning, the pirates just started shooting”. The headline in the INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS read: ‘Home at last: Survivor of the Pirate Raiders.’ (Thank you Douglas Gledhill for sending this from Australia – Editor) which described how ‘the brave gap year student, Grace Foster, escaped death by one mm when a bullet passed through her, narrowly missing her spine, before lodging in 20 year-old Robert Scott’s thigh.’ Grace said: “Once the bullet is removed we are planning to split it in half and each have a piece in memory of our Pemba Island ordeal.” Police later arrested five suspects in a massive manhunt and recovered the boat allegedly used. One of the suspects had been in police uniform and armed with a pistol; the raiders escaped with, among other things, £2,500, two outboard engines, two computers and two drums of petrol.

Pages and pages of illustrations supported an article in the July issue of the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE under the heading: ‘Hunting for Glory – with the Barabaig of Tanzania.’ Extracts: ‘The Barabaig live on the margins of Tanzanian society, struggling to maintain their cultural traditions. The Government prosecutes anyone hunting elephants outside of licensed safaris so hunts are conducted in strict secrecy. The Geographic’s photographer spent six months with the Barabaig before he was allowed to join a hunt….. each man receives two to four spears…novices must prove themselves before earning more than two weapons… Rushing in for the kill the hunters face the danger of losing life or limb…. three hunter were killed during the writer’s time with them……They walk for 12 hours a day and eat nothing for the duration of the hunt, which can last a week or more. Only the first two men to kill will become ‘superheroes’. The article concluded: ‘No one knows exactly how many elephants the Barabaig kill each year but the number is relatively small. Conservationists agree that these traditional practices pose no threat to Tanzanian’s robust elephant herd estimated to exceed 100,000.’

A letter from a British reader in the July issue of NEW AFRICAN contrasted the generosity and tolerance to refugees and asylum seekers offered by African countries with the xenophobic attacks typical of Britain. ‘Tanzania shares what it has with millions of refugees…..the right-wing media and some British opposition politicians should take a leaf from Tanzania…..’ the letter said.

The EAST AFRICAN (May 10) revealed the contents of an unpublished mid-year donors’ (including the World Bank, the IMF, Canada, France, Germany, UK, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries) review of the ‘Poverty Reduction Budget Support and Poverty Reduction Support Credit.’ The development partners said they were seriously concerned by the continued delay in preparing a new Bill on corruption. The long delay appeared to indicate a lack of commitment by the Government they said. However, President Mkapa criticised the media and politicians for accusing his government of corruption, saying instead that such media owners should explain to the public where they got their capital and how they recouped their losses. Tanzanian Attorney General Andrew Chenge said: “It is unfair to generalise in evaluating our fight against corruption because efforts have been made to curb the vice; there is no pending new Bill on corruption. What’s in the pipeline is making amendments to the anti-corruption law; this is being dealt with by other stakeholders such as the Tanzania Law Reform Commission,” he said.

NEW AFRICAN (August) published the results of a poll of its readers to nominate the ‘greatest African of all time’. The late President Julius Nyerere came 4th in a list of 100. He was described as ‘a great leader who refused to allow the trappings of power to corrupt. He was respected by his country, Africa and the rest of the world.’ Needless to say number one on the list was Nelson Mandela – ‘a living legend’; number-two was Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah; and, number three was Robert Mugabe. No other Tanzanians were on the list. Kofi Annan was 10th; Michael Jackson was 41st, F W de Clerk 50th, the William’s sisters 73rd, the Queen of Sheba 87th and Helen Suzman 100th.

The GUARDIAN WEEKLY (30th July) and the INDEPENDENT (3rd August) reported that the 354 – pupil Mvumi Secondary School is expected, if the share price of Marks and Spencer rises over 400p to receive from its Chief Executive, Stuart Rose, up to £500,000. Mr Rose’s connection with Mvumi began three years ago. He had spent eight years in Tanzania as a child and was looking to donate money to a project when he met the head teacher at Mvumi Mr Richard Morris. He has already paid for the building of a new school administration block. (Thank you Janet Bujra and Liz Fennell for sending these items – Editor).

Reporting on numerous violations of human rights of African students in Russia, NEW AFRICAN (April) described the growth of racism in the country. One case quoted was that of a Tanzanian student, Isaac Mwita, who was taking a pre-University Russian language course and had been viciously attacked by a group of five skinheads. One of them stabbed him in what seemed a ritual manner and left him writhing in agony, after they had stripped him of his jacket and forced him to lie on the ice-covered ground on a day when the temperature had fallen to minus 15 degrees. He was hospitalised in critical condition but was eventually released and returned home to Tanzania.

The American publication AFRICA NEWS REPORT (6th July) quoting from the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE (July 1) reported that researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and Tanzania’s Muhimbili University College of Health Services had found that women taking multivitamins (vitamins B-complex, C and E) significantly delayed the progression of HIV compared to those in the study who received a placebo instead. Researchers randomly assessed 1,078 HIV-infected pregnant women who were enrolled over a two-year period beginning in April 1995 and were followed until August 2003. ‘All women received standard doses of antenatal folic acid and iron, and all children received six-monthly doses of vitamin A, as per standard of care in Tanzania.’ It added that anti-retroviral therapy was unavailable at the time of the study to the majority of women in Tanzania, including those who were eligible for participation in the study. During the study, 299 of the 1,078 women either died from AIDS-related causes or progressed to WHO stage 4 (equivalent to AIDS). Among the 271 women who received multivitamins, 24.7% progressed to WHO stage 4 or died of AIDS-related causes; among women who received multivitamins with vitamin A, the total was 26.1%; for those who received vitamin A alone, it was 29%; and of those who received the placebo, it was 31.1%. Moreover, women in the study who took multivitamins had ‘higher CD4 immune cell counts, lower viral loads, and reduced complications of HIV infection, including oral thrush, oral ulcers, difficulty in swallowing, diarrhoea and fatigue. Our data suggest that multivitamins delay the onset of disease progression and thus extend the time until such therapy is necessary. Multivitamin supplementation is inexpensive: US $15 per person per year.

The Nairobi-based EAST AFRICAN STANDARD (July 26) reported that Microsoft Corporation is appealing to Kiswahili experts to help it create a standardised technical glossary for its Kiswahili program. The company has launched an interactive website where experts can contribute their suggestions. The website offers volunteer participants a platform to debate and help create Kiswahili translations of over 3,000 English computer terminology words. Patrick Opiyo, who is managing the Corporation’s Kiswahili programme, said that when the Kiswahili language program was complete, over 100 million people would have access. He put a closing date on the scheme of August 11, 2004 after which the project moderator would begin the review and selection. The final draft deadline was to be September 3, 2004 – Thank you Ron Fennell for sending this item – Editor.

The ASIA PACIFIC MISSION FOR MIGRANTS in Hong Kong reported on July 19 (following a Press Release from the LEGAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS CENTRE in Dar es Salaam on July 16) the case of the rape of a Tanzanian maid by an official of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Dar es Salaam. The Centre strongly condemned this act and criticized the Tanzanian Government for even considering taking financial compensation from Saudi Arabia. This was offered as the diplomat enjoyed diplomatic immunity. The Centre demanded that the diplomat should be taken to court – Thank you Ken Mpopo for sending details of this case – Editor.

The ANTIQUES TRADE GAZETTE of 15th May described the sale of close to 100 items at Christie’s in London of books on the life and extraordinary times of Richard Burton. An 1872 first issue of the publication ‘Zanzibar’ that sold for £6,500 contained the sheet in which Isabel Burton, just a few days after publication, presented the book ‘With the hearty best wishes of Richard Burton for the success of the Livingstone expedition’ to a Lieutenant Llewellyn Dawson who was to lead a search expedition into the interior from Zanzibar – Thank you John Sankey for sending this item – Editor.

THE TIMES (5th May) quoted Bob Geldof of Live Aid as saying that there was ‘initiative fatigue over Africa’. The ‘Commission for Africa’ set up by Tony Blair had held its first meeting in London in May. Asked why there should be yet another commission, President Mkapa, who is a member said: “I would ask you why preachers preach every Sunday in spite of the fact that the Bible has been with us for 2000 years. It is as simple as that. Sometimes inculcation can energise people to do something……We hope to produce the energy that will generate action and implement recommendations that may well be a replication of what has been said before.” The BBC’s FOCUS ON AFRICA (July-September) under the heading ‘Africa’s champion – UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is taking up Africa’s cause on the international stage’ included an article by British Aid Minister Hilary Benn. He wrote that he was broadly in favour of the establishment of the Commission. But there was another article by William Mervyn-Gumede which took a very cynical view. It asked who were the ‘stooges’ in the Commission and decided that it was the African members. Mr Blair had been under fire over Iraq and this was a useful diversion. Mr Blair should have noted that many African countries were still waiting for the G 8 countries to fulfil previous promises to Africa. They could have pointed out that rich countries gave their farmers $320 billion in handouts, more than six times the amount they gave to poor countries in aid. ‘One of the commissioners, perhaps President Mkapa, might have insisted on fair global trade as a pillar of any effort to reduce African poverty’ the writer said.

The EASTERN AFRICA MAGAZINE in its July issue published a letter from Dr Frederick Kassulamemba describing the Britain-Tanzania Society as doing a superb job in bringing development to one of the poorest countries in the world. Even more satisfying was its success in helping to win the war on debt cancellation by the British Government.

An article in the April issue of the NEWSLETTER OF THE JUBILEE DEBT CAMPAIGN quoted President Mkapa as saying how much he wished the campaign success and commended it for its new initiative. Tanzania’s debt relief had been directed towards the social sectors and, as a result, the primary school population had increased by 50%; over 31,000 new classrooms had been built; hospitals were being refitted and the rate of immunisation had reached 83% – Thank you Sylvia Voisk for sending this – Editor.

The American publication AFRICA NEWS REPORT gave the results in August of the ‘diversity lottery’ for persons wishing to obtain permanent resident visas in the USA. 9.5 million persons applied during 2003 of whom 100,000 were successful, including 356 from Tanzania.

Mary Wright writing in The Express in July described the 2004 Zanzibar Film Festival (ZIFF) in glowing terms. Extracts:
How to define or explain the charm of this island, in particular of Stone Town? On your left: ancient white-painted palaces whence the sultans used to rule, and mosques and old forts fringed with palm trees; on your right: speeding minibuses, bicycles, motorbikes and landcruisers; beyond them the quayside where fishermen are sitting or distributing their catch against the background of the blue ocean…… One feels the influence of an ancient civilisation, its calm and confidence’..….Over four and a half days I saw 21 films, including five short ones, two interrupted by mosquitoes and one cut off by power failure. All were of high quality in their production and all had something to say…The film which won the silver award; “Gardiens de la Memoire”, about the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda, although it consisted mainly of interviews with survivors, was striking not only because of the subject but also because of the trauma of the individual speakers. Another excellent film containing many interviews was “Memories of Rain”. It concerns the lives of two people who had been underground members of the ANC in South Africa….The only other filmmaker I met over these festival days was a lady from Kenya, Sonal Tyagi, who’d made the film “The Ivory Orphans”. Such a beautiful subject and quite amazing, the process of persuading orphaned baby elephants to adapt and form a bond first with their human keepers, then, when it was time, with a group of elephants in Tsavo Game Reserve and get themselves accepted by these. Again, the short film about the lioness who adopted an oryx calf (inspiring local Christians to believe that God was about to return) was both beautiful and tragic (“Heart of a Lioness”, Kenya).
Across the road from the film screenings were the open-air musical events, making a joyful noise indeed. Hordes of folk, not just youngsters and certainly not just tourists, made their way to sit beside the sea and hear these rampaging, wild musicians… People drifted back late at night along the footpath by the quay; not least of the pleasures of Stone Town is that apparently one is perfectly safe walking about no matter what hour of day or night.
I just have to talk about two outstanding entries whose memory remains with me: the Iranian film “Women’s Prison” and the Senegalese one “Madame Brouette”. To take the latter, gayer one first, this was a riot of colour and action; all sorts of mayhem and corruption but also friendship, solidarity, love. It had already won many prizes and its sequences were superbly put together. As for the Iranian film, the projection room was packed for it and it’s difficult to explain the fascination of this story which took place over 17 years.
As a total experience this seventh ZIFF festival was marvellous, I just can’t wait to go again. The setting is primordial. An ideal home for the international flavour of the Ziff festival.