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.

US General Charles Wald, Deputy Commander of the US European Command based in Germany, (which also has responsibility for 93 countries, including all of the sub-Saharan region apart from the Horn), recently responded to a journalist’s question about a report that Tanzania was not co-operating fully with the US on terrorism. He was quoted in the WASHINGTON TIMES as saying that US military forces were working with the Tanzanian government to counter a terrorism threat. Unnamed Bush administration officials had apparently said that Tanzanian officials had only haltingly co-operated with American efforts to root out terrorists. The paper quoted an anonymous Western diplomat as saying: ‘The Tanzanians see terrorism as an international issue, not a domestic one, because most terrorists are imported. The problem with that argument is that Tanzania is a permissive environment.’ The newspaper article went on: ‘US Treasury Department officials charged in January that the Tanzanian branch of a Saudi Arabian charity had engaged in terrorist activities and plotted attacks last year against tourist hotels on Zanzibar…..The scheduled attacks did not take place due to increased security by local authorities, but planning for the attacks remained active.’ Some Tanzanians were said to view the high level of American concern as exaggerated. They pointed out that the Tanzanian mainland had not suffered an attack for five-and-a-half years.

In a detailed report published on February 2 THE EAST AFRICAN took to task what it called the ‘errent lawyers of Tanzania and the 23 cases pending against them. There was said to be growing concern over falling standards, pilferage of clients’ money and unethical conduct. The report was based on a paper obtained from the Tanganyika Law Association (TLS). A common complaint was the lack of an effective legal mechanism to crack down on errant lawyers. “Complaints against advocates have increased, although the society has taken steps against lawyers who abuse their profession”, TLS acting executive secretary Anitha Moshi said. Despite the growing list of complaints, not a single lawyer had lost his licence to practice in Tanzania. But Ms Moshi insisted that the TLS was taking action and had forced some advocates to return clients’ money. Asked about cases of magistrates dismissed by the Government and then readily admitted to the Bar, she said the practicing certificate is issued by the Chief Justice after he verifies an applicant’s records. Surprisingly, many former magistrates, who were sacked over corruption or other unprofessional conduct, have crossed over to the Bar as advocates. The regional ethics committees of TLS said they were satisfied with the conduct of advocates in Tanga, Arusha, Mbeya and Kilimanjaro regions, where no complaints had been filed. Mwanza had received one complaint but cases against lawyers in Dar es Salaam included receiving legal fees but failing to appear in court, withdrawing from arbitration proceedings after being paid and refusing to refund clients’ money.

The AFRICA RESEARCH BULLETIN (December 2) announced that Stella Artois beer, a brand popular during Tanzania’s beer shortages in the early 1990’s, had made a comeback and was to be brewed by a locally owned brewery under licence from Belgium’s ‘Interbrew’, the world’s third largest beer producer. This would represent competition for Tanzania Breweries which controlled 98% of Tanzania’s beer market. Minister for Trade and Industry Dr Juma Ngasongwa said that producing Stella Artois locally would ensure that more Tanzanians were employed and that government revenue would increase.

The World Bank’s publication FINDINGS (April) described, in four succinctly-written pages, recent development in Tanzania’s coffee industry by the Senior Economist John Baffes. The paper recorded that during the 1960s the cooperatives and the Coffee Board became involved in most aspects of marketing and trade in coffee. This involvement culminated in the nationalisation of most Arabic coffee estates in northern Tanzania in 1973. Since then the coffee sector had been subject to a shifting of power between the cooperatives and the Coffee Board with the needs of the sector itself never seriously addressed.
The performance of the sector deteriorated and reforms became necessary. The first steps were taken in 1990 when the Coffee Board began to make more timely payments to cooperatives. The Board became a marketing agent rather than a marketer. In March 1992 input markets were opened to private traders and a few months later exporters were allowed to retain 10% of their export earnings in foreign currency and, soon thereafter, 100%. More reforms came in 1993 allowing private sector participation in marketing and processing.
While these reforms brought about some improvement there were still many problems. Although the processing capacity for coffee had increased enormously – since 1988 twelve new factories had been built – many of these were operating at only a quarter of installed capacity.
Uncertainties in the coffee sector were exacerbated by the ‘one-licence regulation’ issued by the Coffee Board just three days before the official start of the 2002/03 coffee buying season in the Western coffee zone. The regulation limited applicants for private coffee buying, coffee processing or coffee export licences to just one of these licences so as to help the cooperatives increase their market share at the expense of private traders.
The paper made a number of recommendations: taxes should be substantially reduced; the Coffee Board’s licensing procedures should be re-examined; the coffee auction should be voluntary; the Board should take greater responsibility for statistics; and, its powers and those of the ministries should be substantially reduced. The regulatory framework should facilitate the transfer of nationalised estates to private individuals so that their full potential could be realised.
The paper also includes an account of the numerous significant changes made since 1920 in the coffee estate sector.

Why has the Tanzania shilling dropped so heavily against the US dollar in recent weeks? The latest AFRICA RESEARCH BULLETIN suggested that it was because of severe food shortages in late 2003 and the action of the Government in trying to ease the situation by waiving some taxes paid by food importers. The result had been massive food shipments in January paid for in dollars at the same time as a recent drop in exports of coffee and cashew nuts caused by low rainfall.

AFRICA ANALYSIS (March 5) expressed concern about the possible threat to tourism in Zanzibar following what it described as a brutal attack by machete-wielding robbers who boarded a yacht with 15 tourists on board off Pemba on 21st February. None of the holidaymakers were hurt but the robbers escaped with money, passports, jewellery and computers.

Schoolboys fidget and mess about in class, while girls sit still and concentrate – all because of biological sex differences that evolved millions of years ago. A team from the University of Minnesota, quoted in the DAILY TELEGRAPH (April 15) and based on an article in NATURE, had conducted a four-year study of young chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park in Tanzania. They noted how young chimps learnt to fish for termites using a stick. Although both sexes received the same attention, on average, the females picked up enough skill to extract their own termites by the age of 31 months while males took 58 months. Males spent more time playing and in physical activity. The fact that young chimps followed the same sex specific roles as humans was said to indicate that such behaviour had deep- rooted biological origins, probably dating back more than 6 million years.

AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL (19th December) revealed what it described as ‘a bad-tempered discussion on Zimbabwe’ at the Commonwealth Summit Meeting in Nigeria from 5th to 8th December. Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon had applied for an extension of his term of office but this was opposed by some African countries because he was supporting continued sanctions against Zimbabwe. According to Africa Confidential, in September last year, Tanzania’s High Commissioner in London had approached his Sri Lankan counterpart with a plan to put up an Asian candidate against McKinnon. The person eventually selected to do this was former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kardirgamar. Discussions continued some weeks later in Romania and Switzerland which involved, amongst others, former OAU Secretary General Salim Ahmed Salim from Tanzania. Efforts to mobilise a large African vote against Mc Kinnon did not succeed however and McKinnon was eventually re-elected by 41 votes to 11. Only South Africa, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia amongst African countries allowed themselves to be publicly identified with support for the Sri Lankan candidate. (TA has been told that Tanzania voted for McKinnon as did Uganda and Kenya – Editor).

HABARI, the journal of the Sweden-Tanzania Society, is written in Swedish. However, in its first issue of 2004, it contained three articles in English on languages spoken in Tanzania and included a comprehensive language map of the country. The first article, by Malin Petzell was on a socio-linguistic study on the position of the Kagulu language which is spoken by 200,000 to 300,000 people in Kilosa district. It was said that it still held a strong position in society but was in the ‘endangered’ category particularly in urban areas. The second paper, written by Jennifer Palmgren, had the title ‘Kiswahili language, nation-building and identity’. There was also a half-page on basic English-Kisukuma greetings.

Under the heading ‘Drawing on ancient remedies’ the South African MAIL AND GUARDIAN (27th February) described how traditional and modern medicine is being fused in the fight against AIDS in Tanga by an ‘Aids Working Group’. It is estimated that the region has a ratio of one doctor to 33,000 people but there is one traditional healer to every 156 people. An elderly healer, Mohamed Kasomo, is actually working with doctors in a modern hospital and is using all kinds of herbs for a variety of AIDS-related complaints including loss of appetite, fever, skin infections, abdominal discomfort and oral and vaginal fungus. The herbs are packaged in powder form and every two weeks about 700 patients go to the hospital to collect their packages. They then take them home where they boil them into tea. Although the traditional healers are not curing AIDS they are making marked improvements in people’s standards of living, the article said. (Thank you David Leishman for sending this item – Editor).

‘It may look like dung and smell like dung, but it’s a life-saver for the deaf of Africa’. THE THIRD SECTOR quoted in THE TIMES (January 13) reported that Christmas cards made from elephant droppings have raised £1,000 for deaf children in Tanzania. Some cards were sold in game parks and one of these parks also requested 1,000 elephant dung folders to package its annual report. A hotel was said to have ordered ‘Dumbo-dung’ lampshades – (Thank you Liz Fennell for sending this item – Editor).

‘Juma Twaha had gone blind but his life in the atmosphere of torpor and decay in Temeke, Dar es Salaam, was causing him some torment. Not having the sureness of foot of those blind from birth, he would often stumble into the treacherous potholes. This would immediately prompt mirth and jeers from an entourage of small children who would collapse on the ground in a theatrical mimicry of Juma’s clumsiness. Last August his luck changed. A 35-person team from Orbis, the global sight-saving charity, came to Tanzania to train ophthalmologists in cataract surgery. Mr Twaha became the first person in a Tanzanian public hospital to receive small incision surgery on his cataracts. His sight was restored.’ Seeing himself in the mirror for the first time for years, he exclaimed “Actually I’m pretty good looking. I should now be able to find a wife!” (Thank you Donald Wright for sending this item from the SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (December 14) – Editor.

AFRICAN BUSINESS (March) presented its first annual review of Africa’s top companies listed on a sub-regional basis. In East Africa, it quoted ‘Market Capitalisation’ as placing Tanzania Breweries top of the list and Tanzania Cigarettes fifth. Out of the first ten companies all except two were Kenyan. Tanzania’s stock exchange, which generated a loss of 8% compared badly with that of Uganda which had a 140% return – one of the highest in the world. Zimbabwe (in US dollar terms) was said to be the worst performing market in the world. Tanzania’s exchange lists only six companies compared to Kenya’s fifty.

THE EAST AFRICAN has published a report on the mining industry in Tanzania which stated that an international mineral auditing firm, Alex Stewart of the US, had been engaged by the Government to verify the amount of gold mined and revenue earned. This happened after the Government had finally persuaded the large scale mining companies to provide it with details of their operations. Brief extracts from the report, by Faustine Rwambali and Joseph Mwamunyange: ‘Unlike in the past when the sector was dominated by artisanal miners, which made monitoring of production and actual sales figures difficult, the entrance of large-scale mining companies has made it easier to monitor mining activities. Tanzanians have for long debated whether the Government has been earning all the revenue due to it from the country’s precious metals…. There are five giant gold mining companies in Tanzania – Afrika Mashariki Gold Mines Ltd (North Mara Gold Project); Resolute (Tanzania) Ltd (Golden Pride Project); Kahama Mining Corporation Ltd (Bulyanhulu Mine); Meremeta Ltd (Buhemba Gold Mine); and Geita Gold Mining Ltd (Geita Gold Mine). Tulakawa Mine, owned by Pangea Mining Ltd., was opened recently. The five companies jointly produce an estimated 1.45 million troy ounces of gold annually. According to Tanzania’s investment law, mining firms pay only 3 per cent of their earnings in royalties. Amendments to the mining law that were effected in the late 1990s, created an enabling environment to attract large scale mining investors.

The ECONOMIST published yet another of its frequent highly critical articles about the early years of independent Tanzania in its January 3 issue. It began: ‘Julius Nyerere, the socialist who founded and nearly destroyed Tanzania, must be grumbling in his grave. His protégé, President Mkapa, who cannot seem to look at a state enterprise without trying to privatise it, is bringing market discipline even to the health sector. Compounding his betrayal, his government last month appointed a Briton, David Tregoning, to overhaul the state hospital in Dar Salaam……. The revered Nyerere was not fond of business – minded Westerners: in the early 1960s, he kicked them off their farms and nationalised multinationals’ Tanzanian subsidiaries….. Nowadays, though the Government hates to admit it, Tanzania does what foreign donors say. It was at their insistence that Dr Tregoning was hired….. donors will be paying for the hospital’s face-lift and demanded some control over how their money is spent…..
The article went on: ‘The hospital’s history mirrors Tanzania’s. The state-of-the-art facility, when it was built in 1960, just before independence, decayed under Mr Nyerere’s unaccountable socialist regime. Donated equipment festered in storerooms; underpaid medical staff pinched drugs; patients lay unattended and underfed in overcrowded, filthy wards…… This should soon change with $2 million a year from the African Development Bank and the Illinois -based Abbott Laboratories Fund .
Dr Tregoning will oversee the renovation of laboratories, the introduction of new training techniques, the establishment of an HIV Management Programme and the upgrading of technology across the hospital…..’
The article also included some praise for Tanzania: ‘Tanzania’s recent overall record has been good. There has been an impressive growth in agriculture under Mr Mkapa. He has imposed fiscal discipline; inflation has fallen, Tanzanians are less likely to find cockroaches in their beer now that the state brewery has been sold off; the national telecoms firm and airline are also largely in private hands and foreign companies now manage the water and electricity utilities. Some economists now predict that the economy might even become the biggest in East Africa in a few years time by overtaking Kenya’s (Thank you Jill Bowden for sending this item – Editor).

Investment Success.
At the launching of the WORLD INVESTMENT REPORT 2003 at the UNDP offices in Dar es Salaam on September 12 it was revealed that Tanzania registered a record rise in new investors in the first half of 2003. Director of Investment Promotion at the Tanzania Investment Centre Emmanuel ole Naiko said that the centre had registered a total of 311 new investment projects in 2002 creating jobs for some 33,000 people. But in the first six months of2003 the centre had registered 323 projects creating employment for almost 190,000 people. The Director pointed out that since 1996 Tanzania had tried to create an attractive investment atmosphere by adopting a new investment code, enacting 13 laws to facilitate investments, reforming the financial sector and introducing political reforms. Plans were underway for reviews of the Land Act and labour laws and for new income tax legislation. There was also to be a review of business licensing. As a result of these policies Tanzania was now among the top recipients of foreign direct investment in Africa. It ranked 14th on the 2002 role but eight of these fourteen countries were oil economies.

East African Unity.
Neil Ford, writing in the 9th January, 2004 issue of NEWSAFRICA commented on efforts being made to bring about economic integration in East Africa. He said that attempts to promote trade within the region would only really take off once trade barriers within the three states had been removed. An agreement to set up the East African Customs Union was signed in November 2003 but it seemed likely that it would take at least seven years before all internal tariffs were finally removed. It was also hoped that the customs union would result in the imposition of common external tariffs on imports from the rest of the world. However, as the experience of the European Union had shown, the harmonisation of customs rates was never an easy process. There had already been disagreements over the loss of sovereignty and fear of Kenyan domination. Ford was optimistic however concerning possible future success. He said that there was now a smaller imbalance in the size of the three economies, former deep-seated differences had largely disappeared and all three states generally followed the same IMF-inspired line of privatisation, deregulation and a reduced economic role for the state.

Kilimanjaro and its melting ice.
The NEW YORK TIMES (November 17) contained an article by Oliver Morton (the author of ‘Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination and the Birth of a World. ‘) on the alarming situation on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Extracts: ‘Kilimanjaro is losing its ice so quickly that it could be barren dirt before the next decade is out. It will take with it an irreplaceable 10-millennium record of the African climate, a profitable tourist attraction and a source of beauty that is a joy to contemplate … .It is not clear that global warming is responsible for this precipitous retreat. … It may well be that a regional change of some sort -deforestation, in all likelihood -has dried out the moist, rising winds that used to replenish the ice….. The question of what is destroying the ice, though, is less pressing than the question of whether anything can be done to save it. And the surprising answer to the second question is yes. The two main ice fields on top of Kilimanjaro are big flat slabs with cliff-like faces. According to scientists studying the mountain, it is melting from these cliffs -rather than from the flat tops of the fields -that seems to be the key to the problem. Euan Nisbet, a Zimbabwean greenhouse gas specialist at The Royal Holloway College, University of London, has come up with a fairly simple solution: drape the cliffs in white polypropylene fabric. Sunlight bounces off, and the ice below stays cool. …. this would buy some decades during which ways could be found to develop reforestation plans …The task of protecting the ice, while monumental, would not be impossible ……. In principle it would be well within the grasp of the world’s grandmaster wrapper, Christo, who convinced German parliamentarians to let him wrap the Reichstag, and who might well persuade the Tanzanian Government to allow the same thing to be done to Kilimanjaro …. Getting hundreds of thousands of square yards of fabric to the mountain top would be fairly easy -pack it up tightly and throw it out of the back of a transport plane.’

But The Times was not persuaded. It wrote later: ‘(This would be) a mammoth undertaking yielding dubious benefits …. Although it is tempting to blame global warming, the most likely culprit is deforestation. Forests at the base of the mountain, which once exhaled moisture that replenished and protected the ice fields, have largely disappeared, leaving the glaciers to the mercy of hot, dry winds that erode and melt the high cliffs that form their edges …… at least one scientist has wondered if the proposed plan might backfire, allowing a little heat to penetrate the tarpaulins and get trapped inside, thus speeding up the melting. Science might be better served by pouring more resources into collecting and studying ice cores before the glaciers disappear and leave Africa with a new icon -a bare mountaintop underscoring the folly of reckless destruction of the forests.’ (Thank you Liz Fennell for bringing this to our attention and Professor Euan Nisbet for adding additional information-Editor).

White modernism.
‘Nothing has done more to give modernism a bad name in architecture than grey stained concrete. Yet originally the international style captured imaginations with gleaming white surfaces speaking of both sun and cool shade.’ So wrote Marcus Binney in THE TIMES (1st September). He went on: ‘Now White modernism is making a comeback. A first-class example is the new British High Commission in Dar Salaam designed by the Manser practice with a wave roof and wave canopies highly appropriate to its ravishing outlook over the Indian Ocean…… The wave canopy along the top of the building is not so much a roof as a sunshade, stopping the rays of the sun from cooking the rooms below and ensuring that the merest breeze drawn over the terrace beneath the canopy provides further cooling ….. The structure and the glass are designed to withstand bomb blasts and solid concrete was used rather than blocks….. as the water supply is erratic, the building (which is shared with diplomats from other countries), has been provided with ten-day underground water tanks …. (Thank you John Rollinson for this item -Editor).

Demarcation.
Agreement was finally reached in mid-September, after 24 years of negotiations, on the demarcation of the border between Tanzania and Uganda. The previous boundary lines were derived from the Anglo-Gerrnan agreement of May 14th, 1910. The late Ugandan dictator Iddi Amin’s forces removed most of the beacons marking the border during the 1978 war with Tanzania. As a result of the agreement some Tanzanians now find themselves in Ugandan territory and vice versa and some have immovable property in both territories. Some will need to be resettled and thought is being given to a transitional period during which the two countries could decide on the fate of people suddenly displaced from their country of origin -The EAST AFRICAN (September 8) .

Nungwe.
The wife of the new leader of the British Conservative Party, Sandra Howard took over two pages of the SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (2nd November) to recall the couple’s 25th anniversary trip to Zanzibar. They stayed at the Ras Nungwi Beach Hotel in Zanzibar’s remote and beautiful north-east corner. Mrs Howard wrote: ‘The local village -Nungwe -where dhows are still made, is the only nearby habitation. It is a glorious beach walk away; miles of pure white sand -we could walk for an hour in either direction seeing only one or two other couples…. The best bar for sunset gazing is the aptly-named Paradise Cafe. I thought it should perhaps be called Paradise West, like Key West of Hemingway fame, also famous for its sunsets, but Michael pointed out, with his usual steely logic, that we were on the eastern side of the island …… Zanzibar could not be more beautiful, and the warm, genuine welcome was one that invited return. ‘

Music.
John Kariuki, writing in the January – March 2004 BBC FOCUS ON AFRICA compared pop music, mostly influenced by American hip hop, in different parts of East Africa. Tanzanian artists had been the great success story, he wrote. A recent survey showed that in a breakdown of the 20 top hits, three Tanzanian groups were in the first seven. The probable reasons for this were Tanzanians’ greater proficiency in Swahili and in story telling. Taarab (traditional Kiswahili music), tinged in their song arrangements and in their voice intonation; this had the advantage of giving their music more character. More young people were appreciating the sweetness of Kiswahili and obviously Tanzania was the home of the language. Album sales were also higher in Tanzania because copyright laws were more stringently enforced. The region was undergoing a cultural renaissance that had broken old prejudices against home-grown arts.

Singing.
An article in the AFRICAN TIMES (August 25) reported that a new three-man band from Arusha had been asked why they were singing about prisons. One of them said that prisons were very rough in Tanzania. “We’ve been locked up for different reasons and we had to sleep on dirty, cold, cement floors, use filthy toilets, eat terrible food and so on. The group also sings about AIDS. They have now been joined by a traditional Maasai singer, Yamat Ole Meipuku, to ‘cream up the bands’ lyrical concoctions.’ “Hip hop is naturally embedded in Maasai music” he said. The band had been in London to promote their album ‘Maasai hip hop’ .

Comics.
WEST AFRICA (June 16) reported that a ‘World Comics Workshop’ had been held in Dar es Salaam which had brought together 25 leading artists and cartoonists. Tanzania’s Katty Ka-Batembo, described as the country’s leading artist, had said that Tanzanians were keen to read comics because of the difficulty in obtaining books and getting access to TV. Much of the workshop was taken up in making cartoons on corruption. The workshop was financed by Finland as part of its development aid budget. The Finnish spokesman said that comics were cheap for organisations with limited resources and could be made by amateur artists and published in small photocopied booklets. “Comics are cost-effective, no other development aid project can beat it ” he said.

African Eve.
A new genetic study has shown that the so called ‘African Eve’, the 150,000-year-old female ancestor of every human being on earth, may have lived in Tanzania or Ethiopia. AFRICA TODAY (June 2003) quoted researchers as saying that the oldest known DNA lineages found were those of East Africans, including the Sandawe, Burunge, Gorowa and Datog people who live in Tanzania. Several of the ethnic groups sampled in the study also lived in countries surrounding Tanzania.

Miss Bantu.
NEW AFRICAN (November) reported that an alternative beauty pageant based on African values -Miss Bantu -was taking Tanzania by storm and attracting both women and men in droves. Miss Bantu contestants are not barred by age, height or body size as is the case with westernised beauty contests and as a result there had been full houses and satisfied audiences. Many Tanzanian men were said to dispute beauty measured on western qualities such as tall and slim or petite, light skin, hair as straight as a ruler or, parading semi­naked in bikinis. They thought that the Miss Bantu contest was respectable and imbued with African values and culture. The contest is under the wings of the National Arts Council and has attracted women from all sectors. First prize in this year’s contest was Shs 500,000. The westernised Miss Tanzania contest, however, which was resurrected in 1994, awarded the winner a Nissan car worth Shs 3 million.

Malarious territory.
‘The Rufiji District, a poor, rural area of coastal Tanzania, has at least three claims to fame’. So wrote Philip Kennicott in a recent issue of the WASHINGTON POST. He went on: ‘It is home to the Rufiji River, in whose labyrinthine delta a German warship sheltered during the First World War. … It is the home of the newly opened Mkapa Bridge; it is now possible to travel (if you have four-wheel drive, high clearance and nerves of steel) from the south of Tanzania directly to Dar es Salaam, without having to pay an erratic ferryman for passage … The new bridge glides gracefully enough over the source of a third, more malign, claim to fame. The Rufiji River delta is one of the most malarious territories in the world, and thus a logical site for studying the disease and the panoply of frustration and tragedy it brings to Southeast Africa…..

Up the Rufiji watershed is the town of Ifakara, ground zero of mosquito and malaria studies, and host to so many foreign scientists that even guidebooks have taken note of the mosquito invasion (though tourists rarely make it there). Down river, in Ikwiriri, on the north end of the Rufiji bridge, are the offices of IMPACT Tanzania. The public health world loves acronyms, but this one is a handy condensation of a real mouthful: Interdisciplinary Monitoring Project for Anti-malarial Combination Therapy (in Tanzania). It is interdisciplinary because it involves molecular scientists, economists, epidemiologists, policy analysts, health care professionals and social scientists. ‘Combination Therapy’ refers to the increasingly necessary use of a double punch (two complementary drugs) to fight a disease that has become largely resistant to many of the single drugs long used to treat it. The project, funded by the V.S. Agency for International Development, hums along in different towns in the study area …..

Yet, while there is activity on all fronts, it’s hard to say that there’s progress against the disease on all fronts. Patrick Kachur, Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Malaria, says there’s little doubt that the drug combination they’re studying works at least for now, though the parasite that causes malaria is rapidly evolving resistance, and as it trumps drug after drug, the cost of treating malaria skyrockets. More to the point is whether combination therapy can continue to be effective, is affordable on a mass scale, and whether it can be successfully introduced in areas where literacy and health care access are limited ….. ‘ (Thank you Peg Snyder for sending this item -Editor).

Human Skin.
In its October issue AFRICA TODAY revealed that the Government of Tanzania had to resort to a macabre but shocking tactic recently (to discourage the growing trade in human skin) at an international business fare in Dar es Salaam. Visitors were faced with an exhibit of human body parts (from the police forensic department) in an attempt to raise awareness about the underground trade in human skin, especially from southern Tanzania, in the last two years. The prices of the human parts range from $2,400 to $9,600 depending on the age of the victim, according to police. Human skin is used in witchcraft for rituals in West Africa to which it is exported.

Lake Tanganyika.
Under the heading “Global Warming Chokes the Life out of Lake Tanganyika’ the INDEPENDENT (August 14) quoted Canadian, American and Belgian scientists writing in the journal NATURE as saying that local temperature rises and climate change have dramatically altered the delicate nutrient balance of the lake -Africa’s second largest body of fresh water. Local fishing yields have plummeted by a third or more over the past 30 years and further decreases are predicted. The article explained that winds blow across the surface of the lake causing evaporation which cools the water. This cool water then sinks to the bottom allowing warm water carrying nutrients to be carried up with the current to the surface where aquatic plants and algae live. The problem has been caused by the less windy weather (now 30% weaker than in the 70’s) and warmer temperatures. The scientists claim that it is climate change rather than over fishing which is responsible for the collapse in the Lake’s fish stocks (Thank you Liz Fennell for sending this item -Editor).

Integrity.
Dr Harrison Mwakyembe, a member of the East African Legislative Assembly, was praised in the EAST AFRICAN (September 22) for what it described as ‘a rare show of integrity.’ He has recently resigned from his position as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Bank of Commerce. He said that he was resigning in defence of integrity, honour and patriotism. He was also quoted as saying that he could not swallow the rot at the Bank; some of his colleagues thought that being a member of the Board was probably an opportunity to get benefits. The leading article went on to say that reports of unfolding financial mismanagement at the Bank in the previous months had shocked many Tanzanians after Mwakyembe had apparently written to the Minister for Finance and the Governor of the Bank of Tanzania revealing alleged mismanagement practices.

Water.
An article in IRIN, the publication of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Integrated Regional Information Network (not necessarily representing the views of the Office) in December, quoting from a Water Aid briefing paper, described the water supply situation in Dar es Salaam. Extracts: ‘On any given day, young men pushing wheelbarrows stacked high with 20-litre water jerrycans can be seen weaving their way through congested traffic. In 1997 customers were paying Shs 0.29 per litre while vendors were selling water at prices varying from one shilling per litre, when the supply was good, to 20 shillings when there were shortages. In addition, of the 268 million litres of water pumped from rivers for daily use by Dar es Salaam residents, more than 43% is lost before it even reaches the city, 18% leaks through a faulty system and a further 11 % is lost through illegal taps and non-payers. This, according to WaterAid, meant that the authority was being paid for just 8% ~ 16% of the water it produced. Therefore, there was clearly a need for reform of the water sector. A private company, has now signed a 10­year lease contract to manage the billing, tariff collection, operation and routine maintenance; this work began in August. Alongside a 30% price increase, one of the first announcements that the new company made was the introduction of a two-tier billing system aimed at keeping the price of water low for the poor. Under this system consumers who use less than five cubic metres of water pay 30% less for their water than those who consume more.

‘Dam Harris.’
Cathy Harris recently reopened a dam the construction of which was organised by her father 50 years ago. In the early 1950’s the Harris family lived in Nzega and, of the more than 80 dams and boreholes Harris had made, (he earned the nickname ‘Dam Harris’) one in particular was completed in Mwanhala in 1963 and worked well until 1998 when El Nino winds made a 30 metre gap in the wall. Repair work was carried out with the help of the charity ‘Friends of Urambo and Mwanhala’ and was completed nine months ago. The dam now has fish in it, there is rice growing below it and the people have water. Those wishing to contribute to the charity should contact Cathy on 01884 xxx120 (Thank you John Budge for sending this item from the TIVERTON GAZETTE -Editor).

Underwear.
THE TIMES (18th October) featured a cartoon showing two men looking at a newspaper headline: ‘Tanzania bans used bra imports.’ One man says to the other: “It’s a storm in a D cup”. The accompanying article reported that Tanzania had banned imports of second-hand underwear saying that the used garments might spread skin diseases. Pants, bras, stockings and petticoats were to be removed by inspectors examining consignments of used clothes (Thank you Paul Hardy and John Ainley for this item -Editor).

A strange article apparently appeared in the NEW SUNDAY TIMES OF MALAYSIA which was then quoted by the LONDON TIMES on October 22. The article began: ‘So there is this guy in Tanzania. He’s hugely in debt. He borrowed money from friends and relatives to start a business project and everything went wrong. He became depressed, began spending the cash on alcohol and prostitutes. Now they want the money back. He’s only 24….. He begins hatching plans, logical at first, then increasingly irrational and desperate. What he must have, he decides, is their pity. He needs to suffer a misfortune so great that nobody with an ounce of human compassion would trouble him again over something as trifling as a bad loan …… he cut off his genitals….. he’s lying in a hospital bed, skint, castrated ….. as he opens his eyes his first visitor turns out to be his flint-hearted great aunt from Bagamoyo. “You dumb dick-less bastard. Where’s my 50 bucks?”……… He overplayed his hand didn’t he? He should have started with a toe, and worked his way up…….. (Thank you Randall Sadler for this item -Editor).

(In order to make this part of Tanzanian Affairs as interesting and representative as possible we welcome contributions from readers. if you see a mention of Tanzania in the journal, magazine or newspaper you read, especially if you live or travel outside the UK, please cut out the relevant bit, indicate the name and date of the journal, and send it to the address on the back page. if you do not wish your name to be mentioned please say so. We cannot guarantee to publish everything we receive but if your item gives a new or original view about Tanzania we certainly will-Editor).

Under the heading ‘Hurrah for African Solutions’ Herold Tagama in the August issue of NEW AFRICAN praised the well-conducted and peaceful by-elections in Zanzibar and said that they represented a lesson for all Africa. It showed that African politicians could put their country’s interests first instead of personal aggrandisement. Back in October 2001 cynics had said that the agreement between the Government and opposition parties would not succeed. But three years on it was holding the -election laws that discriminated against the opposition had been repealed, CUF supporters persecuted during the days of political hostility had been compensated, CUF sympathisers who had been sacked had been reinstated and compensated and former ‘enemies’ now greeted each other as friends. Registrar of Political Parties John Tendwa was quoted as saying that a sense of political maturity was easily felt in Zanzibar.

The NCCR -Mageuzi party was reported (THE EAST AFRICAN, May 12) to want CUF Zanzibar leader Seif Shariff Hamad to be barred from running in the Zanzibar presidential elections in 2005 on the grounds that he was once detained. Article 69 of the Zanzibar constitution forbids any person who has been detained from entering any presidential contest. However CUF insists that Hamad was not detained but ‘put in remand prison’ -on a charge which was subsequently abandoned by the prosecution.

‘One of the success stories of Tanzania’s emerging private sector.’ This is how Vitalis Omondi in THE EAST AFRICAN (May 12) described the success of the Tanzanian founder of Precisionair, Michael Shirima, who had recently become the strategic partner of Kenya Air, which has acquired a 49% stake in his company. The agreement was said to have the potential of spawning Precisionair’s access to global markets through Kenya Airways’ comprehensive route network with its strategic partners, KLM and North­West Airlines. When he founded ‘Flight Africa Ltd’, the pre-cursor of Precisionair in 1987, Shirima had just two aeroplanes which he used as aerial sprayers serving large coffee and wheat farms. As his airline grew he went to the African Project Development Facility (APDF) which helped secure $333,000 in equity financing from the Tanzania Venture Capital Fund. He bought six new Cessna planes and started providing charter services to tourists. Later he borrowed $400,000 from the East African Development Bank and expanded his fleet. Today, the Arusha-based airline carries more than 76,000 passengers a year.

Michael Okema wrote in THE EAST AFRICAN (July 14) about what he described as ‘the heated debate which took place at the Zanzibar Dhow Festival recently.’ Participants were at each other’s throats over such issues as whether Swahili culture originated on the East African coast and whether the Kiswahili language had a Bantu base. The article went on: ‘Politicisation of history may help people build confidence in themselves. But it can prove harmful to the development of such things as a science of language…. African nationalism is behind this debate. There are people who feel uncomfortable acknowledging the Arab influence on Kiswahili given the historical Arab participation in the slave trade. There is a limit to which history can be rewritten …….. Today Africans are proud to differentiate themselves on the basis of their respective colonisers. A Ghanaian feels closer to a Tanzanian (because both are Anglophone) than to an Ivorian who is his next door neighbour. So, in spite of its negative motives, colonialism had some positive aspects. In short, there are two sides to a coin. This should apply equally to the Arab. There should be no difficulty in acknowledging Arab influence on Swahili culture …..

Under the heading ‘Sleaze without end’ Lawi Joel writing in NEWSAFRICA (31st July) said that President Mkapa seems to be fighting a losing battle against graft and fraud, an evil he vowed to conquer when he took office for the second time in 2000. The article went on: ‘His Prime Minister seems to be the richest premier since independence, and the acquittal of former Minister for Works, Transport and Communications, Nalaila Kiula, has shown just how hard it is for Mkapa to crush corruption ….In a recent National Assembly sitting four MPs were suspended for falsifying Parliamentary Public Accounts. Many companies such as Independent Power Tanzania Ltd (IPTL) were being criticized. But many people were asking why only the small fry are taken to task while the big shots get away with it.. … However, not all big fish escape Mkapa’s net. A prominent businessmen was jailed for five years in December for bribery together with six officials of the Ministry of Lands ….. ‘

‘They left in dhows and came back on a plane. But the journey back took over 700 years.’ So began an illustrated article in THE EAST AFRICAN (July 28) describing the Zanzibar festival reported above. The article went on: ‘Along the way, they lost their language, their culture and knowledge of their native land. But they retained their music and dance. They are the African Sufis of Gujarat, whose musical group, the Sidi Goma (first ‘discovered by the late Rajiv Gandhi) made a historic visit to their ancestral land of Africa last month. Their history is rooted in the slave trade of the 13th century and beyond, when many Africans arrived in India as slaves to the Maharajas and Nawabs of the day. They have remained racially intact choosing to marry only among themselves …..

They received a warm welcome in Zanzibar. At the Bombay International Airport however the immigration officer was baffled to see people looking like Africans but with Indian passports and speaking Gujarati. In Zanzibar one shopkeeper told the group he could not let them pay for anything because they had “finally come home after 700 years.”

AFRICAN MINING reported in June that Williamson Diamonds Ltd has installed a $2.3 million jig plant at its Mwadui mine, the first of its kind to be installed in a diamond recovery project in Africa. It is scheduled to re-treat 20 tonnes of tailings that were deposited in the mine in the 1960’s and 70’s.

THE INDEPENDENT (19th May) in a half-page article on the animal survival crusader Jane Goodall explained how she first went to Gombe on Lake Tanganyika at the age of 26 in 1960 at the instigation of her then employer, Louis Leakey, the famous palaeontologist. The most remarkable finding came to her that October as she caught sight of a chimpanzee squatting on the ground and inserting a stick, stripped of its leaves, into a termite mound and bringing out the termites as a tasty snack. Until then it was thought that only man made use of tools. It was one of the definitions of our specialness as a species. “I telegraphed what I had seen to Leakey” she remembers. “He telegraphed back that we would now have to redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as humans.” Jane Goodall still spends 300 days a year on the road raising money and co-ordinating the work of her charity -the Jane Goodall Institute -which, inter alia, is fighting the battle to preserve the few remaining chimpanzees in Africa –Thank you Liz Fennell for this item -Editor.

The FUNDAY TIMES, the junior section of the well known paper, has been featuring for the last few weeks a cartoon series headed ‘Wacky races in Trekking to Tanzania’ in which ‘Peter Perfect’, already in bandages, battles against killer bees and other hazards in pursuing ‘Dick Dastardly’. The series continues.

It can be expensive climbing Kilimanjaro. The Australian SUNDAY TIMES featured on July 27 a £7,000 ‘Africa adrenalin safari’ which also includes Victoria Falls, bungee-jumping, whitewater rafting and game viewing. But those purchasing tickets still have to find their own way from Australia to Johannesburg to join the tour –Thank you Douglas Gledhill for this item ­Editor

THE ECONOMIST reported on July 26 that since 2000 Mafia island has been a testing ground for a joint effort by the government, WHO and a pair of drug companies to eradicate the limb deformity known as elephantiasis. Extracts: ‘An annual dose of two cheap drugs can clear away the parasites causing the disease….. The main trouble is persuading poorly educated farmers that the drugs are safe and useful. Women fear a government plot to lower their fertility. Men worry about their libidos …. If the project succeeds however 12 million Tanzanians who live in infected areas could eventually be covered -and one of the country’s scourges might be on the way to being eliminated.

‘Land and who gets it is becoming a hot potato in Tanzania according to NEW AFRICAN (June). The Government’s attempt to change landlords in favour of foreign investors is arousing passions in the country …. The World Bank wants Tanzania to change its land laws to attract investors in agriculture and fight poverty. President Mkapa, once a strident supporter of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s land reform policy, was reported to be yielding to persuasion …. ‘He has become a disciple of World Bank President James Wolfensohn’ but Tanzanians were said to be suspicious. Land grabbing by influential politicians, business tycoons, bureaucrats and foreigners was said to be wanton, with poor villagers evicted right under the nose of the authorities.

David Leishman has sent us a remarkable article by Nick Gordon published in the South African BUSINESS DAY recently under the sub-heading ‘When cash-flush Gulf businessmen baled them out, marginalised Tanzanian Muslims did not ask questions.’ (Thank you for sending this -Editor) Brief extracts: “The extraordinary sequence of events that unfolded in Iringa holds deep resonance for the developing world and the West. The town was quietly subverted by incomers from the Gulf.. .. In the 1990s, and more than a century after slavery had been abolished, Iringa -which had been an Arab slave trading centre -had a Muslim population who were feeling isolated. The town’s mosques were decrepit and lacked funds; the congregations in those mosques were dispirited. Muslim schools were decaying…… But for another set of proselytizers, Iringa was fertile ground. When AI-Qaeda -or, as they were known locally ‘the men from the Gulf -arrived, they offered local Muslim businessmen loans under the informal hawala system. The loans came in cash in hard currency ……… What was the quid pro quo?

Businessmen who ‘signed up’ soon prospered as did the Muslim community in general, the mosques, the religious schools. Within a year preachers were arriving in Iringa and other towns …. As these proselytisers gained ground and confidence they began to use far less subtle techniques to seduce the population. Some families were being offered about $130 to convert to Islam. …. Meanwhile, messages from the newly invigorated mosques were becoming more militant… After the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam ….. the trail of subversion led back to Iringa. A welding workshop in the town was pinpointed by the FBI investigators as the place where the pipes that contained the explosives used to devastate the Dar embassy had been manufactured. The owner claimed that he had no idea they would be stuffed with plastique. He was never charged. Fears of further infiltration were triggered by the discovery of containers of black market uranium which were being offered for sale in Dar Salaam ….’

‘These weapons were not made of radioactive materials or armed with killer bacteria’ the writer went on. ‘They are far more resilient and damaging. The raw material they are manufactured from is easy to come by: poverty, dirt, despair, social and political exclusion. And the subsequent explosion, when it inevitably happens, goes off inside people’s heads, not merely in Iringa, but on any continent, anywhere’.

REPORTERS SANS FRONTIERES has reported that the first worldwide index of press freedom had some surprises. The USA came lower in the scale of press freedom than Costa Rica. The countries with least press freedom were North Korea, China, and Burma. Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands were top in Europe but Britain and Italy came lower in the scale than Benin. No Arab country was among the top 50. Eritrea and Zimbabwe (18 journalists were in prison there at the time of the survey) were found to be the most repressive countries of sub-Saharan Africa and Benin came out top in the 21st place out of 139 countries. Tanzania is in the middle of the table in 67th place ahead of most other African countries.

The CATHOLIC HERALD (13th June) added to other obituaries published on the death of the late Dr Leader Stirling (see Tanzanian Affairs No. 75). Extracts: ‘He had a lifelong interest in the scouting movement and was the Chief Scout of Tanzania for many years. His interest in the movement was with him to his death and it was appropriate that his coffin should be carried by a party of Tanzanian scouts. He was dressed in his Scout uniform and the coffin was draped with the Scout Flag …. His commitment to Tanganyika and then Tanzania was immense and it was his Christian faith that gave him this commitment….. Stirling’s involvement was with Africans and with the Catholic Church…. He married at a mature age a nurse but she was to die, sadly childless. Later he married a widow with six children and proved an admirable stepfather …. Thank you John Sankey for this item -Editor.

Mary Soderstrom who is working on a novel called ‘The Violets of Usambara’ filled two pages in a recent issue of the NEW YORK TIMES on her search for the source of these small, famous, blue-violet flowers. Extracts: ‘For years I’ve struggled to keep at least one African violet in bloom through Montreal winters, but it wasn’t until I started working on a novel about a Canadian politician and his wife who was passionate about African violets that I began to wonder about the origins of the pretty little flowers. In French, one of its names is la violette d’Usambara ….. Their story intrigued me, and when I got a chance to go to Africa last October I decided to check them out.. …… the mountain’s known as the East Usambaras, which were recently named as one of the world’s biodiversity ‘hotspots’, were densely forested until the beginning of the 20th century when Tanganyika became the centrepiece of German colonial aspirations in Africa….. the scientific name of African violets -Saint Paulia -reflects this German colonial past. Baron Waiter von Saint Paul found the plants in 1892 when he was Commissioner of Tanga province. He sent seeds back to his father, an amateur botanist in Germany, and within 10 years African violets had become a horticultural sensation throughout Europe …..Recently, Saint Paulia have played a key role in safeguarding what is left of the East U sambaras’ natural splendours. Most of them grow in damp, shady places and when the forest is cut down, they vanish. Commercial logging continued into the 1980’s but some 250,000 acres of the mountain forests have now been declared a ‘UN Man and Biosphere Reserve.’ The writer went on to explain that the nature reserve is a bargain. Open year round, its rustic wood-panelled lodge sleeps 20, with simply furnished single, double and triple rooms and shared bathrooms. Full-board -3 generous meals -and lodging is about $10 a night. (Thank you Elsbeth Court for sending this item -Ed.)

‘He is one of Scotland’s forgotten heroes: the man whose maps of Africa made David Livingstone one of the most famous explorers of the age. But unlike Livingstone, who was buried in Westminster Abbey, the remains of Keith Johnston still lie where he succumbed to dysentry and was buried on 28th June 1879 in a shallow grave somewhere near the village of Behobeho in deepest Tanzania. Now, 124 years later, a team led by cartographer Mike Shand of Glasgow University is planning to retrace the route that Johnston took in an attempt to find his grave …. In October, using satellite technology, he plans to locate the site and turn it into a fitting memorial. For Shand, Hon. Secretary of the Society of Cartographers, the search is a labour of love. “Johnston was a mapping genius” he said. “He was one of the first to map the continent and probably the most important to do so.” In 2000, Johnston’s dusty calf skin-covered diary was discovered at the Royal Geographical Society in Glasgow. Amid the minute spidery writing, the extraordinary story of his last expedition was revealed. In July, Jim McCarthy, a former Forestry Officer in Tanganyika will publish a book on Johnstone’s final trip entitled “Journey into Africa” -This is an extract from an article in the Scottish SUNDAY HERALD (May 11). (Thank you Jim McCarthy for this item. Please ensure that our Reviews Editor receives a review copy when your book is published -Editor).

‘The old man is drinking coffee in Stone Town. He sits on his baraza, a traditional place for sitting and chatting that can be found outside many Zanzibari homes. Like a lot of home-grown culture in Zanzibar, the baraza is fast becoming an endangered species. “This building used to be a dispensary and that house was once a stationery shop. Now everybody’s selling souvenirs. Tourism is cutting into the fabric of our close-knit society.’ So began an article in the VSO magazine ORBIT (June) which delved into the pros and especially the cons of tourism in Zanzibar. The article went on: ‘The tourists bring money, which the wood carvers and trinket sellers are only too grateful for, but along with it -much to the annoyance of some devotees … there are also the uninvited forays into the mosques and the sight of skimpy clothes and over exposed flesh, which are all too often interpreted as an affront to the strict Islamic beliefs prevalent on the island …. traditional livelihoods like fishing are no longer as attractive as they used to be. Social problems such as drugs and prostitution also go hand-in-hand with the tourist trade …. Some, like Mohammed Haji, 23, have chosen to add to their earnings by selling sex to female visitors. Hadji is known locally as a papasi, just one of the many gigolos who now patrol the beaches for business. “They (the tourists) stay with us and we make money. No one cares about cultural erosion,” he says ………. ..

In response to criticism, the Tourism Commission has now issued a seven­point code of conduct aimed at potential visitors to Zanzibar. This focuses on nudity, consuming alcohol in public, kissing and fondling in public, photographing locals without their permission, entering mosques as well as eating, drinking and smoking in public during the holy month of Ramadan …… .

The JOHANNESBURG STAR reported recently that a Tanzanian had surprised South African Police Service narcotics detectives when, arriving from Dubai, he relieved himself of 140 ‘bullets’ of cocaine worth about £20,000, the largest number of bullets ever found on one individual coming into South Africa. Apparently the man had been preparing months in advance -grapes, ice-cubes and even sausages had been shovelled down his throat to get his insides ready. If one of the condoms had ruptured the man would have died of a severe overdose of the drug. He was reported to be quite relieved still to be alive.

The Western Australia CAMBRIDGE POST (March 8) described how a Tanzanian born with no arms or shoulder joints and an Australian who has no legs and travelled on stumps with special spiked fittings recently climbed Kilimanjaro. They took the Umbwe route, used normally by experienced climbers. Led by Brendon Goss, an Australian working at the Resolute Gold Mining Group in Nzega, the young men were aiming to raise awareness of disablement in Tanzania and helping to set up the ‘Hamisi Lugonda Centre’ for people with disabilities. The climb -up rocks, cliffs and over glaciers (at night) -took 17 days (climbers normally take about seven days) but the skidding, sliding trip down took only two and half days (Thank you Douglas Gledhill for sending this item -Editor).

‘Kilwa is amongst the most beautiful cities, and elegantly built,’ wrote Ibn Battuta, the great Moroccan-Berber traveller in 1331.’ So began a lyrical account of the fascinating history of Kilwa in the January issue of NEW AFRICAN written by Nick Horden. He had been attempting what he described as ‘a pale imitation of Battuta’s travels -to catch up with 800 years of African history.’ His journey, in the rainy season, from Dar es Salaam to Kilwa by road seems to have been more hazardous than that of Battuta who arrived in Kilwa comfortably by dhow. ‘Kilwa and other ports were founded in the 800’s/900’s by ancestors of the modem Swahili people, who became both city dwellers and traders with the interior long before they became (in the 1100’s) Muslims, and who kept many vital elements of their past culture long after they took on the Islamic religion ……. .’

Under the heading ‘Grape Expectations’ the BBC’s FOCUS ON AFRICA (April-June) described how a Tanzanian wine company -the ‘Tanganyika Vineyards Company’ -was battling to grab a share of the local market as many people in Tanzania preferred imported wines. Extracts from the article: ‘In the early 1980’s Tanzania’s socialist government took a serious interest in the winemaking business and, at the height of production, was making around 2 million litres a year. The business then fell into decline and the few wineries that were in existence closed down ….. The Vineyards Companies Chairman, Moses Kagya, was quoted as saying “We are a young company and still have a lot to learn about producing wine. After five years in the business I can say that our wines are very drinkable, but there is still a lot of room for improvement…. ” Kagya is a self-confessed wine lover and, unlike the majority of Tanzanians, grew up in a family where wine was frequently served at dinner. Around $0.5 million has been invested in the business in largely state-of-the-art machinery which would not look out of place even in wineries in Australia, New Zealand or the USA. At present the company is using two grape varieties to make three types of wine -Makatupura Red, Chenin Blanc and Rose’. Its capacity is around 200,000 litres a year. …. Dodoma is one of the few places in the wine-making world where two grape harvests are possible each year. However, the industry faces many obstacles: the vines are assaulted from every possible angle by tropical bugs, nematodes and even birds which have taken a fancy to the sweet grapes; the transport infrastructure is another major headache with rough roads damaging the grapes; the company also believes that the tax regime which it faces is unfair and discriminates against locally produced wine.. But perhaps the biggest hurdle is convincing people to drink the wine. “At wine tastings when we asked people which was the better wine, ours or foreign wines, in most cases they chose ours,” Kagya said “but when we tell them they have chosen a Tanganyika wine they just can’t believe it and are less impressed which is very disheartening.” Kagya also faces problems in selling his wine to tourist hotels in Dar es Salaam.

In writing about a conference in London organised by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown on “Poverty Reduction and the Private Sector” , Rosemary Righter, in THE TIMES (February 4) delved deeply into the best ways in which capital can be shifted from Western taxpayers to African developing countries. She wondered why only 40% of Africa’s own savings stayed in Africa and questioned whether a doubling of external government finance would be the right way to solve the problem. Africa needed not just capital, she wrote, but capitalists and not just more competent governments, but governments that would get off people’s backs. She went on: ‘As ministers do, the Chancellor made his speech and left. He did not hear Aristablus Elvis Musiba, Vice-chairman of Tanzania’s new Private Sector Foundation and President of its Chamber of Commerce, Agriculture and Industry say this: “I am 52. I’ve seen a lot of aid money coming to Tanzania. I have not seen development arising from that aid. But, in the past five years, I’ve seen private investment coming to Tanzania. And now I can see change. Aid has not got us anywhere: aid should never be more than the icing on the cake.” (Mr Musiba made a similar point later at a well­ attended Britain-Tanzania Society debate on British Aid to Tanzania in which MP’s from all three main British parties, Richard Dowden, Director of the Royal African Society and Tanzanian High Commissioner Hassan Kibelloh also participated -Editor)

THE TIMES reported on March 28 that Tanzania’s army had destroyed almost 10,000 anti-personnel mines as it sought to adhere to the terms of an international treaty banning such weapons. The remainder of the stockpile of nearly 24,000 mines is to be destroyed in September 2004. Of the estimated 100 million mines deployed worldwide an estimated 30 million have been destroyed since a global ban came into force four years ago. (Thank you John Ainley for this item -Editor).

(In order to make this section as interesting and representative as possible we welcome contributions from readers. If you see a mention of Tanzania in the journal, magazine or newspaper you read, especially if you live or travel outside the UK, please send us the relevant item, together with the name and date of the publication to the address on the back page. If you do not wish your name be published please say so -Editor).

‘Even a tiny health budget, if spent well, can make a difference.’ So wrote the ECONOMIST (August 17) in describing in detail a joint venture of the Tanzanian Health Ministry and the Canadian International Development Research Centre in Morogoro and Rufuji. The first task was to find out which diseases caused the most trouble. Researchers traveled on bicycles to carry out a door-to-door survey. The results were surprising. The amount that health authorities spent on each disease bore no relation whatsoever to the harm which the disease inflicted on the people. Some diseases were horribly neglected. Malaria accounted for 30% of the years of life lost in Morogoro but only 5% of the 1996 health budget was devoted to it. A cluster of childhood problems including pneumonia, diarrhoea, malnutrition, measles and malaria, constituted 28% of the disease burden but received only 13% of the budget. Other conditions attracted more than their fair share of cash. Tuberculosis, which accounted for less than 4% of years of life lost, received 22% of the budget. Vaccine preventable diseases accounted for 4% of the total burden, but immunisation swallowed up 30% of the budget. The next step in the project was to give the health workers a simple algorithm to show how to treat common symptoms and to change some treatments. The results were described as stunning. In Rufiji infant mortality fell by 28% in one year and the proportion of children dying before their fifth birthday dropped by 14% (Thank you David Birmingham/or sending this item -Editor).

The SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (17th October) reported the launching by Oxfam in Hong Kong of a campaign promoting fair trade in coffee. Oxfam Director for Hong Kong, Chong Chanyau said the campaign, which would involve exhibitions, concerts and coffee tasting activities, would help exploited farmers in poor countries such as Tanzania to earn a decent livelihood. He noted that the price of coffee beans had fallen nearly 50% in the past three years and complained that the big coffee roasters such as Sarah Lee, Nestle, Kraft and Procter and Gamble were making huge profits. With the fair trade coffee however, one third ofthe price would reach the farmers in Tanzania. (Thank you Ronald Blanche for sending this item from Hong Kong -Editor).

The BBC’s FOCUS ON AFRICA (October/December) featured a story sent in by Tanzanian listener Leocardia Simbi: ‘I had been happily married to the lively, loving and lovable Kaisuke for three years. My life was so bound up with his; he had become everything to me…. Up until that point we were childless and I became worried that my husband would divorce me…. I decided to do something about it. “Take this stuff’, said Dr Kanyororo, a traditional healer, as he handed my husband and I some green leaves to chew. The witch doctor later took me to a grove. He said he and I should undress so that he could apply some special traditional ointment to my genitals. He undressed himself in the twinkling of an eye. Hesitantly, I followed suit. At that moment a torch-light flashed on us. It was my husband. When he realised it was a witch doctor with me, he made a U-turn without uttering a word…. Now, two years later, not only am I still childless, but I am also a divorcee.’

NEWS AND VIEWS, the staff magazine of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, (October-November) said, in an article headed ‘Four Euro Partners under One Roof’ that ground-breaking arrangements to re-house the British High Commission in Dar es Salaam had been welcomed by staff. Not only had the British High Commission co-located with Germany, the Netherlands and the EC but the brand new accommodation -Umoja House -was also jointly owned by the four European partners. The new arrangements were said to have raised a few smiles. “The UK leads on security; the Dutch are responsible for the phones and TV; and, the Germans run the cleaning contract”, said Louise Taylor, the Relocations Manager. (Thank you John Sankey for sending this -Editor).

The American publication AFRICA NEWS REPORT (2nd December) reported that Tanzania was among 18 developing countries about to benefit from a World Bank/UN/Unesco/other international donors programme to provide primary education for all its children by 2015. Research indicated that children who learnt to read, write and count earned roughly ten times as much in their working lives as children unable to attend school. A sum of $400 million was being made available over the next three years for the programme.

‘Musicians are singing and performing in their local languages and styles, ignoring even the predominant Kiswahili’ according to an article by Herald Tagama in NEW AFRICAN (October). Those who ignored the trend risked being swept away by the powerful wind of change. Those singing in Swahili often did so with the heavy accents of their tribal languages …. The 26 year-old Loshilaa Mokitalush, whose Maasai intonation, accoutrement and lyrics thrilled people, now had a hit song describing his bemusement after a teacher had told his pupils that Europeans discovered Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Victoria ….. Amongst older musicians Hamza Kalala had directed a sharply pointed jab at proponents of economic liberalization -“Where I come from, strings of beads (brought by the first Europeans) are only for tying cattle/where I come from women put them round their waists to tantalise their husbands …. and then he slams privatisation and liberalisation -both ideas coming from the West …. Saidi Karoli, from Bukoba, who sings in Kihaya and Kiswahili, has become a major star.

South Africa’s BUSINESS DAY (September 30) wrote about what it described as a ‘valuation and payment’ dispute between the Tanzanian Telecommunications Company Ltd (TTCL) and one of the leading cellular operators in Africa, Mobile Systems International (MSI). (More details have been given above). The Government was said to have indicated that it was bent on reviewing the agreement under which MSI took over a 35% stake. MSI was a Dutch-based cellular operator founded by Sudanese entrepreneur Mohammed Ibrahim; it had some of the leading private equity funds from Europe and America amongst its shareholders. MSI had reportedly sought a court injunction in London to restrain the Tanzanian Government from taking any further steps in order to ‘protect its shareholders’. MSI was said to have paid the first instalment of its equity of $60 million last year but had delayed or found it difficult to pay the second $60 million. MSI was said to be claiming that some individuals on the Government’s side had not been acting in good faith. (Thank you David Leishman for this item -Editor)

AFRICA ANALYSIS (September) reported that the three member countries of the East African Community were at loggerheads over a Tanzanian proposal to enforce a six-month ban on fishing in Lake Victoria. The Mwanza-based ‘Victoria Fish Processors Association’ had volunteered to stop fishing for four months every year from June to allow the fish to breed. But Uganda was asking for evidence to support the move in view of the 50,000 people employed in its fishing industry who would be affected. In Kenya only four out of ten fish processors in Kisumu were said to be operational because of the acute fish shortage. Scientists were in agreement that something drastic had to be done as, in the last three decades, fish species in the Lake had declined from about 300 to three dominant species while the number of fishermen had increased 300%. Close to 60% of the fish caught in Lake Victoria were said to be immature.

Following the death in September on Mount Kilimanjaro of three porters, who were forced to sleep outside on the mountain, the pressure group ‘Tourism Concern’ said that British trekking firms should do more to safeguard the rights of porters they employed. Reporting this, THE TIMES (November 30), said that porters wages could be as little as £2 a day while loads of up to 60 kilograms were not uncommon. Boots and jackets were often not provided. Only half of the 80 British trekking operators were offering well defined porter­friendly policies according to ‘Tourism Concern’ which advocated limiting how much weight could be carried, improving wages and ensuring the provision of protective clothing (Thank you John Sankey for this item -Editor).

Several British newspapers gave considerable publicity to the news that Rod Liddle of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme had been forced to resign after refusing to give up a newspaper column in which he had expressed some very strong views. It will be recalled that his attack on President Mkapa in the Guardian on 24th July (which was referred to in TA No. 73) had also attracted considerable criticism ­Editor.

In further pursuit of its intense interest in matters concerning aviation in Tanzania the London GUARDIAN published on 24th July an article by Rod Liddle, editor of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme, which was largely devoted to an attack on President Mkapa. The article seemed to gloat over the fact that Tanzania had now sunk to the 151st position in the latest UN Human Development Report, one place above what was described as the ‘Benighted Islamic Hellhole of Mauritania’ and also below Sudan, Haiti, Djibouti and Bangladesh. ‘How bad could a country be to come below Haiti?’ he asked. The article went on to refer to the £28 million paid for the air traffic control system and the £14 million (actually £7 million) which President Mkapa was said to be spending on a new jet plane. This £42 million was virtually the exact amount of money Britain was giving Tanzania in aid this year. There followed sideswipes at the conduct of the last elections in Zanzibar and at President Mkapa’s welcome for the dispossession of white farmers in Zimbabwe. The heading of the article was “Why do we give money to corrupt states?”

Clare Short subsequently described the article as “virtually a racist attack on the Tanzanian President”.
(However, Tanzania has been selected to be the host of a UN Human Development Forum later this year in recognition of the ‘important achievements it has made in democratic, participatory governance which forms an important element in the country’s impressive overall reform agenda’. The UNDP Resident Representative in Dar es Salaam, quoted in the Tanzanian Guardian, said that there were now 173 countries worldwide included in the index -compared with 162
last year -and Tanzania had jumped from 156th to 151st in the league table -Editor).

Tanzanian High Commissioner in London Gumbo Kibelloh responded to the Liddle article in the GUARDIAN on July 30 by pointing out the achievements of the Mkapa administration and inviting Liddle to visit him at the High Commission “to discuss the real situation in Tanzania”. Letters of protest about the article written to the paper by the Chairman and other members of the Britain-Tanzania Society were not published.

The radar deal had also continued to feature heavily in other papers. Under the heading “Watchmen radar deal is a disaster for the people of Tanzania”, UK Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb wrote in the EAST AFRICAN (8th July) as follows: “In a communication to the IMF dated 18th July, 2000 the Tanzanian government claimed that it was unable to finance it through bilateral or multilateral aid but had obtained bank and supplier financing of $35 million on concessional terms. He noted that, as of September 12 last year, Barclays Bank, which had provided the finance, had some 93 million ordinary shares in BAE Systems. Barclays Bank had not explained why, as a commercial lender, it had seen fit to subsidise heavily an arms sale to a highly indebted developing country …. I have now been told that even the military capability of the system is inadequate; it covers only about one-third of the country and two more systems would be needed to cover the whole country. Barclays Bank might have simply had a fit of generosity. Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that on 11th October, 2000 Barclays’ secured a banking licence to operate in Tanzania. The other more sinister explanation was that the contract price was fiddled and artificially inflated so it looked to the outside world as if Barclays was providing a concessional loan which was necessary to get the deal past the IMF ….

Then came the order, just before Ms Short’s arrival in Tanzania, of a new jet plane for President Mkapa which enabled the GUARDIAN (July 27) to report that Clare Short (said to be known in Tanzania as ‘Mama Radar’) had defended the purchase. She was quoted as saying: “After all, the Queen has her own jet and the British Prime Minister has the use of a jet”. She went on “The President needed a jet to replace his current plane, a 24-year-old Fokker. .. Tanzania’s roads are hopeless and it is a long drive from Dar to Dodoma where Parliament is based …. unlike the Radar deal it was openly disclosed to the Tanzanian Parliament. There is no whiff of corruption about this purchase either”. She attacked those in the World Bank who had raised questions about the deal for its “neo-colonialist attitudes”.

(Meanwhile CUF is reported in Mtanzania to have collected 28,000 signatures on a petition against the purchase of the jet -Editor)

BBC TV1 was so parochial in its coverage of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in July that Tanzanian Francis Naali’s great achievement in winning the marathon received little attention. As he stood on the podium receiving his gold medal the Tanzanian National Anthem could be heard in the background but the foreground was occupied by several of the numerous commentators brought in to explain every detail about the contribution of the British athletes. Tanzania’s John Yuda got better TV coverage for his bronze medal in another race. Noel Thomas described the scene: ‘The Tanzanian led for most of the way and had the crowd with him as he was closely followed by three Kenyans. At the end the Kenyans closed in and it seemed as though he would fail but in a desperate last bid not to be overtaken, managed to throw off the third of the Kenyans and snatch the bronze medal by a whisker. As he stood on the platform to receive the bronze medal he was completely unsmiling; he simply stared into the future as if completely in another world, but was all the more impressive for that’.

NEWSAFRlCA (July) devoted a page to what it described as Tanzania’s worst train accident since the first railway line was built in 1893. The accident on 24th June, which occurred between Igandu and Msagali near Dodoma, killed 281 people and injured 371 out of the 1,200 passengers travelling on the train. Following the crash there were allegations of sabotage following discontent amongst workers threatened by redundancy as a result of plans for privatization of the Railways Corporation.

Apparently the blowpipe of the train was broken causing failure of the brakes as it approached Dodoma. The train then started going backwards at an increasing speed until it crashed into another train. According to Majira the train had to change engines three times before the disaster. The original engine was changed in Morogoro but this new one also developed technical problems and had to be replaced in Kilosa. The 2,200-horsepower diesel engine was supposed to pull 22 wagons to Dodoma but the engine failed 25 kilometres before the city. The engine was among the ten best in the rolling stock having been bought in 1991 from Germany and having been overhauled in 1999 by German technicians. Five top railway officials were said to have been suspended. An 11-member committee was appointed on 6th July to investigate the accident. President Mkapa endeavoured to calm the nation by pointing out that the UK, India, Mozambique, Germany and Pakistan had all recently suffered similar serious rail accidents.

The AFRICA SERVICE OF THE UN’S IRIN reported on May 29 that a multi-agency survey, undertaken by the Tanzanian government, the British-based NGO Saferworld, the Nairobi-based Security Research and Information Centre (SRIC) and the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa (ISS) on the impact of small arms in Tanzania, had found that firearms were having a negative, though limited, impact on Tanzania and that there was widespread support for tightening controls on them. Tanzania’s ‘National Action Plan’, developed in November 2001, was described as ‘The first coordinated and comprehensive national approach to develop a practical and realistic plan … based on a thorough assessment of the small arms problem” according to The National Defence and Security Committee. The Committee has had its remit extended to cover small arms control issues, and a national Arms Management and Disarmament Committee (AMAD) been set up, including key civil society partners, to direct and oversee the implementation of the National Plan. Tanzania was among the leaders in the region said Lt-Col (Retd) Jan Kamenju, Director of SRIC.

In Tanzania, though exposure to violent conflict and the levels of the use of firearms in crime were relatively low, firearms were having a growing negative effect in certain parts -with penetration most serious in Kigoma and Kagera regions bordering war-tom Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and in Morogoro Region, in the southeast. The penetration of firearms was an issue, though to a lesser extent, in the regions of Arusha in the northeast, Mwanza in the north and Pwani in the east. The report highlighted a strong perception of rising crime in Tanga Region in the northeast, which, it said, needed to be monitored for fear that, at some point, it could bring about a worsening firearm situation. Crime rates were still generally low in Tanzania and what crime was committed tended to be theft, often opportunistic, involving house­breaking and cattle theft. However, in Kigoma and Kagera one of the destabilising factors was “the presence of factions within refugee camps”, which was heightening the feeling of insecurity. “This has a particularly negative impact on the level of firearm proliferation in these regions, both in terms of illegal weapons in the hands of rebel fighters and the responsive demand for arms as a means of self­defence and security that a diminishing sense of safety stimulates,” it added.
(This Item was delivered to the “Africa-English” Service of the UN’s IRIN Humanitarian Information Unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations).

In an article on the proliferation of trade in illegal small arms in the Great Lakes region, the EAST AFRICAN (lOth June) said that 75% of these illegal arms originated from Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. The article quoted the International Action Network of Small Arms (IANSA) a UK NGO, as stating that four out of 10 fishermen around Lake Victoria owned small arms and five out of 50 people in the region had access to illegal weapons. An AK-47 rifle could be bought for from Shs 150,000 to Shs 400,000. The police had reported that about 11,000 people including 11 policemen had been killed in incidents involving the use of weapons between 1998 and 2001. The article said that it was suspected that some of the planes used to export fish to Ukraine, Russia, the Far East and South Africa returned with illegal arms for sale in the region.

‘Some 12,000 ‘Somali Bantu’s’, as they are known, used to be farmers in Somalia but were always treated as second-class citizens and deprived of basic rights such as education.’ So wrote Jonathan Clayton in THE TIMES (July 18). Before Somalia’s civil war drove them as refugees into Kenya, the Bantus were despised by Somalia’s primarily nomadic clans, living along the Juba River. With no clan system to protect them, they were robbed, raped, bullied and chased into exile when Somalia descended into anarchy in 1991. They can be traced back to the slave trade of Zanzibar’s Arab sultans during the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of their ancestors were captured by the sultan’s raiding dhows and taken to the Zanzibar slave market for sale and onward transport to the Arab world. Vessels wrecked in monsoon winds would pitch their hapless human cargoes on to the Somali coast. They have been living in the refugee camp at Dadaab near the Kenya/Somalia border. They have no desire to return to Somalia and the UN refugee agency therefore approached Mozambique and Tanzania to ask them to accept them as refugees. But these countries felt that they did not have the means to take them and the United States had now agreed to accept the entire community and they are to be resettled in towns and cities across America. They have begun to leave for Nairobi prior to their journey to the States in convoys carrying between 250 and 300 passengers at a time.

Baffour Ankomah, the outspoken NEW AFRICAN writer, described in an article in the magazine’s June issue, the birth pangs of the new African Union (AU) which was set up on 1 st July in Durban, South Africa. In the article headed “African Union in Danger of Being Stillborn” he revealed that the OAU was owed US$ 54 million by 45 of its 54 member countries (Tanzania was said to owe $853,000). He went on to explain that in preparation for the setting-up of the AU a “high-level advisory panel” of 15 eminent persons had been set up. Among the members was Tanzania’s Mrs Gertrude Mongella, who had been head of the OAU election observer mission to Zimbabwe and was President of ‘Advocacy for Women.’ There then followed a lengthy and frank interview with Amari Essy, the distinguished Ivorian diplomat, who was elected as Secretary General of the OAU last July in succession to Tanzania’s Salim Salim with the mandate to transform the OAU into the AU within one year. Asked whether it was true that some of the OAU staff were deliberately undermining him in this task Essy said “Yes, 1 know. When 1 took office 1 didn’t sack anybody. 1 have been working with the same people left behind by Salim because as a Pan-Africanist, you don’t discriminate or select this group or that group …. When 1 was elected, 1 met Salim in Lusaka and he said that he had put in place a good working group, so when 1 arrived in Addis Ababa everything would be ready for me. 1 could have dismantled the working group but that wasn’t the ideal solution and 1 had to live with it ….. but nobody seems to be happy though it must be admitted that, because of the transition from OAU to AU, there is speculation about job security”. Asked whether it was a tough assignment that he had been given he said yes. One of the problems was the secretariat. When Salim was leaving, a lot of bad things were said against him …. And there was a split in the office … the atmosphere was bad. “I had to spend a lot of time speaking to them and explain that as Africans it was a big honour for us to be part ofbuilding the new African Union”.

Essy was then asked about Zimbabwe. The OAU had said that the elections had been free, fair and legitimate. (Tanzanian Affairs No. 72). The Commonwealth and much of the Western world had said the opposite. Was he still standing by the OAU verdict? Essy replied: “Ask Mrs Gertrude Mongella of Tanzania -she was the leader of the OAU team .. .I followed her report” …. ”

The Bunyanhulu issue (see above) received a mention in the NEW STATESMAN on May 27. Extracts: ‘President Bush Senior is on the Board of Barrick Mining, a Canadian Company that now finds itself embroiled in a row over allegations of a massacre (by another company) in Tanzania …. The Lawyers Environmental Action Team have fought not only Barrick but the World Bank (which backed the gold mining venture) and the Tanzanian Government to try to find out exactly what happened at Bunyanhulu … (Thank you Peter Yea for sending this item -Editor).

Jens Finke, the author of two forthcoming ‘Rough Guides’ on Tanzania and Zanzibar gave an advanced extract from these in an article in ROUGH NEWS (Summer 2002). Extracts: ‘Most guidebooks curtly write off Dodoma in a paragraph or two but it’s been one of the highlights of my travels in Tanzania. The de facto capital is a place with as much visible charm as other planned cities (like Abuja and Brasilia) ….. .In fact Tanzanians have had a fair go at the project, impressive when you consider the impoverishment of the country, but it’s thanks to the typically haphazard track of Tanzanian officialdom that Dodoma has begun to gather something akin to charm. Unplanned streets and squatter housing have sprouted between the potholed boulevards in places where grandiose projects like the new national library were once planned and which now boast an increasing number of busy bars and clubs, making Dodoma one of the liveliest towns in Tanzania …. Local journalists delight in reminding readers how the capital’s name (Dodoma means ‘to sink’ in Kigogo) refers to an elephant that got stuck in the mud and how the planned city is a white elephant stuck in the middle of nowhere. This seems unfair. … Sunday afternoons are special as the day when families have the time to go out together and mini-bars lay on family -oriented entertainment. In the local park two stand-up comedians were on the outdoor stage and they interrupted their topical routine with jokes about the Mzungu (white man) who had just arrived, which caused hilarity among the crowd and brought me a sympathetic beer from the table I joined. That afternoon, the comedians were followed by the ‘Swordfish Cultural Troupe’ who laid on a medley of tribal dances and masterful displays of drumming. The highlight was a rendition of the Sindimba dance from the Makonde tribe in which masked dancers representing an evil spirit instil the fear of God into bystanders by cavorting around on stilts. But the final act was the most eagerly­awaited of the afternoon, by the women at least. A bare-chested man appeared on stage with a short plank and a wooden cylinder. Balancing the plank atop the cylinder on a table, he stood up on the see-saw which rocks back and forth and then announced that he would undress while standing on the see-saw. As his trousers and then his boxer shorts came down the women went berserk and several ran-up on to the stage to shower coins on the table. As soon as he was naked, he repeated the whole act in reverse, scooped up the coins and his clothes and disappeared, pursued by one of the women who had been sitting at my table. Dodoma dull? I don’t think so (Thank you Liz Fennell for this item ~Editor).

AFRICAN DECISIONS (April -June) in its ‘Investment Monitor’ feature said that the privatisation of the Morogoro -based Canvas Mill Ltd seemed to be taking off, with increased export orders and the payment of about Shillings 1.2 billion in various taxes within the first three years of operation. The Mill’s production capacity had risen to 75% of installed capacity and the mill had won export orders in at least eight countries earning it $9 million from exports. It was currently working on an order for cloth uniforms for NATO armed services.

NEWSAFRICA (1st July) in an article entitled’ Beer Wars’ described recent changes in the highly competitive and complicated beer market in East Africa. Extracts: ‘The international giant South African Breweries (SAB) which operates in 23 countries and controls Tanzania Breweries and 82% of the total beer market in Tanzania, has closed down its Kenya subsidiary Castle Breweries and relocated to Tanzania’. Some analysts were quoted as saying that this move was a concession to competition in a reducing beer market in Kenya rather than a planned strategic decision. SAB announced it had agreed to a deal with East African Breweries to take over the latter’s Moshi-based Kibo Breweries through its Tanzania Breweries subsidiary and would now sell in Tanzania East African Breweries well known brands Tusker, Pilsner and Kibo Gold. Already the company was selling Safari, Kilimanjaro, Ndovu and F orty9 er beers. Under the arrangement Kenya Breweries would buy a 20% shareholding in Tanzania Breweries and SAB would buy a 20% shareholding in the East African Brewery’s subsidiary Kenya Breweries.

The BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL (August 3) published a 6-page article on the new scientific discipline of ‘Travel Medicine’. The article included a great deal of information about new treatments for malaria (recommended drugs are melloquine, doxycycline or atovaquone) and other diseases in Sub Saharan Africa. The article advised travellers to obtain ‘standby treatment kits’ which they can use for self-treatment if unable to obtain medical advice within 24 hours of becoming unwell (Thank you Christine Lawrence for sending this information -Editor).

In a letter to THE TIMES on 13th May reader Peter Hatt (6th King’s African Rifles 1950 -53) said that a replica of the ‘splendid’ Askari Monument in Dar es Salaam, which commemorated the African soldiers who lost their lives while serving in the First World War, should be installed in London on an appropriate podium.

AFRICAN DECISIONS (April-June) reported that Tanzanian community leader Sebastien Chuwa and the ‘African Blackwood Conservation Project’ had been given ‘Spirit of the Land’ awards during the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, USA. The awards were for environmental education and tree-planting programmes around Mount Kilimanjaro.

The JOHANNESBURG STAR (17th May) reported that Tanzania was returning a shipment of 10 million Chinese condoms, paid for by the UN Fund for Population Activities, which were earmarked for free distribution in Tanzanian health clinics and other points. The nine shipping containers holding the condoms worth about $60,000 had been purchased from a company in Singapore which had contracted a manufacturer in China to make the condoms. Assistant Health Minister Hussein Mwinyi said that many of them had ‘weak points’ including holes and soft spots that caused them to burst under pressure. THE TIMES had the same story on 18th May. (Thank you John Ainley for sending this item -Editor).

Few issues concerning Tanzania in recent years have received as much publicity in Britain as the air traffic control saga following massive coverage on the front page of the London GUARDIAN for three successive days (December 18-20). The banner headlines read: JUST WHAT THEY NEED ~ A £28 MILLION AIR DEFENCE SYSTEM; CABINET RIFT OVER SUPPORT FOR BAE SALE TO ONE OF WORLD’S POOREST COUNTRIES; RIFT OVER AGREEMENT WITH TANZANIA; SHORT LOSES IN AID ROW: £28 MILLION MILITARY DEAL TO GO AHEAD;

The London TIMES (March 29) said that last year Clare Short infuriated Cabinet colleagues by taking a high-profile stand against the decision to grant an export licence for an air-traffic control system being sold to Tanzania. Now, in what was seen as an open act of rebellion against her Cabinet colleagues, Ms Short had suspended a £10 million aid package to the country because of the sale. But the article went on to say that the international development secretary was generally regarded as ‘unsackable’, with one minister describing her as a ‘loose cannon that does not sink’.

The GARDIAN (March 20) said that Clare Short saw the issue as a cornerstone of her policy to persuade poverty-stricken and debt-ridden countries to stop wasting their cash on expensive toys so they could spend more on health, education and clean water. She saw her decision to block the project as essential but it had now emerged, following questioning by Norman Lamb, a Liberal Democrat MP, that when the deal came to the Cabinet committee it had already gone ahead. Most of the equipment had been built at BAE systems and £11 million had been paid as early as September 2000. The article linked the Barclays Bank loan at the low interest rate of 4.9 per cent with the decision of Tanzania on October 10 2000 to grant Barclays a lucrative banking licence to operate in Tanzania. The result had been a huge row at the Cabinet committee meeting with Ms Short demanding that the export licence be refused and the Ministers of Trade and Defence saying it should not. Ms Short was pressing the World Bank to tell Tanzania it was not going to get more help if it persisted with the scheme. The GUARDIAN reported that Ms Short’s action was causing consternation and embarrassment among some of her less independently minded Cabinet colleagues.

A letter in THE LANCET (5th January) quoted OXFAM as saying that the system would cost one quarter of Tanzania’s health budget. The funds could provide basic health care for 2 million people and pay school fees for 3.5 million children. The writer said that Prime Minister Tony Blair should be ashamed to have added to the burdens of Tanzania.

According to the EAST AFRICAN, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) was due in Tanzania early in April to review the BEA System. DfID and the World Bank believed that a civil aviation type of air-traffic control system could have been procured for around $10 million. The cost of the system would be about half the country’s annual debt relief. The European Investment Bank was said to have been prepared to give Tanzania a cheaper loan but only for a different type of air traffic control system. Tanzania’s Foreign Minister Jakaya Kikwete was quoted as saying that it was insulting to be told that they had to wait for the World Bank to prescribe what was best for Tanzania.

The SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (21st December) quoted the MP for the Isle of Wight stating that the system had already been built, Prime Minister Tony Blair saying that he would not oppose the deal and President Mkapa as saying that the new radar was needed to replace obsolete technology and that he could not leave air safety “in the hands of God”. (Thank you Ran Blanche for sending this item from Hong Kong ­Editor)

On 23rd March the London GUARDIAN came back again to the issue under the headline ISLANDERS PUT JOBS AHEAD OF SCRUPLES: The Tanzania deal posed an ethical dilemma on the Isle of Wight. The article explained that the factory in which the control system was made was in Cowes in the Isle of Wight. What did the workers at the factory think about the controversy? Most were reluctant to give their views and none wished to be named. Peter, who seemed to a represent the majority, said there were qualms about selling defence equipment to Third World countries but someone would always sell it to them. Another, David, a committed Christian and supporter of the Jubilee 2000 Debt Relief Campaign, said he almost quit his job. “I wanted to distance myself from gaining at the expense of one of the poorest countries”. He had written to the Prime Minister and to Clare Short demanding that the export licence be withheld. His faith and politics led to sleepless nights as he wrestled with his conscience.

THE TIMES reported that Ahmed Brahim (57), the alleged financial brains behind her Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network in Spain was arrested on 14th April. He has been linked to the financing of the car bomb attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.

An article by James Meek headed “How aid took Tanzania to the classroom” in the London GUARDIAN (March 22) described how British and other foreign aid is being put directly into Tanzania’s central government budget, the only condition being that the budget goes towards reducing poverty. Extracts from the article (which explained the effect of aid on one primary school): ‘Once, Britain would have insisted that a Union flag waved over every pound it spent on aid. Now the cash is pooled with money from nine other European countries and the Tanzanian’s own revenue, losing its British identity….. The old way, grants to specific projects determined by donors made Tanzanians and their government passive, dependent, aid junkies -but it was easy to keep track of how the money was being spent. …The passionate belief of Clare Short is that when a poor country has followed the advice of rich countries by becoming more democratic and liberalising its economy -as Tanzania has done -its government and people deserve to be trusted with the responsibility of distributing aid by themselves …. .In the 1960s, foreigners in short-sleeved shirts came talking of “progress”; in the 1990’s they came in suits and ties talking of “reform”. Now aid givers and Tanzanians talk of many small changes -more modest, more cautious and more real.’

The EAST AFRICAN (March 25) reported that the 51-year-old Muhimbili hospital would soon undergo a $23 million rehabilitation programme being financed with help from the African Development Bank, the OPEC Fund for Development and BADEA. The rehabilitation would include expansion and construction of a new mortuary, new operating theatres, a new incinerator and remodelling of the in-patient wards to accommodate more patients in a clean environment.

THE TIMES (4th January) wrote that a woman who was brought up with a herd of wild elephants was the new face of BBC natural history programmes. Sarah Douglas-Hamilton had been chosen to succeed David Attenborough as the nation’s foremost wildlife presenter. She was born in Tanzania and her first encounter with elephants came when she was just six weeks old. (Thank you Christine Lawrence for sending this item ­Editor).

The LAW ADVOCATE reported in its winter 2002 issue that residents in Dar es Salaam were threatening court action against a cement company that was alleged to be releasing dangerous quantities of cement dust and sulphur dioxide. Residents living near the factory were said to be suffering from respiratory disorders and burning eyes. US E-Law Advocates in the Lawyer’s Environmental Action Team (LEAT) were representing over 5000 affected residents. (Thank you Corletta Johnson for sending this item -Editor)

‘There are plenty of coffee choices in the stores these days but starting today there’s another blend on the shelves. It tastes just as good as the others but it has a very different story’. So began an article in the Jacksonville (Florida) TIMES-UNION featuring “Sweet Unity Farms Coffee” which comes in 12-ounce bags, sells for about $4 and is from Tanzania. The article continued: ‘The new coffee is being brought to the United States by David Robinson (son of the sports great Jackie Robinson) who has lived in Tanzania for 20 years and has formed a farming co­operative which allows small farmers to combine their harvest and manufacture a product that is bringing electricity to their homes and money to their pockets. Starting with 48 farms in 1994 some 350 farms are now participating’. (Thank you Elsbeth Court for this item -Editor)

A new Imax film entitled “Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa” is now showing in selected North American cities. The enormous screen on which it is projected measures some 15 metres in height and 21 metres in width and creates an overwhelming visual experience wrote the EAST AFRICAN (March 25). Audiences are made to feel they are actually ascending the mountain along with a six-member climbing team (including two Tanzanians). The DALLAS MORNING NEWS had described the film as “sublimely photographed, it’s almost a religious experience”.