Minister of Foreign Affaires and International Cooperation Jakaya Kikwete has that said Tanzania would continue the fight against terrorism in collaboration with the United Nations. Presenting his ministry’s expenditure estimates for the 2003/2004 financial year to parliament he said that Tanzania would not support measures taken unilaterally outside the UN. He said Tanzania did not and would not support the US and British invasion of Iraq because they did not get a UN mandate. Kikwete complained that, although Tanzania was fully collaborating with Britain and the US in fighting terrorism, the two nations were issuing travel alerts about the danger of visiting the country. This was harming Tanzania’s the economy in the process-Nipashe

Security was stepped up at the Dar Es Salaam International Airport after State Minister in the Vice President’s Office (Poverty Eradication) Edgar Maokola-Majogo was found in New Delhi, India with a bullet in his bag. Maokola-Majogo had passed through the Dar airport without detection of the bullet by the electronic surveillance equipment installed there. A Majira reporter witnessed security agents at the airport inspecting everyone. Airport Director Ms Faraja Makasi said the incident was just a normal technical problem which could happen anywhere and that was why even Zurich airport security systems couldn’t detect the bullet either. She said airport employees were undergoing further training on security matters.

Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) experts, in collaboration with Belgian scientists, are training rats for use in bomb disposals. The SUA experts said that the rats had proved to be efficient and better than dogs. They could detect buried land mines -Mwananchi.

Ilala MP and former cabinet minister Iddi Simba (who also has a seat on the CCM National Executive Committee (NEC), has reignited the debate on the sensitive and delicate issue of indigenisation in Tanzania. He has published a book on the subject which has stirred up considerable controversy. He believes that indigenous Tanzanians, as distinct from Asian Tanzanians, should be favoured under government economic policies. He was immediately accused of racism. However, on page 16 of the book he writes: “The process of indigenisation of Tanzania, and whatever means which the Government and civil society may devise to empower the disadvantaged groups, will be borne from a sense of common logic and benevolence, not racism…. He said that during the colonial period indigenous populations were marginalized and were not on an equal footing with other races, a problem he is determined to solve.

THE BACKGROUND
Summarising the background, Evarist Kagaruki, writing in The Express (July 3) pointed out that the debate initially emerged in the early 1990s following the commencement of the process of privatisation in the country.

Extracts: ‘In essence, the debate hinged on the modalities of divestiture of public corporations. It precipitated an impassioned plea for Tanzanians of African origin (the indigenous nationals, or “Wazawa” in Kiswahili) to be afforded first priority and to be financially enabled to acquire ownership of the enterprises being privatized. Coincidentally, privatisation began at the same time that the country was introducing multiparty politics. So, it was not surprising at all to see the issue of the indigenisation of the economy forming part of the political agenda of the main political parties. As we approached the first multiparty elections (in 1995) the debate on the issue of indigenisation became rather heated, frenzied and emotional, with some arguments reflecting strong feelings of racial hate and bias. At the centre was imbalance in wealth between African-Tanzanians and Tanzanians of Asian (Indian) origin, which indigenisation was ‘supposed’ to rectify ….. Simba has been one of the staunchest proponents of indigenization and has been consistent, forceful and candid in his views on the issue, and some of his arguments are intellectually persuasive. Whether one agrees with him or not, the fact remains that the man deserves credit for staying committed to his beliefs ….. However, Simba’s crusade for the indigenisation of the economy may be a wild-goose chase. He is pursuing a concept which is not acceptable to the ruling party, CCM, of which he is a senior member, with a rare seat on the Central Committee. The party has dissociated itself from his postulations about indigenisation, saying very categorically that the concept had never been part of its political philosophy! Strong opponents of that concept, in and outside the CCM, think that the logic of looking at the problem of the economic disparities between the rich and poor in our society in terms of the divisions between the races was perverted and carries with it the poisonous seeds of racial hatred, social tensions, disharmony and national disintegration. The Father of our Nation, the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, was perhaps the most outspoken opponent of indigenisation. He called it a ‘racial play’ and never hid his indignation about it. He cautioned that “when you start to sell these parastatals to a few people that you call ‘African-Tanzanians’ and hail such Africanisation, you will soon discover that Africanisation is not monolithic, but rather also balkanised; it has in it Christians and Muslims; in Christians there are Lutherans, Catholics and Anglicans. And in Muslims there are Sunnis, Shia, and Khoja. You will promote social divisions which do not exist today”. Certainly, Mwaiimu Nyerere was right, and he is vindicated by history.’

CCM AND THE OPPOSITION
The ruling CCM party reacted quickly to Simba’s book and issued a statement banning the use of the concept of Uzawa within the party on the grounds that it had racist connotations.

A number of academics and politicians from the opposition then strongly criticised the CCM statement. Opposition leader in parliament, Wilfred Lwakatare, said that by banning discussion CCM was running away from its own shadow. NCCR Chairman James Mbatia and CHADEMA Chairman Bob Makani supported the policy saying the large majority of Tanzanians who were sidelined by colonial masters must be empowered in order to rectifY the injustices done over the years. President Mkapa reiterated CCM’s stand on uzawa insisting that the ruling party’s policy was geared towards empowerment of all Tanzanians economically regardless of race or origin. The uzawa attitude could fuel unnecessary hatred by segregating certain segments of the Tanzanian people.

Nipashe has reported a possible split in the CCM party between those who support the policy and those who are closer to the national leadership who oppose it. The paper said that those who oppose it mostly want to sideline former Commerce Minister Iddi Simba who is leading the struggle for uzawa.

SHIFTING THE EMPHASIS
On August 13 Iddi Simba said he still stood by his concept of indigenisation, but wanted to shift the emphasis to indigenous Tanzanian (Watanzania asili) rather than African Tanzanians (wazawa). A policy for protecting the economic interests of indigenous Tanzanians was yet to come out. He also said that Tanzania, being a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), would also fall under the proposed SADC customs union, but no preparations for protecting the economic rights of poor Tanzanians had been made. “Under the customs unions we will be talking about a free labour market meaning that our hawkers (machinga), food vendors (mamalishe), clerks and other labourers will have to compete on an equal footing with foreigners looking for the same jobs,” he said.

FORMER PRESIDENT IN SUPPORT
Former President Mwinyi, then entered the debate by reiterating his concept of ruksa (liberal thinking). Addressing young parliamentarians he was cheered when he urged them to spearhead the debates on youth participation in the development process. “I am saying you are free to grow. All youths are free to debate on this issue in whatever place in the country”. The former President was followed at the meeting by Iddi Simba who said in 15 years to come he and former President Mwinyi would not be around to advise and, if they would be, then they wouldn’t be strong enough to call the shots.

Mwananchi reported that in mid July there was ‘bitter bickering’ concerning accusations and counter accusations among members of parliament as to who is behind marriage breakdowns. Participating in a seminar on education development, Vunjo MP Thomas Ngawaiya (TLP) accused the Government of favouring women in everything. He alleged that when women became successful they ran away from their husbands. He reminded participants that the same problem happened in England years ago when men were forced to form groups to fight back after the women became successful, neglecting their marriages in the process. He said that when women became MPs they were most likely to cause their marriages to break down …. The MP was uniformly cheered by the menfolk in the house and jeered by the women MPs. Special seats MP Rhoda Kahatano (CCM) then caused uproar when she alleged that when men became MPs they also abandoned their spouses and ran away with other women …..’

The Swahi1i press seemed to be in agreement on June 19 in describing the marriage of former Vice-President, and former Prime Minister (and also former High Commissioner in London) John Malecela as ‘the best wedding ceremony ever in the country’. He married Anne Kilango, a CCM special seats MP. Former Prime Minister Cleopa Msuya oversaw the betrothal proceedings which were attended by ‘all the strong and mighty in Tanzanian politics including President Mkapa.’

Beginning on June 15 Dar es Salaam residents are being required to participate in vigilante groups, commonly known as Sungusungu, that will patrol their areas as a way of fighting crime. The decision was reached at a meeting of Dar es Salaam regional leaders chaired by Regional Commissioner Yusufu Makamba. Other measures to be taken include an order for all city bars to close at 11 pm and a house to house manhunt of foreigners in the city. ‘From now onwards any theft or robbery event will attract explanations from the particular local leader of the area. Also non­participants in the patrols will be required to donate items like torches and batteries’ -Nipashe.

The Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Dr Jacques Diouf, has appointed two Tanzanians to hold senior posts in the UN agency: Dr John Monyo, became the Deputy Director General for rural participatory development planning and Dr Geofrey Mrema became Director General for agricultural development in FAO’s department of agriculture. Dr Monyo was the Head of Department of Crop Science and Production at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and Dr Mrema was the Executive Secretary of the common market for agricultural research of the defunct East African Community in the 1970s and later a Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Botswana.

The £9,300 Caine (Sir Michael) Prize for African writing has been awarded to Yvonne Owuor’s story ‘The weight of whispers’ which tells the tragedy of a dislocated rich family on the run in Kenya. Ms Owuor lives in Zanzibar where she is Executive Director of the Zanzibar Film Festival-The Times.

British Airways has won the Tanzanian Tourist Board’s airline of the year award for 2003. The South African Reality TV programme ‘African Big Brother’ is attracting a 30 million continent-wide audience of viewers and has contestants from 12 African countries competing for the $100,000 prize money. Tanzania’s entrant was Mwisho Mwampamba (22) whose hobbies include swimming, mountain climbing, basketball, and other sports. He was allowed to take with him to the isolated house a striped Kikoyi, a Bao boardgame, two books, and twin drums.

A venereal disease is threatening to extinguish some 100 of the baboon population in Lake Manyara National Park. Scientists tackling the problem are puzzled as to why the disease targets the reproductive organs of the primate. The reproductive organs of affected male baboons simply rot way but it is believed that the elimination of sick baboons will not seriously affect the total population.

The Minister for Education and Culture announced on July 8 that students joining Advanced Level secondary education will, in future, start classes at the beginning of the year instead of July. Form Four students who sit for national examinations in November this year will start Form Five in February next year. Currently, Form Six leavers wait for 16 months before joining higher learning institutions. The Minister was also quoted in the Guardian as saying that there was a need to improve the education pyramid from the current 88% for primary school, 7% for ordinary secondary education, 1.8% for A level and below 1 % for higher education to 100%, 50%,25% and 12.5% respectively.

The University of Dar Es Salaam Governing Council at its 154th meeting held on June 20, lowered fees of courses offered by the university. According to a press statement, much sought after courses would attract more fees than less sought after courses. All Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences courses except Eonomics, Education, Engineering (except Computer Engineering, and Information) and Nursing will attract fees of up to Tsh. 600,000 for first and second-degree programmes. All Faculty of Science courses (except Computer Sciences, Electronic Sciences and Information Sciences), Environmental Sciences, Dentistry, Commerce and Economics will attract Tsh. 800,000 for the first and second-degree programmes. In the same category are courses offered by the University College of Lands and Architectural Sciences (UCLAS). In the third category, attracting fees of Tsh. 1 million, are first year courses in Law, Pharmacy, Information Science, Computer Science, Information Technology and Information Engineering. Second-year programmes in this category will require a Shs 1.2 million fee – Majira.

Neil Bairdwatson, 77, a Scottish businessman, has donated £15,000 to save the home of Dr David Livingstone in Mikindani. It will become a museum and gift shop -THE TIMES -July 17. (Thank you John Rollinson for this item -Editor.)

The Government has decided to go ahead with the purchase of a modem Shs 40 billion presidential jet plane. The opposition in parliament agreed to the purchase but warned that such a plane should reflect the economic reality of the country. However, President Mkapa may not use it; it lands in the country shortly before his tenure in office expires -Mtanzania

Mwananchi and Majira reported that some of their journalists were briefly detained and their equipment seized by Loliondo police in July. They were denied access to a United Arab Republic (UAE) royal family hunting camp (7 kms from the Serengeti Game reserve) and the opportunity to interview the more than 200 workers at the site. The police are usually stationed in Loliondo during the hunting season to secure the area. The media teams had gone there to investigate reports of Maasai morans invading Loliondo to stop ‘Ortello Business Company’ planes from landing there. According to reports reaching the media the local Maasai are furious that the UAE Royal Family, who have been given hunting rights in the whole of Loliondo Game Controlled Area, are not hiring the unskilled services of locals. A son of the UAE royal family, Mohamed bin Rashid al Mahtoum, who is also the UAE Defense Minister, owns the camp. The papers reported that there were persistent allegations of immoral activities, smuggling and environmental degradation at the camp.

Reporting on the 2003 Zanzibar International Film Festival, Miguel Suleyman wrote in The Express on July 3 that, with their music reminiscent of the Kilwa era, Sidi Goma, the African Sufis of Gujarat, India, set the stage on fire at the opening of the Festival. ‘The group’s performance of ritual music and dance captioned qawali, dhamal and baithi, was clearly a reflection of the African root of call and response, improvisational talking drums and common Bantu phraseology. Sidis are African Sufis of Gujarat, India; they were brought in as slaves to Maharajas and Nawab families of the time. Yunus Babu Sidi, the group leader, told ‘The Express’ that there were many Kiswahili words in their songs, but none of them understood their meaning. “We have preserved the culture and dances of our ancestors for more than seven centuries ….. however, we think people of this region understand them better than we do and we rely on them to help us connect to our past…. We have preserved a lot from our ancestors, the word Goma (refers to Ngoma in Bantu language) represents dance to us. But we think our visit to our people here will bring some productive changes in our life” he said. Sidi Goma performs in a group of twelve, four lead musicians (drums/singers) and eight dancers. The performance centres around a dance zikr (remembrance), consisting of joyful, satirical praise dances to their Saint Bava or Bava Gor, who is attributed with giving them the joy they express in their dances. Intoxicating drum patterns that speak the zikr prayers in rhythm, support the dancers who perform virtuoso feats of agility and strength. They gradually reach an ecstatic climax which ended with a coconut being thrown high in the air and, when it landed on the head of Nazir Gulamhusein, broke into tens of pieces splashing its juice on the excited audience. The acts of Sidi Goma featured solos on malunga, an instrument resembling the Brazilian Berimbau or East African Zeze, while the circle dance, with people coming to the centre platform, was more exhibitionist dancing, indicative of the slave dances of Zanzibar. Juma Khamis Pandu, a resident of Zanzibar, told ‘The Express’ that the faces of the Sidi Goma group members resembled the Tumbatu people of Pemba, or those from the Tanga coastal line, mainly Pangani. The features of the musicians -thick lips, height between 5.4 and 5.6 feet and the general facial appearance -suggests that Sidi Goma are the descendants of the Kilwa empire, which ended in the 15th century when the Portuguese interrupted its trading activities.

The 2002 census has revealed that Tanzania’s population has now reached 34,568,609 of whom 984,531 are in Zanzibar. Growth rates averaged 2.9% on the mainland (4.8% in Kigoma, where there are many refugees, compared with 1.4% in Lindi) and 3.1 % in Zanzibar.

Average numbers per family were 4.9 compared with 5.3 recorded in the 1998 census.

Population densities were 38 per sq km on the mainland and 398 per sq km in Zanzibar.

Dar es Salaam recorded 2,497,000 people -Daily Mail.

The Daily News (3rd January) reported that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had finally concluded the repatriation of over 23,000 Rwandan refugees from camps in Ngara district in Kagera Region.

BA introduced thrice weekly non -stop flights between Dar es Salaam and Heathrow on 3rd April. By eliminating the transit stop in Nairobi, the flight time between Dar and Heathrow has been cut by two hours. BA stated that the changes had been made in response to the growing importance of Tanzania as a business and holiday destination.

The Guardian (January 22) reported that nine East African black rhinos had been trans-located from South Africa’s Addo Elephant National Park to Mkomazi’s highly secured, electrified and heavily guarded, rhino sanctuary.

700 people attended celebrations marking the opening of the new American embassy complex in Dar es Salaam on March 4. The complex occupies 15 acres of land on the old Bagamoyo Road in Msasani. The previous embassy was destroyed by terrorists in August 1998.

‘World family’, the magazine of ‘Plan UK’ (Spring 2003) told the story of the six-year-old Tanzanian boy who featured in Jack Nicholson’s latest film ‘About Schmidt’. The film tells the story of Warren Schmidt, a retired and recently widowed man, who feels he has achieved nothing in life but is given considerable cause for soul searching when he sponsors a child known to him as ‘Ndugu’. The film’s director was keen to use a real child and the one chosen, whose name is Abdullah Mtulu, is said to be a talkative, smiley boy who lives near Morogoro and likes singing. Schmitz’s long letters, quoted in the film, were said not to reflect the reality of correspondence normally sent between sponsors and their sponsored children. Communities around Tanzania are expected to benefit from the film which has been nominated for several awards.

The Guardian has reported that construction of an Mtepe, a now extinct type of dhow, is about to be started outside the House of Wonders in Zanzibar. What makes Mtepe special is that it is tied or sewn together with coir rope, as distinct from contemporary dhow’s which are kept together with iron nails. Construction is to be part of Denmark’s support for culture in Zanzibar. The Zanzibar Government has decided that the House of Wonders will be turned into a National Museum for History and Culture.

Girls Secondary Schools performed much better than boys schools in the last National Secondary School examinations. Six girls were among the best ten students. Private secondary schools have also performed better than national secondary schools. Of the best 30 secondary schools, most are Christian seminaries run by either Catholic or Protestant churches -Mtanzania

The Express reported on 24th August that the ‘National Population and Household Census’ which took place in August had had to be extended by a few days in order to give time for all returns to be completed.

Census officers faced a variety of unexpected problems. In Mbulu District the hunter-gatherer Hadzabe people requested the provision of bhang, illicit brew, monkey meat and cigarettes before they agreed to be counted. The local Council offered to provide zebra meat but the Hadzabe refused to accept this saying they were not used to it. Eventually the Council provided them with monkey meat also. About 100 Hadzabe thanked the Government for considering their request and said the gesture had succeeded in bringing them together to be counted. Their request for bhang and illicit brew was not acted upon. Clan leader Salbogo Dofu asked the Government to allocate them special areas in order to avoid interference with the regular livestock and farming activities which destroyed their natural food. The reserved area should contain the fruits, roots and animals that they normally ate. According to the 1988 census there were 1,000 Hadzabe in the area but the number had since been reduced to about 800. They lived mostly in caves and were found in Karatu, Mbulu, and Ngorongoro districts in Arusha Region.

Some Maasai people maintained that being counted was against their customs and ten Italian tourists in Zanzibar refused to be counted on grounds that they were foreigners and were just travelling in the country. It took the hotel management half an hour to persuade them to comply with the rules.

Asked recently why Tanzania had been chosen to host a symposium on deepening democracy in Africa, UN Development Programme Resident Representative in Tanzania John Hendra was quoted in the Guardian as saying that it was chosen because of its low ranking, in terms of income per capita and the Human Development Index, and the number of achievements that Tanzania had made in moving forward in democratic governance. For example the transition to a multi-party system, the implementation of a number of government reforms, liberalisation of the media, efforts being made in the anti­corruption strategy and the home-grown and very important Muafaka in Zanzibar. The Representative went on to point out that urban poverty, particularly in Dar es Salaam, had declined from 28 % to 18% and that some of the indicators on primary education had been extremely positive. Primary enrolment had increased in the last few years more than it had in recent decades. He said that Tanzania was a model because of its sense of national ownership of its poverty alleviation policies.

Dar es Salaam has also been chosen by the IMF and the World Bank as the site of the first ever ‘Development Acceleration Regional Centre.’ This centre will be charged with the provision of locally­based technical assistance and training in the Fund’s core areas of expertise -macroeconomic policy, tax policy, revenue administration, public expenditure management, and building sound financial sectors -Sunday Observer.