A new Bill placed before Parliament has put local and foreign NGOs under state control. All NGO’s will be under a Council to be appointed by the Government. The Council will have the power to register and revoke NGO’s as well as to co-ordinate their activities. The Bill attracted much criticism especially from foreign aid donors. A US spokesman said his country believed in the right of NGO’s to operate in an environment free from overly burdensome registration requirements and regulatory oversight. The Head of the Africa section of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) was quoted in Mtanzania as saying that to put civil organisations and NGO’s under restrictive legislation would have a negative impact on the country’s development. Sweden was working closely with NGO’s because it considered them to be part and parcel of its relationship with Tanzania. As the time for the Bill to be debated in Parliament approached, various NGO’s conducted what the Guardian described as ‘a spirited campaign’ against it. This involved dozens of lobbyists airing their concern that the Bill would be inconsistent with the rights to freedom of association.

Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye spent six hours ‘grilling’ district commissioners and council executive directors from 18 districts on November 26th They had allegedly failed to spend over 2bnl-for the development of primary education in their areas. The DCs and council directors carried bundles of papers in support of their cases. On November 15, Sumaye had described the DCs and directors as incompetent; he said the funds were lying idle in councils and primary school committee accounts while the shortage of classrooms still persisted in their areas. The amounts unused varied from Kahama (293.6m/-) to Morogoro (105.2m/-). Also on the list were the municipal councils of Kinondoni (l53.5m/-), Temeke (l49.0m/-) and Shinyanga (102m/-).

The Ombudsman’s Office for two World Bank agencies dismissed, at the end of October, the complaint by the Tanzanian Lawyers Environmental Action Team (LEAT), filed on behalf of the Small Scale Miners Committee of Kakola Village in Shinyanga, which had alleged that 52 miners were killed at Bulyanhulu Gold Mine in mid­1996. According to the ‘Assessment Report Summary’ on the complaint, dated October 21 and sent to the LEAT representative in Washington, and the ‘Office of the Compliance Advisory/Ombudsman’ (CAO) for the ‘Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency’ (MIGA) there was insufficient evidence to support the alleged deaths.

The report followed independent investigations by a Principal Specialist from the Ombudsman’s office. It noted that even though the CAO had no mandate to investigate allegations made against Tanzania, the events of 1996 took place before the World Bank Group had any interest in the mining operations and more than three years before MIGA offered a guarantee. However, as the allegations provided a risk to MIGA in its decision to offer a guarantee, the CAO was interested in examining the case. Referring to LEAT’s video evidence, the CAO said that it could not verify from the video, the location, date, timing or other details. The CAO found witnesses and other contemporaneous documentation that refuted the LEAT version of events.

On the issue of compensation paid to small scale miners at the time of the order to vacate the land in 1996, the CAO stated that this was a matter which fell within the government’s exclusive jurisdiction as at the time the mine was not a project of the World Bank Group.

The CAO had asked for a list of names of the 52 people alleged to be having been killed but neither LEAT nor the Small Scale Miners Committee had been able to supply such a list.

Amnesty International had recognized that the evidence for the deaths of 52 people relied on accounts supplied by people who were not present in the area at the time. Amnesty International never investigated the allegations itself and never went to the site or met with local people, eyewitnesses, the company or others. The LEAT President was later quoted in the Guardian as saying: “This report is completely biased. It favours MIGA. We shall tirelessly fight on. There are a lot of untrue and unjustified remarks in the report. It evades our submissions and evidence adduced. We have an uphill task to fight the giant Barrick Gold Company”.

The Guardian (1st October) reported that with the completion of the 85km highway linking Bagamoyo to Dar es Salaam there had been a rush by speculators and other wealthy Dar es Salaam people to buy plots of land close to the road. Local farmers had sold most of their plots and picked instead more remote farming land in the interior. Bagamoyo has a population of 30,000 which is now likely to increase quite rapidly. Several historic buildings in Bagamoyo have been renovated with the help of a Shs 80 million grant from the Swedish Government. Included were the fort-like house where slaves from up-country were kept before being shipped overseas, the old Boma, now used as the District Commissioner’s office, the Customs House, the Old Post Office and the market. Bagamoyo served briefly as the first capital of the country during the early-years of German colonial rule until it shifted to Dar es Salaam in 1892.

The widow of Mwalimu Nyerere has appealed to President Mkapa to solve a water problem that is facing her village of Butiama. She said that mining investors, who were prospecting for gold, were taking away all the water used by Butiama and other villages. “They have money”, she said, angrily “Why can’t they get water from elsewhere instead of punishing the poor villagers?” -Mtanzania

Some 1,600 out of 2,000 hectares of Water Hyacinth have been destroyed in part of Lake Victoria where 20 million Hyacinth-feeding weevils have been introduced -The Express.

East African Breweries Ltd announced on 5th November the launch of a new whisky brand named ‘Hakuna Matata’. With 40% alcohol content, the whisky was designed to avoid hangover pain. “No problem can result from this whisky -it’s cool and enjoyable” said the Marketing Manager -Guardian.

Twenty prisoners in police custody died on November 17 at Rujewa police station. Some 120 suspects had been crammed into a cell designed to hold just 30. An investigation is under way. Five police officers have been sacked and charged with murder.

In an ILO survey conducted in the year 2000 on promoting linkages between women’s employment and the reduction of child labour, it was found that only 4% of respondents said they received all the family income from their husbands to operate the household; 60% said that their husbands gave them none of their income. Of the women who were interviewed, 40 % were married and 35 % were widowed, separated or divorced or married but currently not living with their husbands. This indicated that there were a significant number of female headed households in Tanzania. The report revealed that 30% of married respondents said that they were in polygamous marriages. Women in Tanzania spent about 30 years of reproductive life in the physical stress of child-bearing and rearing. The large number of children they had and the risk of maternal mortality greatly impaired their health and life expectancy. About 70% of women were married between the ages of 16 and 21; the majority of men married between the ages of 21 and 40. The survey showed encouraging results on the number of marriages that resulted from love compared with arranged marriages. 79% of marriages surveyed were love matches -Guardian.

The EU has provided funding for a $14.5 million project to finance a new radar and air traffic service project for the Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority at Dar es Salaam International Airport. This project aims at replacing over-aged equipment and is funded from a Euros 4.6 million soft loan from the European Investment Bank. The new equipment, which includes air navigation systems, radio communication systems, aeronautical fixed telecommunication network, aeronautical information systems, data distribution systems, an automatic weather station and working tools for technicians. It is expected to be operational in January 2003.

The number of vehicles imported into Tanzania during 1999 -2000 has more than doubled -from 8,779 to 18,919 compared with the previous year. Already the five-digit letter numerals TZ ‘X’ reserved for the City of Dar es Salaam are almost exhausting the 26 letters in the alphabet. The first TZA registration was in 1987 but in 2002 TZT has been reached. Road congestion is now reaching serious proportions -The Express.

Under the ‘Education (Corporal Punishment) Regulations of 2002’ Minister of Education and Culture Joseph Mungai has reduced the number of strokes which can be inflicted on pupils who are seriously misbehaving from six to four -Guardian.

The Express (13th October) has been praising the attractiveness of the Kipepeo (Butterfly) Holiday Camp at Mwinjimwema, a small fishing village on the southern coast ofDar Salaam and, nine kilometres from the Kigamboni Creek. A taxi ride from the Kigamboni ferry was said to cost just Shs 2,000 and accommodation at the beach camps was from Shs 5,000 in dormitories to Shs 12,000 in beach bandas. There are facilities for beach sports and camel and horse rides.

The Guardian reported on 5th November that two earth tremors had struck Dodoma the day before at 11.25 am. Leaders in parliament including Prime Minister Sumaye and Speaker Pius Msekwa, other ministers and MPs, were reported to have taken to their heels in panic. The main tremor lasted 60 seconds and caused cracks on the second and third floors of the Assembly building but MPs were soon able to resume business. The account in the newspaper went on: ‘When the PM and Speaker came out from their ‘hiding place’ the whole house burst into laughter. The Speaker added further to the laughter when he stated that the reason why he did what he did, was that when he saw the Prime Minister taking to his heels, he decided to follow him. He commended MPs for their efficient use of the emergency exits.

VSO is arranging a fund-raising trek in February/March 2003 to Kilimanjaro. Details from Lisa Russell: E-mail: lisa.russell_AT_vso_DOT_org.uk

Way back in the summer we had the opportunity to revisit Tanzania to meet old friends we had known 20 years ago. We didn’t want to impose ourselves on them, to stay in tourist accommodation or to travel in hired vehicles. So the alternative, at least as far as travel was concerned, was the bus! Friends had told us about the Scandinavian Express Bus Company which had as its logo “In God We Trust”. And we did -as well as in their buses.

The first leg of our safari was Dar es Salaam to Iringa. We were impressed by the efficiency of the Dar booking office, then by the punctuality of departure, but most of all by the care given to passengers. Where in Britain would passengers be handed a blue plastic bag for their rubbish, next a paper serviette, then a straw and a choice of cold drinks, and finally a small packet of tasty locally produced biscuits? Then, after reaching Morogoro and changing buses, we received a bottle of water and some sweets. Our only complaints on that journey were the somewhat unhygienic ‘comfort stop’ and the fact that when we did reach Iringa we had no one to meet us. That was because our hostess had been given the wrong arrival time. Nothing to do with the bus company, of course, but it was extremely difficult to persuade the many taxi-drivers who bombarded us: we did NOT want to “go to Don Bosco”, but to the area where Bishop Mtetela lived. But once that was sorted out with the use of our best Swahili -no problem!

Every journey in a Scandinavian bus went well -maybe because the drivers seemed to have an understanding with the police who manned the several checkpoints placed at strategic points along the road. It was not so however on our final journey when we had to travel from Morogoro by Aboud’s ‘Red and Blue’ bus. As we approached Kibaha, some 20 miles out of Dar, the driver was flagged down by a police officer who then boarded the bus and insisted he proceed to the court, a mile or so off the road. “Because he had been speeding” we learnt later. We were all mystified as to what was happening, and at first passed the time by chatting with the vendors of cashew nuts who suddenly appeared. We were concerned -and others were too -as to how long we would be delayed; we had a friend meeting us in Dar. How would she know? Fortunately there was a very friendly Muslim lady in front with a mobile phone and she kindly allowed us to contact Pru Eliapenda and let her know what was happening. Pru said she would come and get us. Meanwhile the driver was given permission to drive, with a police officer, back to the main road and proceed to the Kibaha bus stand. As this had happened, we needed to stop Pru driving on to the police court, so Betty stood out in the midday sun by the roadside while I tried, with other passengers, to get the driver to unlock the luggage compartment and remove our suitcases, which then had to be guarded. By that time, of course, the driver was allowed to proceed to Dar, but that permission came too late for those passengers who were already climbing aboard ‘daladalas’ and too late for us to stop Pru from coming to rescue us.

Just as Betty and I changed ‘guard duty’ I saw Pru driving past, eyes fixed on the road ahead. So we needed the use of another mobile­phone! Problem solved when a kind Tanzanian offered to make a phone call for us.

We did have two or three journeys on rough hill roads, by Land Rover, but they were no near nowhere near as interesting as that last journey down to Dar es Salaam.

Mary Punt

The Fifth Festival of the Dhow Countries (June 28 -July 14) celebrated the dhow cultural heritage of the peoples of Africa, Asia, the Gulf States and islands of the Indian Ocean, with ZIFF -the Zanzibar International Film Festival – as its centrepiece. A multitude of events took place daily at historic waterfront venues, on the green at Forodhani Gardens, at the House of Wonders, the outdoor Mambo Club and the amphitheatre of the Old Fort and other locations in Stone Town and in several villages of Nguja.

Under the stars at the amphitheatre you could see films such as A Question of Madness -the story of a man born of a black mother but classified as white in South Africa; Mishoni – about a young Tanzanian girl’s circumcision; the French film An Account of a Catastrophe Foretold -how the world’s top decision makers failed to prevent the spread of AIDS; Long Nights Into Day -about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; and the prize-winning, artistically excellent and socially relevant Lumumba, among the 47 films shown from 21 countries.

Whatever your music and dance preferences, they too were there. You could choose Egyptian contemporary dance or a Zanzibar ngoma troop, Maasai wedding and war dances or the Parapanda performers of traditional Tanzanian music and dance. And, yes, there was taarab music side by side with Zanzibar hip-hop. Among the art exhibits was Twilight of the African Dhow – stunning photos of life on the historic dhows that capture their grace and practicality, by British-born photo journalist Marion Kaplan. Tara, theTrust for African Rock Art, had an exhibit of prehistoric rock art of Africa from the Sahel to the Southern tip. You could take lessons in Arabic music, traditional pottery or documentary film-making. The women’s panorama at the Old Dispensary attracted men as well to dances, hadithi sessions, and an exhibit of the history of the khanga. The children’s panorama included banner design, riddles, photography and festival song. A lively evening celebrated African song and dance and the chance to meet hundreds of locals and foreign visitors nightly at the outdoor MamboClub.

All that in addition to the simple pleasure of strolling the bustling narrow, winding streets of Stone Town, luxuriating on the unspoiled beaches, or sipping a cool drink on your hotel balcony, watching a pair of graceful dhows pass silently across a fiery ocean sunset.
Peg Snyder

On May 30 Home Affairs Minister, Mohammed Seif Khatib said the government has no objection to anyone going to the Bulyanhulu mines to enquire into the alleged death of small miners (TA No 72). He emphasised however that clearance had to be obtained before embarking on such research. The Minister refuted reports that more than 50 artisanal miners were buried alive at the gold mines in 1996. “No government can ever do such a thing,” said Khatib quoted in Majira.

Some 18 specialists from universities in Britain, America, Japan, France and Tanzania took part in a one-day seminar on July 1st under this title. It had been organised by Dr Andrew Burton, Assistant Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa and others. The subject matter was full of interest but the room in the University in which the conference was held left much to be desired in the way of acoustics.

David Anthony of the University of California said that Dar es Salaam had grown in fits and starts. Its initial decades were a series of fateful encounters between very different peoples, motivated principally by the exigencies of trade.

In his paper entitled “How we’re gonna keep ’em down on the farm” Andrew Burton said that Dar es Salaam had been the site of what appeared to have been one of the most concerted attempts at urban population control in British colonial Africa. Large-scale repatriation campaigns aimed at removing ‘undesirables’ began in the 1940s and by the late 1950s so-called ‘wahuni raids’ were daily occurrences. Over 2,000 people could be repatriated in a single year. After independence the culture of control continued and included the most notorious of all actions -Nguvu kazi -in 1983 when many people were returned to the rural areas from which they had come.

Geoffrey Owens of Wisconsin University said that one of the most striking features of the transformation of the peri-urban areas of Dar es Salaam in the last 30 years had been the peaceful, even enthusiastic, transfer of land from the original scattered farms and homesteads of the original Zaramo inhabitants to newcomers who had profited handsomely through both urban agriculture and land speculation.

Simeon Mesaki of the University of Dar es Salaam explained the significance of the traditional medicine sector which had been described as ‘probably the largest in terms of practitioners, in revenue collected and number of contacts with the population in both urban and rural areas’. He gave the results of a survey he had conducted amongst some of the 700 healers in the city which revealed that 78% of them were Muslims (regarded as particularly good), only 34% of the practitioners were full-time and none had education beyond secondary level. There were many charlatans and ‘tabloid doctors’ who advertised their services in newspapers, often making extravagant claims. 64% of the clients came to seek protection against witchcraft and 42% were satisfied with the service they had received.

In a fascinating paper which astonished many in the audience and attracted the attention of the local media, Matteo Rizzo of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, revealed the results of an investigation he had conducted amongst almost 700 workers on daladalas -the small buses which carry the majority of the people of the city to work. (It is hoped to reproduce part of this in a future issue of TA. Coincidentally, the main headline in the Sunday Observer on July 17 was headed ‘No end in sight to daladala chaos’; the article spoke of the rule of the jungle being supreme -Editor).

Another paper which attracted great interest, but whose delivery was largely inaudible, by Tadasu Tsurata of the Kinki University in Japan, described the history of the most popular and longest-surviving (since 1930) football clubs in Dar es Salaam -Simba and Yanga. The paper concentrated largely on ethnic issues but members of the audience pointed out that there were many other factors involved in the lengthy rivalry between the two clubs.

Adria la Violette, an archaeologist at the University of Virginia, described how a research team had found traces of village life in Dar in between the 8th and 10th centuries in a hole excavated next to the New Africa Hotel. This had shown a characteristic ceramic tradition, a stratum of dark brown soil and burnt earth from the wall of an urban thatched house indicating the presence of human activity plus the tusk of a wild boar.

Other speakers described colonial forest policy and the demand for timber and fuel in the city, land planning, water supplies, housing and the development of radio in Tanzania and the influence it had had on music and music making.