There were violent explosions at the Gongo la Mboto armoury on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam on February 16 which killed 23 citizens and left scores injured. Bombs exploded in quick succession, lighting up the skies and causing panic among city dwellers fleeing for their lives. The last bomb exploded the following morning at around 4am damaging six military vehicles. Over 4,000 people left their houses and properties to take shelter at the Uhuru Stadium. Two missile remains landed inside Prime Minister Pinda’s private residence in the Pugu area, a few kilometers from the explosion site. One of the PM’s housekeepers told reporters that one shell destroyed a mango tree in the PM’s compound as another exploded on the bare ground. Efforts by Mwananchi photographers to take photos of the area were in vain as security men grabbed their cameras and deleted everything in them.

The PM briefed MP’s on what had happened. The incident occurred at 8.20pm, when a blast started at munitions depot number five, where military equipment including heavy bombs, were stored. Reports of the blasts reached top army officials, but before they could do anything, the blasts had spread to 22 other munitions depots very fast leaving mass destruction. The bombs destroyed two dormitories used by soldiers plus their vehicles. Some civilian houses were also destroyed as was part of a secondary school. Several bombs hit the Julius Nyerere International Airport and plane movements were interrupted. The government was criticized for not seeming to be sufficiently serious about public safety related to munitions depots that share locations with residential neighbourhoods. Two years earlier similar blasts had occurred at another army base which also led to loss of lives, disfigurement of some people, and destruction of property.
Explosion experts from the US and Russia came to Tanzania to help with the subsequent enquiry – Guardian .

Lake Natron
President Kikwete has sanctioned plans to mine soda ash at Lake Natron in the Arusha region. He said that environmental concerns would be taken care of. NGO’s and activists opposed to the plans have expressed concern that soda ash mining would alter the area’s ecosystem and disrupt the habitat and breeding grounds for the flamingos which have given Lake Natron worldwide fame – Citizen.

Student Fees
Tanzania is facing the same problem over student tuition costs as Britain but with far fewer financial resources.

Rogers Luhwago, writing in the Sunday Guardian, under the heading ‘Education costs must be shared’, quoted a government official as saying that chaos and class boycotts at institutions of higher learning would not end unless the government reviewed its cost sharing policy. Tanzania was the only country in the world that provided finance for students in all private and public universities; it was unbearable for the government. The burden of financing undergraduate studies in universities would keep growing every year. He noted that Tanzanians were keen to contribute to wedding ceremonies and kitchen parties but when it came to education every one thinks it is the duty of the government.

One MP suggested that the government should think of financing a single student in each family where there are many children. “It’s impossible for the government to finance all of them. Parents should share the costs,” she said.

In the previous week the government had suspended indefinitely all undergraduate students from the University of Dar es Salaam for boycotting studies in protest against what they described as the “low rate” of meal allowance of TSh5000 (£2) per day’ The government later promised to double the amount in the next budget.

Peter Kallaghe is Tanzania’s new High Commissioner to Britain, where he replaces Mrs Mwanaidi Sinare-Maajar, who was earlier this year appointed ambassador to the US. The son of a diplomat, Mr Kallaghe attended Kiev State University where he studied International Relations. He was previously ambassador to Canada.
Mr Kallaghe addressed the Britain-Tanzania Society AGM in October and details of his speech can be found in the BTS newsletter.

The Amboni Caves are one of Tanzania’s less well know tourist attractions, located just 8 km north of Tanga. The most extensive limestone caves in East Africa, formed about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic age, there are altogether ten caves covering an area of 234 km², although only one is accessible for guided tours.

Local people have used the caves as a sacred place for anything up to 600 years, and what appear to be ancient paintings of animal footprints can be seen in some areas, although it is not clear how these were created. The caves certainly have strong significance with the local people, and there are chambers within the caves which are treated as sacred and reserved for worshipping. One of them is called “Mzimu wa Mabavu”, which some believe is the home of a powerful deity who can increase wealth, bring justice, alleviate sickness & sufferings and increase fertility. Bottles with perfumes, oil or blood from sacrificed goats or chicken can be seen at the entrance of the chamber.

Amboni Limited, a company which was then operating sisal plantations in Tanga Region, acquired the area in 1892 and informed the British colonial government about the caves who in turn declared the caves a conservation area in 1922. In 1963, the then government of Tanganyika handed over the caves to the Department of Antiquities.

As well as tourists, the caves attract students for their geography lessons, with examples of stalactites and stalagmites and rocks sculpted into strange shapes from the passage of water. For those with fertile imagination, the guide can point out resemblances of all kinds, including a rock in the shape of a lion at the entrance of the cave, rocks in the shape of a sofa, a ship, a crocodile, an elephant, the US statue of liberty, a statue of mother Mary, and even a map of the continent of Africa !

There are numerous legends associated with the caves, such as a hole which is believed to connect to underground rivers which lead to Mombasa in Kenya. According to one story, in 1914 a European man accompanied by his dog ventured down the hole and disappeared without trace except for the dog which was found dead a few days later in Mombasa. There is also a chamber inside the big cave which was used as a hideout for Osale Otanga and Paulo Hamis, two latter day Robin Hoods who used to steal goods and terrorise foreigners in the region. While the government regarded them as criminals, locals seems to have regarded them as freedom fighters during the struggle for Independence.

However, recently concerns have been growing that the caves are being seriously damaged by blasting in nearby quarries where lime and aggregates are being mined.

Reacting to charges that the government has neglected the historical site, Deputy Minister (Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism), Mr Ezekiel Maige said he is planning to meet with the Tanga District Commissioner’s Office and the City Council to discuss ways of saving the caves.

He said that the Ministry has initiated a strategy to promote tourism in Tanzania, including the Amboni caves. “The Northern Tourism Circuit has been promoted for years while the North Eastern part which includes the Amboni Caves, the East Usambara mountains and the Saadani National Park has not enjoyed the same publicity,” he said. He noted that the Ministry has already taken steps to improve the area as a tourist attraction by reviewing the area legally and increasing its budget, noting “We have already released over Sh30 million for the purpose. We want the Caves to become one of the identities of Tanga”.

Banknotes

The Bank of Tanzania has issued a new series of banknotes which will circulate side by side with the current notes which were introduced in 2003, until these are gradually withdrawn from circulation. Changes include the portraits of founders of the Nation, the late Mwalimu Julius Kamabarage Nyerere on the one thousand and the late Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume on the five hundred denominations. The other notes show Tanzania’s wildlife heritage with the Lion, the Rhino and the Elephant. Various new technologies are also included in an effort to curb the problem of counterfeiting.

Ghailani Partially Cleared
Tanzanian Ahmed Ghailani (36) who has been in a New York court charged with taking part in a worldwide terrorist plot, which killed 236 people in the bombing of the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998, has been cleared of 284 out of 285 criminal counts. The jury found him guilty on November 17 of just one count – conspiring to destroy buildings and property of the US, which carries a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison. Ghailani was captured in Pakistan in 2004, held by the Central Intelligence Agency for more than two years and subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, which the defence called torture. He was later transferred to the US naval base at Guantanamo – Guardian.

Mkapa for the Sudan
The United Nations Secretary General, Mr Ban Ki-Moon, has appointed former President Benjamin Mkapa the leader of a special panel to monitor the referendum in Southern Sudan. Other members of the panel according to the Citizen are former Portugal Foreign minister Antonio Monteiro and former Nepal Election Commission chairman Bhojraj Pokharel.

New rôle for rats?
Sokoine University of Agriculture in collaboration with ‘Apopo HeroRats’ are looking at prospects of mounting cameras on rats following earthquakes to help in the search for human beings. Dogs can only sniff those lying on the surface. The organisers are looking for funding for equipment including cameras that won’t burden the rats, wireless devices to project the images to a visual device, microphones, torches and also training of the rats so that that they know when to return when they come across a body. It is hoped to use the same concept being used in Mozambique to detect landmines. Over 1.9 million square metres of land of has been returned to the local population there.

Apopo is a social enterprise that deploys rat technology for humanitarian purposes and is currently employing 143 staff in Tanzania and Mozambique and has over 300 rats in various stages of breeding, training or implementation.

The Serengeti Highway
[See background in TA 97] A network of 56 environmental non-governmental organisations asked the government in December not to tarmac a 53 km section of the proposed 480 km Arusha-Musoma highway through the Serengeti National Park as it is an important corridor for seasonal migration of wildebeest. The project has drawn the attention of activists from around the world.

An official from Serengeti Environmental Protection and Development Association said that the majority of people backed the road due to its socio-economic importance – Guardian.

Rise in Pass Rates
53.5% Standard Seven pupils passed the examinations that determine those entitled to join secondary schools. This is an improvement of 4.1% over the previous year. 48% of the successful pupils were girls and 59% boys. Pass rates increased for Swahili (71% compared with 69%) mathematics (25% compared with 21%) and science (56% compared with 53%) – Citizen.

Project Fame
Uganda’s Davis Ntare emerged the winner of Tusker Project Fame reality show in November to claim the KSh5 million ($62,000) prize. Tanzania’s Peter Msechu finished in second place, with Kenyans Stephen Nyabwa and Amileena Mwenesi in third and fourth places respectively. A total of 18 contestants spent eight weeks at the academy and were coached on improving their vocal, instrumental, dance and performing skills.

Lilanga wows Paris

As a sign that the “tinga tinga” style has become an internationally accepted art style, Hermes of Paris have brought out one of their famous silk scarves screen printed with a design by the late George Lilanga. Lilanga’s work has been displayed outside Africa since the late seventies, at the Mary Knoll Ossining Centre in New York in 1978 and in a 1985 travelling exhibition that stopped in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. He also took part in the landmark “Africa Remix” road show which passed through Europe, Japan and Houston in 2004-2006.

The 31 strong Tanzanian team returned from the Delhi Commonwealth Games in October dispirited having won no medals. After the boxing team failed to achieve any medals, hopes were high that marathon runners Restituta Joseph, Patrick Nyangero and the Melbourne Games gold medallist, Samson Ramadhan would save the day, but in the end all disappointed. It was the first time in over forty years that Tanzania failed to win any medals at the Commonwealth Games.

The Tanzanian performance was in stark contrast to the Kenyan team which won 32 medals, including 12 golds, and finished as the 6th placed country overall. As well as dominating the long distance running events as expected, Kenyan athletes also featured strongly in the middle distance events, winning gold, silver and bronze in the men’s 800m and gold in the men’s 400m race.

The Tanzanian women’s football team, the Twiga Stars, also dissapointed some in losing all their three matches at the CAF African Women Championships, although this was the team’s first appearance at the event, and they managed to avoid being embarrased by the much more experienced teams from South Africa, Mali and Nigeria.

The men’s team made a good start to their Cup of African Nations campaign by forcing a draw with 2010 World Cup qualifiers Algeria, but a blunt strike force barely threatened Morocco when losing 1-0 in Dar es Salaam in October. This now leaves them in third place in their group, with qualification looking unlikely.

However, consolation came in December with victory in the CECAFA (Council of East and Central Africa Football Association) Challenge Cup, which is the first trophy the national team has won in 16 years. Tanzania were the hosts for the 16-day tournament, and lost their opening match 1-0 to Zambia. However, they bounced back to defeat Somalia and Burundi and reach the knockout phase where the penalty-taking skills of captain Shadrack Nsajigwa proved crucial. He converted the spot kick that eliminated Rwanda, contributed to a penalty shootout victory over Uganda after a goalless semi-final, and calmly scored again from the spot on 42 minutes to settle the final. The opposing team in the final was a Côte d’Ivoire team consisting of home-based stars as one of three ‘guest’ teams.

“After a lot of criticism, Tanzania proved worthy champions. The team started slowly but improved with each game,” said the 64-year-old Danish coach Jan Poulson.

A proposal by President Kikwete to build a road through the Serengeti National Park has created a storm of protest amongst wildlife supporters around the world.

So much so that the New York Times, which rarely features Tanzania, has devoted a leading article (August 30) to the subject under the heading: The Wrong Road (Thank you Peg Snyder for sending this – Editor).

Extracts: ‘In late July, President Kikwete announced that his government intended to go ahead in 2012 with plans to build a highway running from Arusha …..to Musoma. No one disputes the economic value of developing highways in Tanzania. But this planned highway includes a potentially tragic pitfall: it cuts straight through the heart of the northern Serengeti, one of the greatest national parks on the planet.

It would bisect the route of the great migration, the annual movement of more than a million wildebeest and other herds. President Kikwete has promised that this would only be a gravel road, and has said that he would never build anything that could harm the ecosystem.

But it would be a commercial highway nonetheless, and it would link two populous regions of Tanzania. Even a gravel road across the northern Serengeti would bring an immediate flood of traffic, instantly fragmenting the ecosystem and causing enormous potential for human-animal conflict in the form of accidents and poaching…

Tanzania could still protect the integrity of the park…. There is an alternative southern route, one that would link more unserved communities than the northern route and still leave the Serengeti intact.

What is …needed is international pressure on the governments and NGO’s that would normally help finance this kind of economic development. That includes China, which plays an enormous role in African development. This is not a choice between economic development and protecting the Serengeti. It is a choice between the wrong kind of development and the right kind.’

However, the alternative southern route would be significantly more expensive, particularly since few dispute that better roads from Arusha to Loliondo and Musoma to Mugumo are required.

The government is therefore left with a difficult decision on whether to complete the link with a road between Loliondo and Mugumo, or else pay for a completely new road to the south of the National Park, the route as yet unsurveyed, but perhaps via Bariadi. The former would represent around 130km of road, including 50km through the Serengeti, much of it on existing tracks, while the alternative southern route would entail over 500km of road, and would arguably not represent a significant enough improvement over the existing road link via Singida and Shinyanga to justify the enormous expense involved.

In early September President Kikwete, in a nationwide broadcast, indicated that he was unrepentant. He said the project was part of a policy to link all regions with permanent roads. He added however that, in view of the need to protect the environment, part of the road would not be macadamized. “I would like to assure our friends abroad that I am an ardent supporter of the Serengeti reserve so I will be the last person to supervise any environmental degradation” – Nipashe.

The difficulty involved in successfully prosecuting the many corruption cases now being tried in Tanzania has been illustrated by the completion of the first stage of a significant case. However, the magistrates taking the case were not in agreement on the verdict; two were for and one against the sentence of two years in prison for the accused person. The lawyer for the accused immediately appealed and the suspect was then released on bail.

In a detailed account of the final days of the trial, published in Mtanzania and other papers, the Bank of Tanzania’s former Director of Personnel and Administration Amatus Liyumba was found guilty of abuse of office. While two members of the panel were satisfied that Liyumba unilaterally changed the scope of the Bank’s ‘Twin Towers’ project outside the law, regulations and BoT procedures, the chairman of the panel, Principal Resident Magistrate Edson Mkasimongwa said he was of the view that the prosecution had failed to prove the charge beyond any reasonable doubt. The newspaper reported that there was a stony silence in the packed courtroom as it was stated that there was no way the accused could escape liability after he arbitrarily changed the scope of work without consulting the central bank’s governing board. Liyumba remained calm and composed in the dock as the sentence was being read out. However, tears flowed freely among some of his relatives after he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.

Liyumba, who served the central bank for 35 years before he retired in 2008, was initially charged with two counts of abuse of office and causing the government a Shs221 billion loss, but the court acquitted him of the second count for lack of evidence earlier. Liyumba first appeared in court in January 2009, when the prosecution alleged that he and former BoT Governor Daudi Ballali, who has since died, changed the scope of work of the extension project, raising the construction cost substantially. The prosecution’s case banked heavily on eight letters signed by Liyumba, which instructed the lead consultant to change the scope of the work. But Liyumba denied the charge, saying he only provided administrative support to the project, and did nothing other than convey decisions made by the management to the lead consultant. He maintained that the letters were approved by the Governor, and that he could not have signed them without consulting him.

Liyumba told the court that he was verbally authorised by the Governor to sign the letters on behalf of BoT as the project manager could not do so because he was not an employee of the central bank.

Vicky Ntetema has written to TA from Dar es Salaam to describe the continuing persecution of Albinos in various parts of Tanzania and the punishment being doled out it the courts for those found guilty. Among the recent cases she mentions are the following:

– Kenyan Nathan Mutei was sentenced to 17 years in prison with hard labour after admitting in a Mwanza court that he wanted to sell a fellow Kenyan Albino, Robinson Mkwama, for $260,000. Mutei pleaded guilty on 18th August. Almost 50% of the murders of persons with albinism between 2006 and 2010 were committed in Mwanza region. Mutei will serve the jail term in Kenya. In his plea of mitigation Mutei explained to the court that he arrived in Tanzania in June this year with the intention of seeking a witchdoctor for his personal problems. But the witchdoctor told him that he had to bring albino organs. On August 10th he left to find a person with albinism in Kenya. Two days later he was back in Mwanza and ready to sell Mkwama but walked into a police trap.

– Three men are on death row after the Kahama High Court found them guilty of brutally killing a 13-year-old boy in Shinyanga region in December 2008. The men, including a witchdoctor, severed the legs and took them to the home of the sangoma.

– Also in Kahama, in April 2010, a thirteen year old girl narrowly escaped death after three men severed her right arm. The men broke into her home where she was sleeping with her mother, terrorised the occupiers of the compound using hand grenades and shooting in the air and ordered the family to pour kerosene on the girl’s severed arm ‘to stop the bleeding’. When they could not find kerosene, they broke into a shop nearby, stole the liquid and handed it to the family members before speeding off.

– In April 2010 a four-year-old child in Kigoma Region had her left leg and left arm chopped off and was left to die just 200 metres from her home compound.

– Four men including village leaders are to hang for the brutal slaughter of 54-year-old Lyaku Willy in November 2009 in Shinyanga Region. Lyaku’s headless body was fished out from the River Kidamlida. His head and legs were recovered from the home of one of the killers.

– Kazamiri Mashauri is facing the hangman’s noose for the ferocious slaughter of five-year-old Mariamu Emmanuel on 21st January 2008 in Misungwi District, Mwanza region. The fifty-year-old man was convicted by the Mwanza High Court in July. Kazimiri and three others entered the house, slashing Mariamu’s throat open, drinking her blood before severing her legs and vanishing in the darkness.

The Tanzania Red Cross Society, UNICEF and local authorities in the Shinyanga region have received $25,000 to help set up camps for ‘Internally Displaced Persons with Albinism.’

For many months Tanzanian Affairs has been receiving a great deal of information from environmentalists, human rights activists and others concerning the allocation, in 1992, of a large block of land (4,000 sq kms) in Loliondo, Arusha to a game hunting firm. This firm, the Ortello Business Company, is owned by the Deputy Minister of Defence of the United Arab Emirates and his associates, some of whom are believed to be members of the royal family of the UAE. Much of the information alleges that these foreign leaseholders are guilty of various hunting malpractices.

In 2006 some of the Maasai resident in the area were said to have started constructing new biomass farming and bringing in large numbers of cattle during the hunting season. In 2009 it was reported that the government had evicted up to 3,000 Maasai villagers with their cattle.

The original hunting licence has now expired and the company is preparing an application to renew it.

According to the East African, quoting the company, Ortello has been paying its annual dues of $560,000 to the government, plus $150,000 to the villages around the Loliondo Game Controlled Area as well as $109,000 to the Ngorongoro District Council. The article concludes by saying that no other district in Tanzania containing hunting areas received this level of funding for community development from the hunting business.