The World Travel Fair, held in London from December 1st to 6th 1987, has become a dynamic force for the development of international tourism and no country which wants visitors can afford to neglect it. It was therefore a sign of positive progress to see a Tanzanian stand at the Fair. Previously, the other countries of Eastern and Southern Africa have had it all their own way. But, at last, Tanzania joined them, with a stand on the upper floor at Olympia, very near the stands of Zimbabwe, Botswana and Kenya.

The Manager of the Tanzanian exhibition was Mr. Amant Macha, the Director of Marketing of the Tanzania Tourist Corporation and I spoke to him about the principal aims of Tanzania’s tourist effort. First of all, he made it perfectly clear that Tanzania had neglected tourism for far too long and had now set itself very definite targets for the years ahead. Although tourist development was still in its infancy, Mr. Macha thought it possible that the number of tourists could increase to over 200,000 by the early 1990’s.

The second priority for Tanzanian tourism is obviously the construction of far more hotels and motels, catering for a wide range of tastes and income brackets. In the short and medium term Mr. Macha thought that the country must aim at what is usually called the upper middle class of the market. Visiting Tanzania for a fortnight or three weeks and viewing the safari parks is not going to be cheap and any thought of mass tourism packages 1s not being considered at present. Mr. Macha’s final theme was that Tanzania needed to concentrate on two main areas, firstly, wildlife and secondly, Kilimanjaro.

Judged by these aims the Tanzanian stand had done moderately well. It had displayed well designed and photographed wall posters concentrating mainly on the game parks and mountains. There were also two British tour managers on hand to explain Special Interest holidays to visitors.

But there is clearly a great deal more to be done before tourism is launched on a wide scale. Several questions remained unanswered. How ‘international’ are the hotels already in existence? Do they offer a wide ranging cuisine? Can they give a distinguished and reliable service? Even more important, is there a good car-hire service and is there a decent network of roads and sufficient travel information for a visitor to take his family on their own tour through the country?

There was a great deal spoken by all the officials on the stand about the beauty of Tanzania’s wildlife. But what of the coast? The discerning visitor wants to see mountains, wildlife, beaches and, not least important, he wants to meet the people. Tanzania has to realise that other countries very near it have a huge head-start in the organisation of their tourist industries, and the competition is not only keen, but getting tougher all the time. Clearly, much good work has been done in the past year and the participation in this Travel Fair will have done much to strengthen the links which have just been forged with some of the world’s leading tour operators. But it is absolutely essential to open up the whole country to international visitors and to provide as free and friendly a holiday visit as possible if Tanzanian tourism is to thrive. State tours are really no substitute for freedom of choice.

But the potential is huge. Tanzania is arguably the most beautiful and varied country in the African continent and the coloured posters at the back of the stand took me back twenty-five years to my first visit to that truly enchanted land. Wild buck leapt from darkness to light and then back into the semi-shadows; rivers gleamed and flashed in the early morning sun; Makonde carvings displayed in abundance, spoke of a rich cultural heritage which no discerning visitor could ignore. And, overall, Mount Kilimanjaro shone radiant, with white snowy flanks. It seemed irresistible. One visitor to the stand summed it up exactly. “It all looks so marvellous and so new. I didn’t know until today that you could really visit Tanzania”. That, perhaps, is the strongest card that Tanzania can possibly play in the tourism game. Its new. The great novelty of going there and seeing something absolutely fresh is undoubtedly the best weapon in the armoury of the Tanzania Tourist Corporation. It will be interesting to see how skillfully it plays it in the years that lie ahead.
Noel K. Thomas

(Extracts from a paper presented at the International Conference organised by the University of Par es Salaam on the Arusha Declaration)

One of Tanzania’s most important political landmarks, at least on paper, was the publication of the 1967 Arusha Declaration. The Arusha current manifested its far reaching waves in works of literature and the arts. Some artists laid all their hopes in the Declaration and, thus, sang or wrote its praises. Others had the ‘let’s wait and see attitude’ and, therefore were left as bystanders watching by the roadside. Yet others were sceptically critical from the very beginning and did not agree to swallow wholly the words of politicians.

These groups did not emerge only in poetry as some erroneous views seem to suggest. Tanzania, which had been regarded as the driest patch in what Taaban Lo Liyong had termed in the sixties ‘the East African literary desert’ was emerging as a gigantic and very important oasis of a written, indigenous African language literature. Many works poured out in prose, poetry and drama. Obviously, Taaban’s was an artificially created barrenness as it ignored completely the rich and abundant oral literature of hundreds of ethnic groups in East Africa and over-worshipped written literature.

Theoretically, largely due to the Declaration, Tanzanian literature was now overloaded with the call to go back to the village. A theme that had been initiated antedatedly in Shaaban Robert’s novel ‘Utobora Mkulima’, (Utobora the Farmer) got new blood in such works as Penina Muhando’s play ‘Hatia’ (Guilt), Ndyanao Balisidya’s novel ‘Shida’ (Hardships), in Kathias Nyampala’s ‘Ngonjera’ poems and in hundreds of poems written in Tanzania’s dailies and weeklies and on Radio Tanzania. Different music bands, choir groups and such prominent fine artists as Sam Ntiro increased the impetus of the theme by s pecialising in it.

Thus the period immediately after Arusha up to the mid-seventies is full of works of art and literature that are mainly concerned with content. It is at this time that one finds the artistic level of the written works at its shallowest. Even such a fine work as Muhando’s ‘Hatia’ is marred, as its creator gives us a very contrived solution to her heroine’s predicament – to go and join the villagers in the newly formed Majogo village. Ironically, it is also at this time that the concept of the village, the Ujamaa village especially, is portrayed as a conglomeration of, among others, all those ‘thugs’ and whores who have been failed by town life.

The artistic failure of the works in this trend keep on surfacing in literary pieces whose creators are led by the nose by political and ideological ideals at the expense of appropriate artistic standards. Perhaps the most glaring examples here are J. K. Kiimbila’ s ‘Ubeberu Utashindwa’ (Imperialism will be Vanquished) and F.E.M.K. Senkoro’s ‘Mzalendo’ (Patriot). These two novels deal with the liberation struggle in such a manner that the reader feels that he has been reading political treatises rather than works of art. K.K. Kahigi’s and Ngemera’s play ‘Mwanzo wa Tufani’ (The Storm’s Beginning) and Mohamed Seif Khatib’s epic poem ‘Utenzi wa Ukombozi wa Zanzibar’ (a poem on the liberation of Zanzibar) are two other works worth mentioning here. While the former emulated the Arusha and Ujamaa sloganeering, the latter was, in earnest, just a description of important successive events in the history of Zanzibar.

Following suit are the novels of Shafi Adam Shafi ‘Kasri ya Mwinyi Fuad’ (the Luxurious Palace of Fuad, a Feudal Lord) and ‘Kull’ (Coolie). The latter, though, has one merit in that it was the first major literary work in Kiswahili that did not advise the worker to leave the city and go back to the village.

The first ever collection of poems in English written by young Tanzanian poets ‘Summons: Poems from Tanzania’ has an introduction that quotes, among others, Mao Tse Tung on the importance of high artistic quality that matches progressive ideas in literary works. However, a closer look at most of the poems in this anthology, shows, with all due respect, a very poor artistic standard. Obviously, this was an aftermath of Arusha, for as we are told in the introduction, this is a new generation of poets who ‘started primary education after Uhuru, secondary education after Arusha’.

Lastly and perhaps the most typical of all in terms of sloganeering and parroting, was the anthology of poems that dealt with the Arusha Declaration and ten years after: ‘Mashairi ya Azimio la Arusha Baada ya Miaka Kumi’. In this anthology representative poets like Shaki, for example, claim that everyone in Tanzania, thanks to the Declaration, is extremely healthy due to having too much to eat!

Tanzanian literature has grown in various phases out of the process of negation. (This concept is not in the strictly Hegelian sense but rather loosely implies the process under which one type of literature emerges and takes the place of the type before it). Thus, as an indirect protest against, and negation of, the above trend of artistic bankruptcy, there were a number of developments in the literature. Three major groups can be randomly identified. The ‘popular’ cluster, the satirical clique and the free verse poets. Tanzania’s ‘popular’ Swahili literature was the most attractive and consisted mainly of potboilers, cheap books, junktales and sexploitation. This, in direct opposition to the content-oriented works, aimed at the audiences glands, fascinating their minds and exciting their flesh through the sensational and sentimental rather than the intellect. Popular variants of magazines such as Sani, Fahari, Ulatati and even the Party weekly Mzalendo became the major outlets for such ‘popular’ authors as John Rutayisingwa, G. Twarindwa, Mbunda Msokile and others. Love thrillers like J. Simbamwene’s novelettes ‘Mwisho wa Mapenzi’ (the End of Love) and ‘Kwa Sababu ya Pesa’ (Because of Money) emerged as short lived best sellers. In these ‘popular’ pieces, and through them, one noticed a distortion of social reality. How fair is it to take these works as ‘popular literature’ when, by all standards, they are just cheap potboilers? Popular literature should suggest contemporary literary tastes and the needs of the masses in terms of improving their standard of living and making them understand their environment better so that they can change it.

The works cited above do not fulfil the above noble task. Rather, they continue leaving the masses in the prison of their predicaments. The ‘popular’ trend was part and parcel of ‘mass production’ which, by its nature, turned everything into a commodity ready for sale in the capitalist market. The trend was a direct consequence of the preceding one; it was an immediate negation of a former, content-oriented literary movement.

The second major group that emerged with quite a force was that of the satirical artists. These filled Kiswahili literature with biting satirical voices which, in a way, portrayed the hypocrisy of those in power who were pretending to be serving the Declaration, and thus, the masses.

Examples in which satire appears in combination with other literary modes can be seen in Harrison Mwakyembe’s novel ‘Pepo ya Mabwege’ (Fools Paradise) and in C. G. Mumg’ong’o’s ‘Njozi Iliyopotea’ (A Lost Dream). These novels portray the gluttonous corruption of the ruling clique who are busy swindling even the little that the poor man is supposed to have. Yet the works show how, ultimately, these greedy skunks are merely enjoying a fools’ paradise which is very short lived. One discovers in these novels ‘exposure by ridicule’.

In short stories like those of G. Ruhumbika in his two works, ‘Parapanda: Wali wa Ndevu na Hadithi Zingine’ (Horn: Rice from the Beards and Other Stories) and the hilarious and most successful one both artistically and in content, ‘Uwike Usiwike Kutakucha’ (Whether You Crow Or Not It Will Dawn) one finds whole piercing satirical pieces which mock at the out-moded culture of society’s gluttonous leaders.

As in the case of the ‘popular’ literature , the satirical literature seems to have emerged as a negation of the content -oriented sloganeering literature discussed above. There was a need to have a more lively form to make the social and political measures interesting to the audience. There was, for example, a need to make the audience laugh at themselves and, in the process, prescribe some kind of panacea. There was no better medium here than the satiric voice.

Satire is peculiarly one of the arts that presupposes a body of settled social and political standards which shall serve as sanction for its rebuke and, at the same time, a certain security and tolerance in the application of the standards. The Arusha Declaration set those standards and artists were keen in following the implementation of the Declaration’s objectives.

Almost immediately after the Declaration’s proclamation some greedy leaders began going against the standards set by the blueprint. This is clearly and hilariously shown in the play by Penina Muhando and Amandina Lihamba ‘Harakati za Ukombozi’ (Liberation Struggle). In this play one discovers humorous ridicule and rebuke containing a demand for correction from those who have betrayed the Declaration.

Edward Rosenheim insists somewhere that satire can be identified partly by its concern with historic particulars. If we find no such particulars then, insists Rosenheim, a work is NOT satire. In other words satire must ask historic whys and, if possible, answer them.

Isack Mruma in his novelette Nguzo ya Uhondo (Pillar of Luxury) rather than ask the whys portrays the historic hows. In this work we meet the major character Lord Madengu, already dead from the very first chapter. The humorous ridicule comes out clearly in the commotion that follows the death of this Minister who, incidentally, and against the spirit of Arusha, is also Director and shareholder in various capitalist enterprises. The radio stops its normal broadcasts and plays soft, mournful army tunes bracketed by eulogical outbursts about the late son of the nation who died while building the nation. There is further hurly-burly among university students, some of whom are for and others against the late leader. There is tumult among the peasants and even amidst drunkards, the latter openly declaring that the death does not affect them so long as they are left alone with their illegally brewed gin. Meanwhile eulogies continue pouring out from the radio. The truth of the matter, however, and this is the satiric point that the author wants to drive home, is that the Honourable Minister died just when he was completing his eighteenth beer in the Mlimani Hotel!

Following suit are Penina Muhando’s play ‘Lina Ubani’ (There is a Panacea) and E. Kezilahabi’s play ‘Kaputula la Marx’. The former portrays the traditional enmity between politicians and experts. The latter shows the plight of the intelligencia in a corruption ridden society. The whole play takes place in a prison cell where the prisoners, locked up after trying to stir up some unrest in the country somehow drill a hole in the wall and are able to perceive what is going on outside.

The above works show how angry the artist’s sensitive pens have grown towards people, ideas and institutions that have betrayed the Arusha Declaration. The pens’ assaults and attacks have been directed to persuading the audience to view, and if possible, act unfavourably towards those satiric objects.
F. E. M. Semkoro

(We hope to include further extracts from this paper in the next issue of the Bulletin – Editor)

The 1987 Annual Report of Britain’s Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) highlights the work of the British volunteers helping in the fight against the grain borer beetle. It states that it was in 1982 that the first VSO research officer assisted in trials for the control of the ‘Dumuzi’ beetle and started work in the villages. By 1987 requests were coming in for nine pest control officers from VSO to help Tanzanian agricultural extension workers spread the message about the threat to maize posed by the beetle. (A fuller account of this work is to be found in Bulletin No. 29 – Editor)

The VSO report also indicates the nature of the work undertaken by the 80 volunteers who were working in Tanzania last year:

Agriculture 4
Forestry/Horticulture 2
Agricultural Science 5
Fisheries 1
Primary Health Care 4
Rehabilitation 4
Paramedicals 1
Mechanical Technicians 3
Construction Technicians/Technical Teachers 3
Other Technical Workers 1
English Teachers 13
Maths/Science Teachers 12
Other Subject Teachers 1
Teacher Training 19
Librarians 2
Business Development 2
Community Workers 1
Field Co-ordinators 1

PROTECTION OF THE MUFINDI RAIN FOREST
Re “Menace of Desertification in Iringa District” in the last Bulletin, feel that some assurance is needed about the vast quantities of wood used by the Southern Paper Mill from the Sao Hill Forest Plantation and about protection of the old Mufindi Rain Forest.

There is a project write-up of the Mill called ‘Paper at any Price’ by Anthony Ngaiza in Towards Sustainable Development published by the Panos Institute. It is stated that at full production the Mill requires 300,000 m3 of wood per year. There are some 90,000 ha of pine and eucalyptus trees to be harvested and the Government plants about 1,000 ha per year.

In another paragraph it is stated that by the year 1991 the Sao Hill Plantation will cover 65,000 ha. Does this mean that 25,000 ha are being lost?

The Mufindi Rain Forest lies close to the Mill and I hope that this is not being further destroyed. Much must have been lost to tea plantations, commencing in pre-war days. This forest must be of important environmental/ecological value and ought it not to be protected, if it is not already?
Christine Lawrence

We referred this letter, through the good offices of Mr. Cyril Kaunga, to the Forestry Division of the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources and we are grateful to Mr. G. Mbonde, a Senior Forest Officer, for the following comments:

The Sao Hill Forest Project comprises 12 Forest Reserves with a gross area of 136,000 ha. The net plantable area is 65,000 ha which will cover any expansion needed from 1990 to 2000. 16,745 ha known as the Mufindi Scarp Forest Reserve is incorporated in the Sao Hill Forest Project. Some 40,000 ha have been planted there in 1986/7. Within this reserve enrichment planting of valuable indigenous species is being carried out. The Paper Mill is expected to produce 75,000 tons of paper per annum after 1990; this is equivalent to 300,000 to 400,000.m3 per annum. From 1988/9 we will only be replanting areas which have been harvested by the Pulp Mill (and the Sao Hill Sawmill) plus areas where there may have been fire or disease damage. Planting beyond 40,000 ha will depend on future forest industry development. Studies are in progress. Such developments will not include the Mufindi Scarp Forest reserve – Editor

THE RATE OF LITERACY
I gave a talk the other day to a geography class and told them that literacy in Tanzania was over 60%. A young boy challenged me by quoting from the book Understanding Human Geography by Michael Raw which states that the rate is 10% Can you give me the up-to date figure.
Brother Amos,
The Society of St. Francis,
Dorchester
Yes. Dr. E. D. Mwaikambo, Secretary of the Tanzanian Chapter of the Society, bas checked with the Ministry of Education in Dar es Salaam. The present figure is 90.4% It varied in 1986 from about 99% for men in Dar es Salaam to 83% for women in Shinyanga – Editor.

WHAT IS IT LIKE TO LIVE IN TANZANIA?
Thank you for Bulletin No. 29. 1 liked the articles – the one on the re-election of Mwalimu Nyerere was especially interesting. Were you there? It seemed so from your article. (Unfortunately not! – Editor). I would appreciate some more regular articles on what it is like to live in Tanzania. I was last there in 1984. For example: What is the price of various essential commodities maize flour, rice, soap, petrol, meat? How are salaries changing if at all? And other matters that would concern socialists who would like to go back to live in Tanzania.
Tony and Anna Goodchild.
Queensland. Australia.
(The recently announced controlled price of first quality printed Khangas is Shs 536; one Pilsner beer costs Shs 80. The current exchange rate is Shs 169 to £1 (mid-April 1988) Perhaps someone in the Tanzania Chapter could help us with answers to the main questions you asked?
Editor)

A POEM
On December 9th 1987 more than 20 Tanzanians and other nationalities
celebrated Uhuru here in the colleges. The Catering Department of Westhill had laid on a buffet and we had a most enjoyable time with music, speeches and recitation of poetry.

One poem seems to me to warrant wider publicity. It was composed by the Rev, Charles Almodad Munga for the occasion:

Selly Oak tumetimu, twakumbuka Tanzania
Wana Vyuo na walimu, sote tunafurahia
Hakiku twaiheshimu, siku hii kwa mamia.
8el1y Oak twakumbuka, Uhuru wa Tanzania

Tisa Decenba twaf1ka, Uhuru twafurahia,
Hata wegi wakicheka, sisi tunajivunia,
Wahenga waliyafyeka, mapambano mia mia.
Selly Oak twakumbuka, Uhuru wa Tanzania.

Moja Tisa Nane Saba, Ni ishirini na sita,
Miaka tumefikisha, Si michache ya kusita,
Rabuka katupitisha, mapori tunapita.
Selly Oak twakumbuka, Uhuruwa Tanzania.

Hasani na Julius, Jina mmetuwekea,
Kwa wenu huo ukwasi, baraka mtapokea,
Siasa yenu ya kasi, Uwanja inawekewa.
Selly Oak twakumbuka, Uhuru wa Tanzania.

Twautakia fanaka, Ujamaa Tanzania,
Tuwatoe na mashaka, wasioufikiria,
Tutadumu kuushika, Mola atatujalia.
Selly Oak twakumbuka, Uhuru wa Tanzania

Wapigania Uhuru, Siku moja kutakucha,
Kumuondoa Kaburu, tutafuga na makucha,
Wang’oke kwa msururu, kucha kutakavyokucha.
Inshala twatumaini, Mola atawajalia.

Hapa kituo naweka, Birmingham sikia,
U.K. acha mahoka, Umma unapozimia,
Ondoa vyako vishoka, Umma upate sikia.
Selly Oak twakumbuka, Uhuru wa Tanzania.

S.v. Sicard.
Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations
Selly Oak Colleges,
Birmingham

MAKONDE AND MAWIA
I have seen the letter in the last Bulletin about the Makonde and the Mawia. I am a Makonde from Newala. When I went to school I first met the Mawia people who came from Mozambique. They were escaping from the war. We were very cautious and afraid of them. They were a fierce tribe. There are differences between Mawia and Makonde. We never had incisions on our faces – not even my grandfather. Nowadays they try and assimilate with us and in Dar as Salaam and Tanga they call themselves Makonde .. Francis Libungo.
Dar es Salaam.

(We have spoken to other persons who insist that the Makonde and the Mawia are one and the same – Editor).

MWINYI AND NYERERE
Among the rare references to Tanzania in the press in this country and abroad a common theme has recently been the state of conflict which is said to dominate the relations between President Mwinyi and Party Chairman Julius Nyerere. The Independent, for example published on December 30th a highly imaginative article bearing the sub-heading ‘The former President is using his prestige in a bid to curb the liberalising trend fostered by his successor’. But the presumption of conflict is highly misleading. The President and the Party Chairman are not, of course, alike either in experience, or in temperament. Nyerere, as his writings testify, is a thinker and a visionary of outstanding quality; Mwinyi, so far as we yet know, is guided by an acute practical assessment of the needs of the moment. But it is needless to assume that these contrasting qualities inevitably presuppose conflict. Nor is a discontinuity in national economic policy at the time of the change over in the presidency to be inferred. While greater recognition is now paid to the operation of market forces and the role of the private sector is openly acknowledged, these trends cannot be interpreted as symptoms of conflict between President and Party Chairman. The vision of greater cooperation and equality as the ultimate goal remains in place, unobscured by changes that have been made in response to the country’s critical economic situation and the pressure of world forces.

The Economic Recovery Programme on which Tanzania is now embarked, was approved by the Party under Nyerere’ s chairmanship. Moreover, certain aspects of policy, including the sale of derelict sisal estates to the private sector and the retention by exporters of a proportion of their foreign exchange earnings, had already been promulgated while Nyerere was President. Neither Nyerere nor Mwinyi has abandoned a critical view of the IMF, though the introduction of a structural adjustment facility is acknowledged to be a step in the right direction. Fortunately, though the IMF initially played a leading role in respect of support for the ERP, it emerged as a junior partner in the pattern of support that resulted.

Speaking at the University of Dar es Salaam in September 1956, Mwalimu Nyerere called for the full participation of the private sector. While insisting that within the socialist policies of Tanzania major sectors of the economy must remain under public control, he said that private individuals and companies must also be given scope to perform the services that the state could not accomplish. As to the loss making parastatals, he said, that they were a serious drain on the nation’s resources and that it was neither disloyal nor anti-socialist, to require them to make profits that could be beneficially reinvested in the economy.

It is in fact difficult to find in the public utterances of Nyerere anything that is substantially at odds with the known views of Mwinyi. Nyerere is sensitively aware of the discordant role that a former President might play. His continuation in office as Chairman represented a reluctant decision made only on the insistence of President Mwinyi and in view of the extremely heavy burden of work already falling on the shoulders of the President in carrying out the difficult political task of organising Tanzania’s economic recovery.

Conflict is more sensational and apparently more ‘newsworthy’ than co-operation. I fear that the imaginings of anonymous correspondents and diplomats speculating about the interaction of these two distinguished men caught in a formal relationship that is, to say the least, unusual have been allowed to make up for the shortage of hard news. I would be grateful for your help in putting a contrary view.
J. Roger Carter

THANKYOU
The ‘Friends of Ruaha Society’ would like to express its thanks and appreciation to those generous readers of the Bulletin who made donations to the society following Colin Imray’s letter in the May issue. We would be delighted to hear from any other readers who have an interest in the Ruaha National Park.

The September issue of the Bulletin carried an interesting letter from Brenda Bailey concerning the management of National Parks. Perhaps I should explain that ‘Friends of Ruaha’ is not primarily concerned with theoretical management issues. Management decisions are made by the Chief Park Warden and the Director of National Parks. Our job is to help. We have provided fuel, oil, spare parts, boots, cement, rewards for rangers, grader blades, funds for fire control, road construction, anti-poaching, general repairs and maintenance. We have just approved a request for funds to build a new permanent ranger post. This is the practical side of running a park. Ruaha is an area the size of Wales with fewer than fifty rangers. Tanzania has eleven national parks – a tremendous commitment to the world’s wildlife heritage. The resources to divide amongst them are slim.

We are able to help the park through donations from the public and our responsibility is to ensure that those donations are used effectively. If Brenda Bailey would like to donate some copies of Managing Protected Areas in the Tropics we would be delighted to pass them on to the park. For the £18.50 that the book costs we can buy six pairs of ex-army boots – rangers cannot wear ideas. That having been said, we did discuss with the Park Warden the idea of visits to the park from schoolchildren in the surrounding Villages. Such visits have been paid in the past but lack of transport prevented them from continuing. We are now looking at the cost of hiring the Idodi village bus in the hope that ‘Friends of Ruaha’ can support more visits in the future. To do this we need your help.
Hon. Secretary,
Friends of Ruaha Society,
P. O. Box 60,
Mufindi

RECORD COTTON PRODUCTION
Cotton production has reached a record level of 450,000 bales this year. But this substantial production is exacerbating certain related problems. ;he ginneries cannot cope and transport remains a bottleneck. The Government has been considering arranging for ginning to be done in neighbouring countries and. plans have also been made for two new ginneries (for 50,000 bales) in Shinyanga and Mara regions, Other ginneries are to be rehabilitated – Daily News

PRESIDENT MWINYI TO VISIT BRITAIN
The Tanzanian High Commission in London has announced that President Ali Hassan Mwinyi will be paying an official visit to Britain from June 6th to 10th 1988. He will be lunching with the Queen and having extensive discussions with Mrs. Thatcher. It is also expected that, amongst his many other engagements, he will be meeting members of the Britain-Tanzania Society.

WORLD BANK HAPPY WITH TANZANIA
According to SHIHATA the World Bank is so pleased with Tanzania’s economic recovery that it is now working on new programmes to stimulate production in the country’s priority areas. “The results of the Economic Recovery Programme have been encouraging and we would like to further assist the Government to get the economy growing at a sustainable pace” said Enrique J Rueda-Sabata, the Bank’s Deputy Representative in Tanzania. “The Government has to be congratulated” he said.

Furthermore, the journal ‘World Bank News’ reported that in a recent speech, Edward Jaycox, the Bank’s Vice-President for Africa, had said that “Many African Governments have recognised the nature of the crisis that confronts them ….. and we are beginning to see some positive economic results. He gave two examples: “Since Ghana launched its reform programme in 1983 its GDP growth has averaged 5% a year. Tanzania achieved positive per capita growth in 1986 for the first time in a decade.”

7,000 TRADITIONAL GUARDS – AND A NEW STATUE – IN TABORA
The eleventh anniversary of the CCM was celebrated on February 5th this year in Tabora. There were two new features to the celebrations. Some 7,000 Sungusungu (Traditional guards) clad in rugs and hats made from feathers paraded past Party Chairman Nyerere. They danced, flexed their muscles and stamped the ground and displayed their weapons – bows and arrows and pangas. These traditional groups had been formed five years ago and have had much success in stamping out cattle rustling and tracking down criminals.

Also, to mark the occasion thirty years ago (January 26th 1958) when Mwalimu Nyerere had addressed a historic TANU pre-independence rally, a light iron and aluminium statue of Mwalimu was unveiled by President Mwinyi. The statue depicts Mwalimu standing with a walking stick. A picture of the rally is painted below the statue. – Daily News

THE WORD ‘NATIVE’ WELL USED
In a recent letter to the Daily News a reader in Dodoma defended the use of the word ‘Native’ in the ‘Kilimanjaro Native Co-operative Union’, He was responding to earlier questioning of the word because it had been “used by colonialists in contemptuous reference to Africans, He explained that “the Chambers Dictionary defined the word as follows: ‘Born in; being; having to do with place of birth or origin’,

“It is quite clear” he went on, “that the word has a broad meaning quite apart from its colonial connotations, KNCU (1939) and KNCU (1984) to me are nostalgic. They remind me about the period up to the year 1976 when the co-operative movement of Tanzania was leading in Africa, Why did the founding fathers opt for ‘Native’ or ‘African’ Co-op Union? For the under thirty years age group let me explain that the ‘Natives’ had little choice in the matter because of the segregative racial policies of the colonial authorities”,. and it was therefore a fitting symbol of protest for Africans to start and run their own cooperative union so successfully right under the nose of the colonial master”.