President Kikwete has joined an increasing uproar about the controversial film ‘Darwin’s Nightmare’ which is reviewed on page…. below and which was broadcast on BBC TV recently.

Our regular contributor Dr Hildebrand Shayo reports that the President was angered when he saw the film. He wondered how Tanzania’s security services could have allowed the interview material collected in Mwanza and used in the film to have been obtained. The President was said to have been looking into the matter himself during a rest holiday he had been taking in Mwanza.
In response to all the hostility, Mwananchi reported on August 7 that the film’s French producer, Hubert Sauper, had told the BBC that he had done an in-depth study before embarking on the shooting of the film. He had nothing against the people of Tanzania as his aim was to caution the people in Europe that natural resources in Africa were benefiting the West, leaving the African masses impoverished. “Unfortunately President Kikwete and other people in Tanzania have misunderstood me. I interviewed over 50 people without editing or doctoring anything,” he said and added that he could have made a similar film in Sierra Leone focusing on dirty diamonds, in Honduras on bananas or in Nigeria and Angola focusing on dirty oil. The paper went on to say that the CCM leadership in Mwanza had organised a support march with hundreds of people condemning the film, its producer and his ‘lackeys’. Some Mwanza MP’s have called upon the government to take legal action against the producer and ban him from entering the country. Meanwhile, the massive publicity has meant that many people are now very keen to see the film.