During eleven days in August 2014, 3 brutal attacks, and 2 attempted attacks, were directed against persons with albinism, also known as “albinos.” The attacks result from societal stigma and the belief that the body parts of persons with albinism can bring good fortune when used by witch doctors to create good luck potions. This rampage of brutality has left the country’s population of people with albinism in a state of immobilizing fear. Since 2006 there have been at least 151 murders and attacks on persons with albinism in Tanzania. It is believed that most attacks go unreported.

On 5 August a 15 year old girl was brutally attacked at her home in Tabora Region as she ate dinner with her family. The assailants hacked off her right arm just below the elbow. The men disappeared into the darkness with her arm. The girl lost a lot of blood and was semi­conscious when brought to hospital. Police have arrested three men in connection with the attack, including a neighbour who is a known witchdoctor. Eye witnesses who have spoken to police have since received death threats. “I am asking the police to move me to a safer place and protect me because bad men might come back to kill me” the girl said later. According to advocacy group Under the Same Sun (UTSS), a witch doctor had received an order from a wealthy client indicating a price of $600 USD.

On the same day as this attack, the girl’s uncle, who also has albinism, narrowly escaped an attempt on his life as he walked to his father’s village. He was chased by two men holding machetes. He said he heard the men shouting, “Let’s cut him! Let’s cut him now!” When interviewed, he indicated that they were the same gang that had attacked his niece. He ran as fast as he could and fortunately escaped.
A week later, on 14 August, a young man with albinism was found dead in Kinyerezi on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam. His mutilated body had been dumped in a swamp. Sections of skin on his upper torso had been removed. The skin of persons with albinism is in high demand for witchcraft rituals.

On 16 August a 35 year old mother of seven children was brutally attacked at her home in the Igunga District in Tabora Region. Two attackers cut off her left arm before fleeing. Her husband was beaten to death while defending his wife and two of their children sustained injuries. One suspect has been arrested.

Peter Ash, the founder and CEO of UTSS, and himself a person with albinism commented, “my brothers and sisters with albinism in Tanzania are facing an unprecedented crisis. They have no place that is safe. Law enforcement and the judiciary have been impotent in address­ing this human rights crisis. Only 5% of the 151 cases of murder and attacks have reached prosecution in the Tanzanian courts to date.”

We’re a very tiny army, as armies go to-day,
Just an army of the Tropics and beginning to decay.
We thought you had forgotten us-so long we’ve been away.

We’ve most of us had fever or a tropical inside,
And we’ve foot-slogged half a continent; we’re not supposed to ride;
And lots of us have lost the trail and crossed the Great Divide.

Perhaps the blokes in Flanders our little bit will scorn,
‘Cos we’ve never had an order that gas masks must be worn,
And have never heard a “nine point five“ or a Hymn of Hate at morn.

But how’d you like to tramp it for a solid month on end,
And then go on another month till your knees begin to bend,
Or when you’re out on picquet hear a lion answer “Friend”?

And what about a scrapping up a mountain three miles high,
A-swearing and a-panting till you thought your end was nigh,
And then to bump a Maxim gun that’s dug in on the sky?

And would you like anopheles and jigger-fleas and snakes
To “chivvy” you from dusk till dawn, and fill you up with aches,
And then go on fatigue all day in a heat that fairly bakes?

There wasn’t any Blighty, no, nor mails in twice a week:
We had no concerts ‘hind the lines; we got too bored to speak,
And there was no change of rations; and our water bottles leak.

So don’t despise our efforts, for we’ve done our level best,
For it wasn’t beer and skittles, those two years without a rest,
And though the world forgot us we think we stood the test.

We’re a cohort from the tropics, and we’ve come from far away,
Just an unremembered legion, fret with fever and decay.
And all of us are weary, and lots have lost the way.

We’re a tiny little cohort, and we’re glad to have a spell
From fever and from marching and a sun that burns like hell,
And now we’re back amongst you, we’ll very soon get well.

Just a tiny army, as armies go to-day,
Just a handful from the tropics, and beginning to decay,
Just a Legion of the Lost Ones-who have wandered far away.

Just a remnant who’ve been fighting for you and for your race;
Just a cohort from the northward, where we’d worse than Huns to face.

We thank you for your welcome, and we think you’re very kind,
But we’d ask you to remember – all our mates we left behind!

Written by Owen Letcher in 1918 and first published in the Johannesburg “Star”. Letcher fought with the King’s African Rifles out of Nyasaland into German East Africa. He wrote an autobiographical novel about his experiences: “Cohort of the Tropics”.

by Ben Taylor

Two seizures of heroin were made in Tanzanian coastal waters within the space of a few days in late January and early February. Firstly, the Canadian military vessel, HMCS Toronto, found 265 bags containing over 280kg of heroin on an Iranian dhow. A few days later, an Australian ship, HMAS Melbourne, found 201kg aboard another Iranian dhow said to be travelling between Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. The combined street value of the drugs found was estimated as a little over £500m.

These seizures follow smaller amounts of heroin and cocaine pellets confiscated at Tanzania’s international airports. Last year the government sacked four officials suspected of aiding drug traffickers to smuggle 150kg of drugs through the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) in Dar es Salaam.

In December, Police at the Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) arrested two foreign nationals alleged to be carrying 12.7kg of drugs. Two west Africans were arrested before boarding flights to Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa respectively.

A Dar es Salaam resident was arrested in January at JNIA when attempting to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Macao, China. The woman was about to board her flight when she aroused the suspicion of anti-drugs personnel.

Later that same month, a man holding a Kenyan passport was caught by the special drugs task force carrying 131 pellets of cocaine. The head of the Anti-Drugs Unit said the man had tried to enter the country through JNIA from Brazil. He has yet to appear in court.

The UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) World Drug Report 2013 reported that Kenya and Tanzania are becoming major transit points for drugs as the number of drug users is also increasing. The report said that drug trafficking in East Africa has increased five-fold since 2009, indicating traffickers preference for the region as a transit route for drugs from Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the US and Europe.
(Guardian, Citizen, East African, Australian Associated Press).

by Ben Taylor

Over forty people died in Dar es Salaam, Coast, Tanga and Morogoro regions in March and April when prolonged heavy rain caused extensive flooding. Hundreds of homes in the Tandale, Kigogo, Tabata Kisiwani, Mwananyamala, Msasani Bonde la Mpunga areas of Dar es Salaam were swamped by the water.

In many parts of Dar es Salaam, transport came to a complete standstill as storm water flooded road networks, leaving commuters stranded as services temporarily ground to a halt [See also transport section below].

In Morogoro there were reports that heavy rains that continued for three days wreaked havoc in many homes and destroyed roads and crops.

The Director of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement at the National Environment Management Council, Dr Robert Ntakamulenga, said the flood problem in Dar is a man-made disaster caused mainly by gross violation of urban planning rules and failure by local govern­ment authorities to enforce the rules. “We need to ask ourselves who is issuing permits for people to build in river beds and our wetlands,” he added.

In Dodoma, Members of the Constituent Assembly agreed to devote their TSh 70,000 sitting allowances for a single day to the ongoing government initiative to help victims of the floods that destroyed properties and damaged infrastructure.

“If we all agree to sacrifice our sitting allowances for a day, we will have contributed Tsh 44 million to the victims of the downpour that affected Dar es Salaam and Morogoro residents,” said Ms Suluhu, the deputy chair of the Assembly.

by David Brewin

Newspapers on sale in Dar-es-Salaam

On 9 October the Government placed a 14-day ban on publication of the popular Swahili newspaper Mwananchi and a 90-day ban on Mtanzania. They were alleged to have published classified information and “seditious articles likely to provoke incitement and hostility with the intention of influencing the public to lose confidence in state organs and create disharmony”. The government referred specifically to two articles in Mtanzania, headlined ‘Presidency through Bloodshed’ and ‘Revolution is Inevitable’, and to the publication of a confidential document on government salary structures in Mwananchi.

As Tanzania is widely regarded as having a relatively free press compared with other countries in the region, there was immediately a huge outcry.

The executive secretary of the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT), Kajubi Mukajanga, said: “The steps taken by the government are very unfortunate and undemocratic and have taken the country decades back in its endeavour to build a democratic society which respects freedom of expression …… an assault on the press is an assault on democracy.” He advised the government to pursue other avenues to redress what it perceives as misrepresentation by the press including dialogue, feedback and the use of the mediation services of the MCT.

Among others expressing strong disapproval were the European Union, US Ambassador Leonhardt and a coalition of 50 human rights organisations. The Uganda Monitor said ‘governments should at all times show that they have nothing to hide’, while the Legal and Human Rights Centre and media stakeholders declared a media blackout on the Minister of Information and on the Director of Information Services.

In November, the government asked parliament to amend sixteen laws including one to increase the fine for publishing false statements from

TSh 150,000 to TSh 5 million. Parliament rejected this amendment, calling instead for a new bill to replace the 1976 Newspaper Act. Meanwhile, in Britain, wrangling continues between the government and the media over proposed press controls. The media would prefer to control itself but the government is insisting on some element of control by the government to curb excesses by the more popular papers.

by Peter Elborn

The Great Mosque, Kilwa Kisiwani

The Cessna landed on Kilwa’s grass airstrip, where two men were sitting in the deep shade of a big tree. There was no one else around. I stopped to talk to them. I knew I could walk to Kilwa Ruins Lodge, where I was going to stay for four nights; but – as they said – it would be hot work pulling a trolley case along a sandy road. One of the men had a car in the shade of another tree, and he took me on the short, bumpy ride to the Lodge.

Kilwa Kisiwani is an island just off the coast from the fishing village of Kilwa Masoko. Historically it was the southern point for sailing vessels going down the East African coast using the monsoon winds. They came to trade – most importantly gold and ivory from inland Africa. From the 11th to the 15th century Kilwa was a city-state with fine mosques and grand palaces. In their time, the Great Mosque was the largest mosque in Africa and Husuni Kubwa, the Great Palace, was the largest stone structure in sub-Saharan Africa. Kilwa had its ups and downs until the 19th century, when the slave trade ceased and it became a backwater. This once prosperous city-state fell into ruins.

The only guy around at the Lodge had no knowledge that I was coming, but cheerfully gave me a key to a thatched wooden hut. I was asked what I wanted for lunch. I thought it best to ask what they had. The reply, after some thought, and with some hesitation, was – fish. So I said fish would be very nice.

The next day I ambled around the town in search of the Antiquities Department to get the required permit to visit Kilwa Kisiwani, called ‘the ruins’ locally. Kilwa Masoko is a small place and I had expected to find the Antiquities Department by ambling. But I didn’t.

After lunch and an hour in the shade with a book, I guessed that I might find someone to talk to about getting to the ruins at the harbour, from where the dhows cross to Kilwa Kisiwani. There was not much there, other than an empty jetty and a few men under the shade of trees. One of them called over a young guy who had a dhow and could take me the next day. But today we would need to get the permit. We found the Antiquities Department in a compound behind a gate with a sign saying “Revenue Department”. After 10 or 15 minutes my name was entered in a ledger (including my passport number, but as I did not have my passport with me or any idea what the number was, I made it up). I paid a fee and that was that – a good day’s work.

As no one was around at the Lodge early next morning, I breakfasted on a honey crunch bar left over from the flight from London and walked to the harbour. There was a port fee, requiring another entry in a ledger, with another invented passport number. No boatman from the day before, so the man who had been helpful shouted to three people on a dhow, who agreed to take us. We waded out, climbed aboard and a patched triangular sail was hoisted. A gentle half hour later we got close enough to the island to jump over the side and slosh our way ashore.

A half an hour walk along the edge of a mangrove swamp brought us to the Husuni Kubwa perched on a low cliff by the sea. All very grand in its time, but now just enough left to see that it had indeed been a great palace. We weaved our way along sandy paths through lush tropical vegetation back to the main site, passing neat and tidy mud huts with people quietly drawing water from an ancient well.

The Great Mosque – 11th century in origin, and enlarged in the 14th century with money from the gold trade – is still impressive. Other smaller mosques are scattered around, as well as later buildings, including the fort built by the Portuguese during their short stay at the beginning of the 16th century. After they left the fort was enlarged, falling into disuse in the late 19th century.

Returning to the mainland we had to tack against a strong wind. The sail filled, the boat keeled over and waves flooded into the boat. One of the boatmen calmly bailed.

Over the next two days I explored Kilwa Masoko and adapted to the heat, humidity and the slow pace of life. I swam when the sun was low and less fierce, read in the shade, and enjoyed walking around the town and the market. And then it was time for a last stroll by the sea and a return to the airstrip. As we waited for the plane I watched the little ants crawl over my suitcase.

Two international aid workers arrived in a smart 4-wheel drive vehicle bearing the logo of a water project and talked on their mobile phones. Accompanying them were two Tanzanians. She was well-groomed in a tailored African print dress with puff sleeves. He wore a smart dark blue safari suit. They talked with confidence.

Then the plane arrived and I was off, back to Dar and on to London.

Thank you Jennifer Glentworth for putting us in touch with Peter – Editor

Peter Elborn spent four months in Dar es Salaam in 1991 and visited frequently from 2000 to 2004 when he was the British Council Regional Director East and Central Africa, based in Nairobi. However, it was only after retirement that he was able to get to Kilwa.

by Ben Taylor

A new exhibition of traditional Tanzanian art in New York, titled Shangaa is receiving positive reviews from art lovers and critics. It is “sensational” according to the New York Times reviewer, Holland Cotter.
“As was true of most East African art, Tanzanian mate­rial was overlooked by 19th and 20th century collectors, who had their sights on other parts of the continent,” wrote Cotter. “And because so lit­tle art from Tanzania was in museums, the assumption grew that there was none worth having. One look at the tiny, disc-shaped Makonde mask that opens the show tells you otherwise.”

Many of the pieces are on loan from German museums, where Tanzanian art has been relatively well-known. Yet the show makes it clear that the colonial history that pro­duced the German familiarity with Tanzanian art was not a happy one. Depictions of slavery, and of the indiffer­ence of slave masters, are among the exhibition’s most striking sculptures.

Traditional medicine and witchcraft are another recurring theme. Many of the objects were originally intended for use in healing and divination practices.

Shangaa: Art of Tanzania, was on show for three months at the QCC Art Gallery of the City University of New York, under the curation of Gary Van Wyk, and for three months at the Portland Museum of Art. (Daily News)

by John Sankey

As the centenary of the 1914 -18 War is being commemorated, several items relating to the East African campaign have recently appeared at auctions.

The most interesting is the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) and other medals awarded to Lieutenant Arthur Dudley RNVR, who commanded the gunboat Toutou during the famous Lake Tanganyika expedition. This led to the sinking of two German warships and was the inspiration for the film African Queen.

Dudley had qualified as a Second Mate in the Merchant Navy before enlisting in the Army and serving in the Boer War. He settled in Northern Rhodesia and in 1915 he was ‘head-hunted’ for the Lake Tanganyika expedition. Commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and ordered to report to Cape Town, he was given the task of organising the transportation of the gunboats HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou over several thousand miles to Lake Tanganyika. The train journey, to Elisabethville (Lubumbashi) in the Belgian Congo, was relatively easy; but the final 150 miles to the lake were on jungle tracks, with the boats hauled by steam tractors, ox-trains or human labour. Dudley was mentioned in despatches as it was ‘due to his exer­tions that the transport of the boats was successfully accomplished’.

HMS Mimi on Lake Tanganyika being pushed off a sand bank – The Illustrated War News 1916 from www.africanbyways.co.za

Bridging a riverbed while transporting HMS Mimi & Toutou to Lake Tanganyika – The Illustrated War News 1916 from www.africanbyways.co.za

Mimi and Toutou reached the lake in December 1915 and went into action immediately. The German vessel Kingani was captured and re-named HMS Fifi, and in February 1916 the British flotilla sank the Hedwig von Wissman. The captain of the German flagship Graf von Goetzen decided to scuttle his vessel at Kigoma to avoid possible capture.

The success of the Lake Tanganyika expedition made headlines in England and raised morale at a time when the War was going badly elsewhere. George V sent his personal congratulations, the command­ing officer (Commander Spicer-Simson) was awarded the DSO and his two lieutenants (Dudley and Wainwright) were awarded the DSC. After the War, Dudley returned to Northern Rhodesia and died in Lusaka in 1942. His medals fetched £10,000.

The second group of medals includes the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) awarded to Yeoman of Signals Daniel Greenshields, serving on HMS Severn. In July 1915 the Severn entered the Rufiji Delta and engaged the Konigsberg, her gunfire being directed by a spotter aircraft – one of the first examples of ground/air cooperation in naval history. The German cruiser was set ablaze and put out of action.

The Severn then sailed to Tanga and sank the German blockade runner Markgraf. On returning to the Rufiji, the Severn was ordered to destroy a German observation post left behind by the Konigsberg at Simba Uranga. Greenshields was a member of the landing party and had a narrow escape when the German signaller fired at him at point-blank range – and missed. He was awarded the DSC in July 1916. His medals were sold for £5,200.

The third group of medals was awarded to Rear-Admiral Hector Boyes CMG. Boyes was in command of the gunboat HMS Thistle when Dar es Salaam was captured in 1916 and then took part in a combined operation at Lindi with HMS Severn to destroy a German strongpoint equipped with a 4.1” gun salvaged from the Konigsberg. A shell from this gun hit the Thistle, killing one sailor and setting fire to the magazine, fortunately extinguished by the bravery of the crew. Shortly afterwards the landing party occupied the German position and captured the gun. Boyes was awarded the CMG for this action.

In July 1918 the Thistle took part in a combined operation at Quelimane (Portuguese East Africa, now Mozambique) which forced von Lettow– Vorbeck back over the Ruvuma. For this Boyes was awarded the Portuguese Military Order of St Aviz. His fifteen medals were sold for £5,000.

Finally, an unusual hand-painted china plate was auctioned, depicting a Zeppelin airship flying over the Pyramids and inscribed ‘Afrika Schiff L 59 1917’. This commemorates an ingenious plan by the Germans to beat the British blockade by sending supplies to von Lettow by air, a novel idea in 1917. The amount of cargo carried was relatively small, but the plan was to dismantle the airship on its arrival at Mahenge (south of Morogoro), so that the canvas, metal struts etc could be used by von Lettow’s troops. The propaganda value would also be immense. In the event, the airship was over Sudan when it was ordered to return to Germany, as von Lettow had been forced to withdraw from Mahenge and the airship might be captured. The plate fetched £260.

John Sankey (with thanks to Dix Noonan Webb and Wallis & Wallis)

Historic census data for Tanzania and prediction of population growth

1952 9 million
1967 12 million
1988 23 million
2012 45 million
2020 (estimate) 60 million

The recently released figures from the 2012 census are giving Tanzanians much food for thought. By comparison, the population of England and Wales in 2011 was 56 million.

President Kikwete has been talking about the importance of family planning. “It may not be seen as a problem, especially for a vast country like ours, but it is a big burden economically and socially,” he said.

Dr Joseph Mshafi, a medical advisor with Population Services International (PSI) Tanzania, agreed. He was quoted in the media as saying: “Tanzania has a lot of children. The population increase corre­sponds with an increase in the number of people of child-bearing age. These will soon reach the age of child bearing and we will have a mas­sive reproduction rate. With such a big population growth there will be a big impact on the economy.”

The 2012 census figures support his view showing that 46% of the population are under 15 years old, compared to 18% in the UK.

Graphic showing number of Tanzanians in different age groups (2012 census)