MAJOR MALARIA VACCINE BREAKTHROUGH

Several newspapers (The BANGKOK POST, WORLD BANK NEWS, THE LONDON TIMES, VACCINE and others) gave prominence recently to what might be a major breakthrough in the search for an effective vaccine against malaria. Developed in Colombia and tested in Phase 1 on 41,000 volunteers in Latin America, the SPf66 vaccine was then ‘much more seriously tested (in Phase 2)’ according to Head of Tropical Disease Research at WHO, Dr. Tore Godal, ‘in very intense transmission conditions in the Kilombero District of Tanzania’. Inhabitants there suffer about 100 times more mosquito bites than in Colombia; the average in Kilombero is 25 bites by infected mosquitoes per night. The success of the Tanzania tests has paved the way for the final phase of testing, with initial results expected in October this year. Further tests are being carried out in Gambia and Thailand with results due next year. Still more tests over the next two years could mean an effective vaccine in widespread use by 1988 the WHO spokesman said. It was anticipated that when fully developed the vaccine would cost less than five dollars per injection. If the new vaccine works it would be the first vaccine ever to work against a parasitic disease.

STRIFE ON THE FIFTH FLOOR

When the late President Habyarimana of Rwanda was shot down at Kigali airport on April 6th he was returning from a peace conference held in the Kilimanjaro Hotel in Dar es Salaam. The Rwandan delegation, hearing what had happened, did not feel inclined to return home. As the conflict in Rwanda worsened, so too did relations on the fifth floor of the hotel, according to THE TIMES (July 12) as anti-government rebels and Hutu extremists were in adjacent rooms. Armed Rwandans began jostling each other in the lifts and goading each other in the restaurants. Former Rwandan Foreign Minister Anastase Gasana complained to the Tanzanian Chief of Security that he was receiving death threats (from across the corridor) from former Presidential aide Desire Mageza. Mr Mageza said: “He’s mad. How do you say in English? He has la Megalomanie”. Finally Tanzanian security decided that the extremists should be removed from the hotel. “It’s incredible how much these people hate each other” a security officer said. Mr Mageza and five members of the Rwandan presidential guard were put on a bus to the airport. Tanzanian Foreign Minister Joseph Rwegasira later said that the Rwandans had left behind an unpaid hotel bill of £133,000.

WORLD BANK LAMENTS ITS ROLE IN TANZANIA

The FINANCIAL TIMES (July 27) reported that it had obtained a 2-volume 1990 confidential internal analysis of relations between the World Bank and Tanzania during the period 1961 to 1987. Tanzania had received $15 billion in aid (including £2 billion form the Bank). The report criticised the Bank’s ‘stance of uncritical support for Tanzania’s impractical socialist vision and egalitarian folly’. Until 1980 the Bank had viewed Tanzania as ‘coming close to being a model developing country. The belated recognition of the existence of a chronically ailing economy casts doubt on the transparency of the Bank’s decision-making process’.

IN THE ABSENCE OF GUINNESS

Kate Adam writing in the June 1994 NEWSLETTER OF THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURE ASSOCIATION explained the work she has been carrying out on Maesopsis eminii, an invasive tree species causing widespread degradation to the stability of the remaining primary forest of the East Usambara mountains. Initially introduced in good faith by the Forest Department in the early 1960’s as a fast growing, commercial exotic tree to regenerate heavily logged forest, it is now considered a major threat to the survival of endemic forest species. CDC has begun an eradication programme at the East Usambara Tea Company Ltd. The writer went on to describe how her year in Tanzania had taught her how to avoid rolling a battered Landrover in the monsoon rains, a hundred and one ways to cook with a mango, how to alleviate dysentery from a raw squid salad and how to survive in the complete absence of Guinness.

THE MOROGORO CONFERENCE

The curtain is gradually being lifted on the South African ANC’s activities during the long years of the anti-apartheid struggle in which Tanzania took such a prominent role. Stephen Ellis, writing in AFRICAN AFFAIRS (April) described many of the internal problems faced by the ANC from 1963 when growing numbers of South Africans joined the resistance forces in Tanzania. The ANC had four camps in the country which became bases for the ‘Umkhonto wa Sizwe’ guerrilla soldiers. In 1967 Umkhonto launched its first foreign military offensive in the Wankie district of Rhodesia. ‘Using inappropriate tactics and with poor logistic support the forces were badly mauled by Rhodesian troops. Some of the survivors, eventually making their way back to Tanzania, were highly critical of the ANC leadership – Chris Hani wrote an angry memorandum … and, according to one report, was sentenced to death for insubordination before being reprieved … the result was a major ANC consultative conference at Morogoro in 1969 which made sweeping changes in ANC leadership and set down a longterm strategy for the future…..’

BATTLE FOR PRESS FREEDOM

Any observer of the Tanzanian scene cannot but be impressed by the extent of press freedom in the country nowadays and by the proliferation of privately owned newspapers. But, according to NEW AFRICAN (June 1994) the media are still locked in a monumental battle to maintain this press freedom. The journal reported that the editor of the ‘Express’ had been taken to the Central Police Station in Dar es Salaam for ten hours in March and questioned about an article he had printed which blamed the government for failing to clean up the garbage of narcotics, refuse and harmful foods that were poisoning the country. The publisher of the ‘Citizen’ had been charged with sedition and the editor of ‘Tazama’ was said to have been charged with publishing seditious material. This get tough stance by the government was said to be retaliation against the press for forcing the government to abandon last year a proposed ‘Media Professions Regulation Bill’ it wished to introduce. The press had insisted that this Bill would have been unconstitutional.

‘HOW MARVELLOUS TO BE BACK!’

Extracts from an article headed ‘Tanzania Revisited’ by Sister Maria von Opdorp in WHITE FATHERS WHITE SISTERS (June- July 1994): How marvellous it was to be back in Mwanza after 23 years. The banana trees, the mango trees. Lake Victoria, the beautiful light and the brilliant colours of the earth and vegetation – all so much warmer than our Dutch colours. The first few nights I had to get used to all the noises. The dogs go on barking until late into the night. At dawn the whole regiment is awake again – birds, cocks, dogs, cows – the lot… I noticed many changes in Tanzania. The women are much more self-confident than they were. They are dressed African fashion in ‘khangas’ and ‘kitenges’ and no longer copy European fashions. I witnessed no aggressivity to Europeans, such as I had experienced previously. On the other hand, there is great poverty …. I saw a woman of eighty cutting rocks into small stones for 180 shillings a day. 180 shillings is 30 pence!…

ONE OF BRITAIN’S MOST RADICAL COMPANIES

This is how the GUARDIAN (August 16) described the Gateshead-based ‘Traidcraft’, the ‘fair trade company’, when writing about the company’s recent ‘social audit’ which has covered everything from recycling its apricot packaging to its corporate ethos. More than two thirds of the products sold by Traidcraft, which has annual sales of £6.3 million, employs 120 and has 4,000 shareholders, come from the developing world. Contributors include the 1,227-member Tabora Beekeepers Cooperative which receives from Traidcraft 32% more per 28kg bucket of honey than from its other export customer and 55% above the local market price.

EFFECTS OF THE DROUGHT

Tanzania suffered a 413,000 tonne deficit in production of food crops during the 1993/94 season according to the French publication MARCHES TROPICAUX (July 8). There had been falls of 21% in maize and 36% in wheat. The problem was caused by drought, crop disease and shortage of fertilisers. It was feared that the food deficit for 1994/95 would be far more dramatic and amount to 945,000 tonnes.

ORNITHOLOGICAL FRAUD?

Several issues of the DAILY TELEGRAPH in June reminded readers of the exploits of the adventurer, soldier, gamehunter, bird-watcher and spy Richard Meinertzhagen. On Christmas Day in 1915, as a British officer in Tanganyika, with 15 of his scouts, he had rushed a German camp, bayoneted all the African soldiers and shot the German commander in his tent as he was about to sit down to his Christmas dinner. Why waste a good meal?” he asked as he sat down to eat with a fellow British officer, undismayed by the body of the dead German on the bed. The latter’s papers revealed him to have been a Duke. “The first Duke I have killed” Meinertzhagen wrote subsequently.

But the object of the Telegraph articles was to reveal the ornithological exploits of Meinertzhagen. In later years he became one of Britain’s foremost field naturalists and was awarded the British Ornithologists’ Union’s most prestigious medals and a CBE. He donated his 20,000-bird collection to the Natural History Museum in London. It now appears however that he was probably a fraud. Some of his bird skins are alleged to have been stolen from the Leningrad, Paris, American and British museums over a number of years. A committee has been set up to scrutinise his work. His 66-year old son, who is an investment banker, has vowed to clear his father’s name.

‘THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PROJECT I HAVE EVER SEEN’

‘When I was working on agricultural research linkages in Tanzania in 1990 I came across in Arusha an NGO project – the Village Sunflower Project – that was the most successful I have ever seen in 29 years of working in developing countries’ wrote John Russell in the NEWSLETTER OF THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURE ASSOCIATION (June 1994). The project, under the umbrella of the Lutheran Diocese, had begun in 1986 when Appropriate Technology International helped to fund a small company to manufacture scissor-jack oilseed presses designed by the Institute of Production Innovation at the University of Dar es Salaam. The oilseed cake was used as animal fodder which increased local milk supplies; the most appropriate seed variety was selected; and, employment was created in the oil production units. By 1989 sixty units were functioning in 40 villages, and 100,000 litres of edible oil were being produced in a year. In 1993 there were 1,000 production units in 800 villages all over the country. Ten local manufacturers were now producing ram-pressses and these were being exported to other countries.

JOINING THE WORLD’S BIG LEAGUE OF GOLD PRODUCERS

This is the prospect for Tanzania according to AFRICA ANALYSIS (June 10) quoting Canadian mining company Baker Talc. High hopes are centred on Lupa District near Mbeya which is described as ‘possibly one of the most intensely mineralised gold provinces in the world’ and where the company is acquiring 50 million acres for gold and diamond exploration. The Soviet Group Technoexport explored there in the 1970’s and estimated total known resources of 1.4 million ounces of gold. Although Tanzania’s gold exports are currently worth about $50 million a year the country’s mineral opportunities were said to have lain largely dormant during the last 25 years because of the political climate.

STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN THEORY AND PRAGMATISM

A thoughtful article under this heading written by Susie Bowen, a speech therapist at the Muhimbili Medical Centre in Dar es Salaam, published in the May/June issue of HUMAN COMMUNICATION raised some fundamental issues on speech therapy in a developing country context. ‘By introducing our profession, are we contributing to the saturation of wellmeaning ‘white’ agencies in Tanzania that reinforce the pervasive notion that West is Best?’ she asked. She went on: ‘Nobody will say no to the educated European and often won’t even ask what speech therapy is before accepting it; …..we are asking people to believe in something that is not supported by the environment and in a service that will not be widely available (in Tanzania) for many years to comer…..’our individualistic society (in Britain) teaches us to claim our rights to expert advice and to demand a solution. The philosophy of life in Tanzania is very different; essential resources are perceived as being good primary health, family support and community networks; beyond these, most Tanzanians have not had the luxury of their needs being met. We must be careful not to impose our values and methods ….'(Thank you Roger Bowen for this item -Editor).

“WE CRY A LOT”

‘Sitting on the floor outside the smoky cookhouse at Igurubi near Tabora ten or so women are talking. Some are employed at the hospital, others are caring and cooking for their invalid relatives and one is a British volunteer. They are talking about children, according to the Spring issue of HABARI YA HPA (Health Projects Abroad). They look incredulous as the British volunteer explains she is 29, unmarried and has no children. She says that she might get married in two years’ time and would then want two children. But what if one of them dies? the Tanzanians ask. How do you begin to explain, the article goes on, that while the infant mortality rate in Tanzania in 1991 was 178 per 1,000 live births in the UK it was nine per 1,000. On one matter all are agreed. If a child dies, “we are very sad and cry a lot”. “Sana, sana” they say as they all shake their heads.

A UNIQUE RAILWAY LINE

Describing the recent train safari of tourists from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam, the Dar es Salaam EXPRESS’S Apolinari Tairo (August 7) explained that the train was named the ‘Pride of Africa’ and had been used in Edwardian times and recently renovated. The owner of the train said that Southern Tanzania was one of the most interesting geological areas in the world – especially the rift valley near Mbeya. The train had passed through 23 man-made tunnels which made the TAZARA railway line unique in Africa. Some of the potential new tourist attractions in Tanzania were the cool and attractive shores of Lake Malawi, mountain scenery and the 25-ton Mbozi meteorite.

VENTURE CAPITAL

The June issue of the ECONOMIST contained an advertisement for ‘Tanzania Venture Capital Ltd.’ (Bulletin No 47). Equity capital is US$ 6.61 million provided by financial institutions in Britain, Germany, Sweden and Tanzania supported by USAID and the Commonwealth Development Agency (UK) (Thank you John Sankey for this item – Editor).

MEDICINE CHESTS

An interesting evaluation of the health component of the Hereford-Muheza link in the BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL (16 April) indicated that there have been 64 sabbatical visits during the last eight years, half from Hereford to Muheza and half from Muheza to Hereford. Each traveller from Hereford takes and leaves behind a pack containing drugs, syringes and drip set. The contents of the packs were listed in the article: Chloroquine phosphate tabs; Proguinal tabs; Quinine sulphate; Fansidar; Erythromycin stearate tabs; Betadine ointment; Loperamide caps; Chlorpheniramine tabs; Hydrocortisone cream; Anthisan cream; and, Haemacel (Thank you Oliver Murphy for sending this item from Spain – Ed).

RE-STRUCTURING WILLIAMSONS DIAMOND MINES

AFRICA ANALYSIS (June 10) reported that South Africa’s De Beers company was negotiating with the Tanzanian government to ‘re-structure’ the Williamson Diamond Mine in Shinyanga where output had declined sharply to 25,000 carats a year.

DISEASE KILLS SERENGETI LIONS

A disease believed to be Canine Distemper Virus that gives lions convulsions has killed 85 of the 3,000 lions in the Serengeti according to AFRICAN ECONOMIC DIGEST (August 1). In one case an animal turned repeatedly in tight circles; many other lions suffered neurological damage; some lions showed a persistent twitch that contorts half the face in an involuntary sneer. The disease could threaten Tanzania’s tourism industry, now earning about $120 million annually … the disease comes after a devastating drought which had affected the number of visitors to the Serengeti: numbers had gone down by as much as 30%…

ONE OF THE GREAT GOLD MINES OF EAST AFRICA

The TIMES (August 10) reported that the mining group Cluff Resources would be taking a 90% stake and investing USS3.0 million in developing the Geita gold mine to make it into one of the great gold mines of East Africa. Between 1938 and its closure in 1966 it had produced 900,000 ounces of gold. Mr Cluff described the mine as a significant property and Cluff shares rose on the London Stock Exchange by 5.25% to 52.5%.

MISS BONGOIAND 1994*

Under this heading the Dar es Salaam DAILY NEWS has been describing Tanzania’s recently re-introduced Miss Tanzania competition held in Dar es Salaam. Such competitions had been banned since 1967. “Is it true” asked one person who missed the contest “that the girls had to put on Khanga’s to cover their swim suits”. “Yes”, was the answer “it was to avoid the girls exposing their thighs …. because some people think that that would be Western culture”. Then there was a dispute about the choice of winner. She was 20-year old Aina Maida, a student in Virginia USA, who had entered the competition after the closing date for applications. “If you look at the way she walks” one lady protested “you could tell that she is not from Tanzania”. Miss Maeda however will be representing Tanzania at the Miss World Competition in South Africa in November. She beat 26 other participants.

* It has become common practice amongst Tanzanians to call their country ‘Bonqoland’ which is derived from the Swahili word ‘bongo’ meaning brains. The reference is to the economic plight of the country and the need for everyone to use his/her brains to augment very low salaries through outside income-earning activities – Editor.

THE WATCHWORD IS ‘CAUTION’
In a comprehensive 15-page series of articles on Tanzania the European Community publication THE COURIER (No 142) explained that transforming a ‘socialist’ one-party state into a free market multiparty democracy was proving an extremely complex undertaking. ‘In Dar es Salaam the watchword is ‘caution’ it wrote ‘and the pace of reform is accordingly slow – too slow for some of the country’s international backers.

Fortunately for the government, Tanzanians are a patient if not docile people, a characteristic that may have been induced by nearly three decades of one-party rule, peace and stability … the real pressure for change came from outside’. President Mwinyi was interviewed. He was asked to explain why the opposition parties were complaining about having no access to the radio. The President replied: “The opposition parties are given the opportunity, twice a week, to explain on the radio what their policies are. If they want to monopolise the media that is not possible, because, after all, CCM is the ruling party … we promised our people to do certain things and we must use the radio to explain to them what we are doing … the opposition operate some 20 newspapers against two for the government ….”

NYERERE AND THE UNION
NEW AFRICAN (February 1994) gave further details on the fight Mwalimu Nyerere is conducting to preserve the United Republic of Tanzania (Bulletin No 47). “I watched when you scrapped the Arusha Declaration (his socialist blueprint for Tanzania) and I remained quiet” he was quoted as having said to CCM party delegates. “I wish you the best in building the country under capitalism since all the aid comes from the capitalist nations. But I won’t tolerate a break-up of the Union”. Nyerere said that he had lost confidence in the CCM and had stopped paying membership fees. “The CCM is not my mother. My mother is in Butiama” he said.

BITTER MEMORIES OF UHURU
The South African daily SOWETAN (April 21) published the Sapa-Reuter story of the several hundred Tanzania-born Afrikaners who were expelled or emigrated when Tanganyika became independent. They were said to have bitter memories of the country after many of them had had their farms and homes confiscated without compensation. ‘They packed their trucks and headed south thus reversing the trek of their forefathers who had travelled half the length of Africa to escape British domination after losing the Boer Warf. They hold regular reunions in South Africa. At one recent gathering just before the South African elections, they were in a sombre mood.

“They’ll force us to marry blacks. That’s their (the African National Congress) plan; to get rid of us by creating a race of bastards. Black government means chaos. Look what happened to Tanganyika” said Wynand Malan. The Boers watched a video made in Tanzania by a recently returned traveller. It included shots of Katrina Odendaal, a Boer woman who had married a black Tanzanian and had remained behind. The audience gasped in shock as Odendaal appeared on the screen, squatting on her haunches outside a mud hut, a brightly coloured cloth wrapped African-style round her waste. “Appalling” muttered a woman in the audience. But one of her daughters, who had been five months old when she left Tanzania was more optimistic. “I don’t think blacks and whites are so different. Once you get past the surface we are all the same underneath” she said.

THE ‘MYTH’ OF ‘THE AIDS MYTH’
NEW AFRICAN (March 1994) attracted the wrath of one of its Zimbabwean readers for giving publicity to the controversial views about AIDS arising from the experience of two French charity workers in Tanzania (the full story was given in Bulletin No 47). ‘Will New African’ the reader asked ‘be printing the next, more balanced, stage of the saga a year or two hence when the myth of the AIDS myth has itself been exploded? Why, even at this sage, is such unbalanced, unchallenged coverage given to the views of a tiny handful of AIDS workers flying in the face of so many well-established competent organisations, governments, researchers, doctors, community members etc. who would give a different picture?’

‘THE MYTH THAT IS KILLING A CONTINENT’
The INDEPENDENT (January 2, 1994) in a two-page feature also took those publishing these controversial views about AIDS to task and quoted a report from Bukoba town where 24% of the adults were said to be HIV positive. ‘Seen from here, claims that HIV is not lethal seem at best bizarre and at worst dangerous …. on a rainy afternoon Bukoba bar girls besiege a foreigner. They have heard that there is a female condom and they want it. Men, they say, are pig-headed about protection. Especially rich men’.

Traditional healers prevaricate when asked if they can cure AIDS. “It may be necessary to send people to hospital to seek higher medical advice” admits Bassaija Balaba. “I can only give symptomatic treatment”. His father said “Curing AIDS is like sweeping back the ocean using a broom. Once I had 25 children. Now I have five. I have to sit and watch them die until I die. ..” AIDS is changing even death. In Mwanza a nurse was quoted as saying “Funerals used to go on for seven days. Now its three…. “ (Thank you Stephen Williams for this item – Ed.)

A new species of bird which looks rather like a small partridge has been found in Tanzania, reported Nigel Hawkes in THE TIMES (January 29). It was discovered in the evergreen forests more than 4,000 ft up in the Udzungwa mountains by five scientists from the zoological museum at Copenhagen University. It was also said that, not only is it a new species but that it does not belong to any existing genus of birds. It has been given the name Xenoperdix Udungwensis – strange partridge form Udzungwa. The discoverers think that the birds they saw are the sole survivors of a bird that was common all the way up the African coast at one time. (Thank you Rev. B Baker and Mr John Sankey for this item – Editor).

‘THE EEC HAS NOT YET ACHIEVED AS MUCH’
‘To this day the European Community has not achieved what the East African Community (EAC) had achieved by 1969. The EAC then had a common currency, common posts and telecommunications, harbours, an airline, railways; there was an East African parliament . . . . . ‘ So wrote Abdul Rahman Babu in the first of a series of articles in AFRICA EVENTS (February 1994) following the meeting in Arusha on November 30, 1993 of the ‘three M’s (Presidents Moi, Museveni and Mwinyi) which began the re-creation of an East African Community (Bulletin No 47). In 1977 the whole EAC structure had ‘crumbled like a house of cards’. Babu considers that the reasons for the failure were the lack of a solid economic foundation – the EAC was only a trading arrangement with some basic infrastructure to facilitate foreign trade – and of political trust; there was a disregard of peoples’ real needs.

HOPELESS LEADERS
Following the alleged sale of game reserves and islands to Arabs, Tanzanians have become very sensitive on land issues according to NEW AFRICAN (February). ‘When the Swahili newspaper ‘Mwananchi’ reported that Dar es Salaam City Council had sold a plot of communal land to an Arab there was uproar. The Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development said that the sale was illegal and ordered the City Council to cancel it. The Council said that the Minister had no authority to do this. Fearing that nothing would be done, the people took the law into their own hands and started to demolish the building’. Mwalimu Nyerere backed the people. “This is what happens when you have hopeless leaders” he was quoted as saying.

THE PRIME MOVER HAS BEEN PRESIDENT MWINYI
In the second article in this issue of AFRICA EVENTS Rasna Warah stated that although the three heads of state had shown enormous enthusiasm and maturity in making the dream of a renewed East African Community a reality, the prime mover had been President Mwinyi of Tanzania who, in recent months, had been consistently calling for enhanced cooperation. Reviewing reactions in the three countries to the news from Arusha, Hilal Sued reported varied responses in Tanzania. Sceptics had spoken about a ‘coalition of dictatorial forces’ and referred to the growing enthusiasm for a Tanganyika government in Tanzania, the recreation of monarchies in Uganda and the dedication of Kenyans to ‘eating each others1 livers1. In the same issue AFRICA EVENTS republished Julius Nyerere’s historic paper, written in June 1960, appealing to the East African countries, before any of them had became independent, to set up a federation. But, when, in 1964 after independence the presidents of Uganda and Tanzania had requested Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta to become the first federal President he had refused. That had been the end of any serious East African unity.

THE LIFE OF SPICE
Under this heading Alexander Frater (THE OBSERVER LIFE January 9) ‘soaked up Zanzibar’s spicy past and fragrant present1. Extracts: ‘In the morning I headed for the old English Club, now a sleazy hotel which I had visited in 1988. Then the manager, selecting a large black key, had opened up the Club Library and allowed me into a dark room lined by glass-fronted bookcases containing hundreds of volumes dating back to the mid-19th century. There were first editions of Dickens and Kipling, books about Queen Victoria, the Boer War, pig sticking in the Punjab, memoirs of dead missionaries, biographies of forgotten politicians … a rare trawl of remarkable period material. Today, though, the manager could not be found. I peered through the keyhole and saw the bookcases standing empty. A sallow Pole, one of the Hotel’s long-term residents, said the books had probably been used for fuel during some routine power cut’. (Thank you Stephen Williams for this and the next item – Ed).

CHILD LABOUR
‘Nine-year old Rajab Hamisi balances a tin of sand on his left shoulder. He shifts it to the right shoulder as he gazes at cars speeding along the busy accident-prone Nelson Mandela Express Way in Dar es Salaam before he crosses to the other side to sell it to builders. “My son is a great help” says his mother “I cannot feed my children without his help”. The International Labour Organisation Office in Dar es Salaam is said to be concerned abut the alarming increase of child labour cases in Tanzania. According to SOCIETY in its October 1993 issue, nearly 3 million Tanzanian children between 10 and 14 years are working in various sectors including factories where they are exposed to machinery injuries and chemical poisoning. The Government has established a Shs 500 million (US$1.0 million) fund to help young people but this was described in the article as very minimal.

POISONED ARROWS USED IN ATTACK ON TOURISTS
Poachers were probably behind an attack on a group of tourists in Tanzania in which one of the tourists, a Mr Collier from Vancouver (30), died one hour after being hit by a poisoned arrow, according to the TIMES (February 23). The attack occurred at a remote camp site on the edge of the Serengeti National Park near Lake Victoria. ‘Only two tribes in the region still understand the art of poison preparation. The power of the paste on the arrow which killed Mr Collier indicates that it had been prepared to kill a large animal. ..I After the attack local people held a memorial service for Mr Collier. They had been shocked and revolted by what had occurred….’ (Thank you Christine Lawrence for this item – Ed )

“WHY SHOULD THE ANIMALS LIVE?”
An article in the JOHANNESBURG STAR (February 1994) expressing concern about the future of the Kruger National Park in South Africa began with these words: ‘When Julius Nyerere, first President of Tanzania, was asked what would become of the Serengeti Game Reserve after Tanganyika gained independence in 1961 he reportedly replied “Why should the animals live if my people are dying of hunger?”. It was not an unreasonable response. Serengeti had been an important source of food for centuries. Its proclamation as a game sanctuary came only after the advent of the white man who, with his rifle, wrought considerably more damage to the vast herds than any poacher’s trap …. conservationists waited in alarm to see what would become of the park. Would it become a source of cheap meat for the masses? . . . Yet, in spite of the fears, Serengeti has survived as one of the world’s most spectacular tourist attractions … Lovers of the Kruger National Park are reacting with much the same alarm…..’

CHANGES IN SHIPPING AND BANKING
Although the greater part of the text of a 7-page supplement in LLOYDS LIST (February 21) was devoted to Kenya, Tanzania dominated the supporting advertising with half of the 18 advertisements coming from such organisations as the Chinese-Tanzanian Joint Shipping Company (‘The Largest Shipping Company in East Africa’) TAZARA (‘A Big Name In Freight Traffic’), Tanzania Harbours Authority (‘Profit From Our $300 Million Face-lift’) and Tanzania Railways Corporation (‘Save Time and Money, Use TRC’).

The first article expressed some optimism about all three countries in the region following the recent ‘Treaty for Enhanced East African Cooperation’. This was described as a serious, if tentative and fragile move, which could herald the beginning of regional cooperation at levels totally unprecedented since the collapse of the East African Community. (The relatively modest objectives are to create a free trade area and gradually build on joint institutions which are still functioning rather than to recreate the East African Community which collapsed in 1977 – Editor)

The Tanzanian Harbours Authority was said to be launching a study aimed at investigating which areas of the port could be privatised successfully in view of the competition now being offered by South Africa in supplying the landlocked hinterland countries. The container yard was likely to be the first part. Although the trend was towards containerisation, Dar es Salaam Port still received a substantial amount of bulk cargo particularly grain and fertilisers for Malawi and Zambia.

Under the heading ‘Untapped Potential Lies at the Heart of the Tanzanian Economy’ a rosy picture was painted of the potential for development although it was admitted that there was not a single good big business in Tanzania at present. The continuing liberalisation of Tanzania’s banking and financial institutions was seen as the linchpin to the country’s recovery (Thank you Brian Hodqson for these items – Ed).

‘TANZANIE – L’APPEL DE LA BROUSSE’
Under this heading the French journal GRANDS REPORTAGE (January) presented 16 pages of beautiful illustrations of Tanzania’s wildlife. The text was minimal but included an abundance of glowing adjectives – ‘lacs roses de flamants’, ‘baobabs elephantesques’, ‘Masaai eblouissants’, ‘les gracieuses gazelles de Thomson’, ‘cette Afrique serene’…..

JUMPING PLANT LICE
Tanzania, according to SOCIETY (October 4 1993) cuts down about 400,000 hectares of forest each year and only reafforests 20,000. Now it is facing a new threat to its forestry resource. Jumping Plant Lice (Leucaena psyllid) have been spotted along the coast and are threatening the Leucaena tree which has been promoted to fertilise and conserve the soil and can also be used for timber, firewood, charcoal, fodder and as a hedge. The psyllids attack leaves and shoots and can cause wilting, defoliation and later plant starvation leading to death. They originated in South America and spread from there to Madagascar and Mauritius before reaching the East African coast. Insecticides can be used against the pest but are expensive. Research is now being concentrated on finding resistant varieties and parasitic wasps – (Thank you Stephen Williams for this story – Ed).

PAN-AFRICAN CONGRESS SUSPENDS THE ARMED STRUGGLE
According to the JOHANNESBURG STAR INTERNATIONAL (March 13- 19) South Africa’s Pan-Africanist Congress has announced the suspension of its armed struggle. There had been an escalation of attacks on whites at the beginning of the year by alleged operatives of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA). The GUARDIAN and the TIMES had stated earlier that there had been a crisis meeting of the PAC Senior leadership on January 15th. The most critical issue facing them had been the declaration from Tanzania’s foreign ministry barring the PAC and APLA , which had their headquarters in Dar es Salaam, from using the country to plot hostile action against South Africa. For decades Tanzania had been the PAC’s staunchest supporter. But PAC President Clarence Makwetta was later said to have denied that the Tanzanian (and similar Zimbabwean) action had had any influence on the decision. (Thank you Christine Lawrence for part of this story – Ed).

PRINCESS GRACE OF MONACO
THE TIMES (March 11) presented extracts from 117 letters written by the late Princess Grace of Monaco which were auctioned recently. They were said to reveal her as a practical, thoroughly modern good-time girl who manipulated men in the film industry as much as they had manipulated her. One extract, written when she was in East Africa for six months shooting the 1963 film ‘Mogambo’ was as follows: ‘Yesterday we had a day off. Clark Gable and I rode in a jeep for three hours to get to Bukoba – the nearest town on Lake Victoria. We had a horrible lunch at the hotel there and then a delicious swim in the lake. We had to go in in our underwear – it was a riot as you can well imagine’. Later she ‘can’t resist’ stealing some headed notepaper from government House in Uganda ……( Thank you Simon Hardwick for this extract – Ed) .

ONLY 18 YEARS SUPPLY LEFT
Mike Read of the UK’s ‘Flora Preservation Society’ said on RADIO 3 (January 8) in the programme ‘Music Matters’ that Tanzania is the main supplier of African Blackwood for the making of musical instruments. However, he went on, ‘Tanzania has only 18 years supply of this timber left in its forests’. (Thank you Jane Carroll for this item – Ed).

LONG-TERM DISCRIMINATION
The ANNUAL REPORT (1992-93) OF THE REFUGEE STUDIES PROGRAMME of Oxford University contained an intriguing story arising from a chance meeting following research in Somalia. Two hundred years ago a group of Zigua people from the Tanzanian coast were sold into slavery in Somalia. Through an uprising they gained their freedom. Unable to make the long journey back to their homeland they settled along the Juba river. They suffered many privations – attempts to recapture them, subsequent compulsory labour for British and Italian colonisers, discrimination when some of them adopted Christianity. The efforts of some to assimilate through language and religion did not seem to have improved their position. Some 20,000 however retained their language. In recent years they had to flee Somalia but they reject the notion that they are refugees. Unaware of their history, the Tanzanian government is said to have insisted that they be treated like other Somalis in refugee camps. ‘Not surprisingly, former slaves and former masters do not make peaceful bedfellows ‘…….(Thank you Alex Vines for this item – Ed)

FATHER ROBIN’S ‘AROBAINI’
‘Our last major event before Christmas was to hold Father Robin Lamburn’s ‘Arobaini’ (forty in Swahili). This is a Muslim custom which has been adopted locally. Forty days after a person’s burial people gather together to mark the end of the official mourning period. Villagers kept vigil by the grave on the night before as they had done the night before his burial. The day of the ‘Arobaini’ began with a celebratory mass, which was followed by a meal (for more than 500 people!) and speeches in honour of Father Lamburn’ – Jenny and Geoff O’Donoghue in the RUFIJI LEPROSY TRUST NEWSLETTER NO. 16.

TANZANIA COMES THIRD IN THE WORLD AND FIRST IN AFRICA
The ANNUAL REVIEW OF BRITISH AID TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES for 1993 has revealed that Tanzania came third in the world in terms of bilateral aid granted. It received £62 million following India (£115 million) and Bangladesh (£66 million). The next largest recipients in order of magnitude were Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya, China, Uganda and Pakistan.

NEW HEIR TO THE CHIEFDOM
Mr Andrew Fraser (42), one of the sons of Brigadier Lord Lovet (one of the first to land in Normandy on D-Day), the Master of Lovat, one of Britain’s oldest peerages and also Chief of Clan Fraser of Lovat, was killed by a charging buffalo while on a hunting trip in Tanzania. Two weeks later his elder brother, Mr Simon Fraser, collapsed and died during a drag hunt at the family seat, Beaufort Castle in Inverness-shire. The new heir Simon Fraser (17) is described by a friend as being keen on riding, shooting and other country sports (DAILY TELEGRAPH, March 28).

‘GHOSTS’ IN DAR ES SALAAM
Late night revellers in Dar es Salaam, according to NEW AFRICAN (February), are claiming that ‘ghosts’ are haunting the bars and dark streets of the city. One man, who was said to be too frightened to reveal his name, described how a ghost walked into a bar in Kinondoni – the ghost was entirely shrouded from head to toe in soiled white bandages. He said the ghost approached him and, in a hoarse voice, demanded beer, claiming that “even the dead need a drink”. Then the gaunt figure summoned other ‘ghosts’ who emerged from a nearby banana grove. They all wore shrouds. ..and walked very slowly, dragging their feet. The temperature in the bar fell to such an extent that the customers started shivering. After drinks for all, the chief ghost told his followers it was time to return to the underworld. But before they went they made a round of the bar collecting money, watches and gold chains from the terrified clients. The ghosts threatened that anyone trying to flee would be struck dead….,

ONCHOCERCIASIS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WAS THOUGHT IN KILOSA
CHARIOT, the Newsletter of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, reported (April 1994) that Tanzanian student Abraham Muro had successfully defended his thesis in what was described as an extremely ambitious programme on the epidemiology of Onchocerciasis. This disease is most prevalent in West Africa and better known as River Blindness. His work has indicated that the disease is more important in Kilosa than hitherto thought. (Thank you John Sankey for this item – Editor).

TANZANIA COMES CLOSE TO WINNING
Tanzania’s soccer team has long been in the doldrums. President Mwinyi has described them as like ‘heads of madmen on which barbers learn to shave’ (NEW AFRICAN, February). But when the Dar es Salaam Simba club reached the finals of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) 1993 Club Championships by holding Stella Abidjan of Cote d’Ivoire to a draw, the entire nation was said to have gone wild. Businessman Azim Dewji promised to give each player a Toyota car. Unfortunately, in the final in Dar es Salaam the crowd were bitterly disappointed when Simba were beaten 2-0 by Stella.

SONGS WITH MEANING
No one in Tanzania is more popular than the Zairean singer Remmy Ongala wrote NEW AFRICAN in its May issue. ‘He has stirred up a furore with his latest hit Kilio cha samaki – the cry of the fish. He says that the fish is oppressed because the people hunt it for food. People do not hear its cries’. But Tanzania” rulers were said to be convinced that Ongala’s songs are mocking them. The story of the fish is really an allegory with the fish representing the oppressed masses and the cruel fisherman the ruling party CCM.

THE FIRST OF THEIR KIND
AFRICAN BUSINESS featured a photograph in its October 1993 issue of one of two GT10 gas turbine engines being provided by SIDA and NORAD for delivery to the Tanzania Electricity Supply Company for its US$28 million power-plant project. The two turbines, each of 10 megawatts, will be the first of their kind to be installed outside Europe or the USA. They are to be sited at the Ubungo Power Station in Dar es Salaam and should be operational by February 1994.

GIVE DEMOCRACY A CHANCE
A Danish reader of NEW AFRICAN complained in its December issue about what he described as the superficial coverage being given to the introduction of democracy in Tanzania. ‘It takes time, peace and stability to build a proper multi-party environment … time to transform property ownership, trade regulations, the fora for open debate etc. Both the government and the opposition need to learn and adapt to the new rules of the game. A transitional period of four or five years is needed … What we are seeing in Tanzania is a collective learning process where new relations, ideas and policies will be formulated and put into practice. Some complain that the process is too slow, that the old guard (the CCM) is manoeuvring into positions in preparation for the elections. But how does anyone think a new political and democratic order can emerge if not based on tribe, religion or region. This is what the Tanzanian government is trying to avoid … this is not ‘sceptical’; I call it wise’.

THE WHISKY ROUTE
‘To avoid the crowds trudging up the tourist track and to bring an element of adventure into the ascent we settled for taking seven days and a route on the map that looked blissfully simple. After the Horombo hut we would contour around in a north westerly direction, then stroll up the Credner Glacier on to the northern icefields with a final traverse south to the actual summit’ So wrote Richard Else describing his struggle to climb Kilimanjaro in the GUARDIAN WEEKEND (September 25). The guide, a former Park Ranger summed up the trip – “others do the Coke trail; you are doing the Whisky route!”

A TRAGEDY
The fossil footprint trail that Mary Leakey and a group of archaeologists uncovered at Laetoli in Northern Tanzania in 1978-79 had been made by three individuals who walked across a patch of wet volcanic ash over 3.6 million years ago. “Those footprints are more precious than the pyramids” according to California University Professor Clark Howell quoted in THE GUARDIAN (December 2). But, between 30 and 50 per cent of the trail has been destroyed by neglect since it was discovered – just 14 years ago. “It is a tragedy” he said. The lengthy article went on to list a series of misunderstandings, personality clashes, budgetary and other problems which have brought this situation about. (Thank you Elsbeth Court for this contribution – Ed)

A GIANT MISTAKE
The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) was quoted in AFRICA EVENTS (October) as stating that the massive CIDA-assisted Tanzanian Wheat Project started two decades ago on Tanzania’s northern Savannah was a giant mistake. The much criticised project, which, nevertheless resulted in massive production of wheat, was said to have failed because CIDA tried to develop high-tech. farms on areas unsuited for such advanced agricultural practices. After spending $200 million Canada is now calling it a day. It is leaving behind huge social problems – a complicated land-tenure system and cases of human rights violations, including sexual abuse of Barabaig women and the burning down of Barabaig houses by staff of the National Agricultural and Food corporation (NAFCO). The article quotes reliable sources as stating that the wheat farms are to be recast for privatisation.

THE LIVINGSTONE TREK
One of the most surprising findings of the marathon three-month trek retracing David Livingstone’s last journey in Africa 120 years ago, which has just been completed (Bulletin No 46) was the potency of the Livingstone name reported THE TIMES on December 6th. Dr. David Livingstone Wilson, great grandson of the Scottish missionary was mobbed everywhere he went in Tanzania. “People rushed to shake his hand. Even the memorials were found to be still intact” the team leader said.

RADIO TUMAINI
The Italian monthly NIGRIZIA reported in its October issue that the Archdiocese of Dar es Salaam was intending to inaugurate a new Radio station in November 1993 to be known as ‘Radio Tumaini’. Members of the diocese were requested to help with the operating costs of the station.

NO FEAR OF BECOMING AN ENDANGERED SPECIES
Although the traditional ‘dhobie’ (washer-man) is seeing his market gradually disappear with the spread of modern electric washing machines, in the narrow streets of Zanzibar, according to AFRICA EVENTS ( September) they have little to fear. “Electricity goes off every other hour” says one “so my charcoal battleship (iron) still comes in handy”. Until they invent a dhobie that can do the ironing as well as the washing their job looks secure.

WALKING ON WATER
The BANGKOK POST (October 28, 1993) published a story from Dar es Salaam which stated that nine Tanzanian pupils and a Seventh Day Adventist priest who had tried to walk on water, like Jesus Christ, had drowned in Lake Victoria. They were said to have been travelling in a flotilla of canoes headed for a religious festival when they decided to make the watery walk as a test of faith.

THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO ARE MELTING
Only five per cent of Mount Kilimanjaro’s permanent ice cap is now left according to an article in the SUNDAY TIMES (October 10) and scientists now fear that changes in climate, triggered by pollution or by clouds of dust thrown up by cattle and the burning of forests, are removing the glaciers that have awed visitors for centuries. If Kilimanjaro’s snow and ice continue to melt at the current rate the ice will disappear within forty years, according to John Temple, a mountaineer. “Since 1972 I have seen entire glaciers disappear” he said.

THE SWAHILIS
Reviewing the book Swahili Origins by James de Vere Allen, the FINANCIAL TIMES (August 21) stated that there is a long-running argument about the Swahilis. ‘There have never been more than half a million of them but they had – have – a remarkably sophisticated culture (magnificent architecture, a beautiful and poetic language, complex folk traditions). So who are they? The argument lies in the mix, the tension between their African and Arabian roots …. Allen believed that the Swahilis can be traced back, well before the Battle of Hastings, to the imperial town of Shungwayo – one of the great enigmas of East African historiography. The snag is that Shungwayo has never been found. Until the archaeologists dig it up it will remain merely a legend and the critics will continue to scoff.

Allen believed in an African essence to the Swahili identity but this is disputed by other academics. ‘The book contains all sorts of incidental details. We shall not easily forget, for example, the Shungwayo ruler who fell from grace not because he deflowered the Coast virgins (which was his imperial right) but because he did so with his big toe ….. ‘

THE LOST TRIBE
Under this heading AFRICA EVENTS (July) presented the extraordinary story of a group of mainly Makua people being held in Zanzibar in 1873, waiting to be shipped off to slavery, who were rescued by the anti-slavery ship HMS Britain and taken as indentured labourers to Durban in South Africa. They were later joined by some 500 Zanzibaris. After the period of indenture in 1899 they bought, under a ‘Mohammedan Trust’, some 43 acres of land and became self-sufficient. They built their own mosque and prayed together. The coming of apartheid created problems of classification. First they were classified as Africans, then as Coloureds, then as Indians and finally as ‘other Asians’. They became known as the ‘Lost Tribe’ and now number some 10,000. They have lost control of their land, have become widely dispersed and the article expresses the fear that ‘this rich cultural heritage which has survived more than a century may die out altogether’.

SOUTH AFRICA GETS A TASTE FOR TANZANIAN BEER
It was under this heading that AFRICA ANALYSIS (November 26) reported the purchase by South African Breweries of a 50% stake in the state-owned Tanzanian Breweries which is being privatised. The US$28 million purchase was said to be only the latest in a stream of investments by South African in blackruled countries. The cash will help pay for the construction of a new brewery in Mwanza and the upgrading of plants in Dar es Salaam and Arusha.

TANZANIAN COUTURIER
32-year old Tanzanian costume designer Kassim Mikki was quoted in an illustrated article in THE TIMES MAGAZINE (September 4, 1993) as planning to ‘paint the Paris catwalk every African tone under the sun, from saffron to boa blue when the sultry, spicy tones of Zanzibar come alive at his debut collections for spring-summer 1994’. Mikki is based in a studio in Dar es Salaam and considers that he has at least one advantage over other designers. He does not have to spend weeks agonising over which weight of silk organza to use. He has only one fabric – cotton. “We use a high quality raw material which we then dye and weave to get different textures”. His clothes ‘flatter and cocoon a woman’s body, just as effortlessly as Azzedine Alaia or Gianni Versace, but at a realistic price’.

GLOOMY JOURNEY
‘There is not much left of Bagamoyo these days. It has become what it was in the beginning, a somnolent backwater lost on a low coast at the end of a bad road. Campaign charts of a lost battle, maps of mould and lichen grow large on the walls of imperial buildings in ruin. Wooden stick ribs protrude from the sides of crumbling mud huts. Green bush and tropical lethargy encroach everywhere. Even chickens peck languidly in Bagamoyo’. So began a gloomy account by The FINANCIAL TIMES’s Nicholas Woodsworth (September 1) of a journey to the ‘Heart of an Anguished Continent’. The train from Morogoro to Tabora was no better ‘carriages overcrowded, conductors bullying, toilets smelly, dining car less than epicurean … ‘ Tabora itself was ‘foundering’ – ‘mudbrown water and wriggling insect larvae dribbled out of the tap in the dilapidated Railway Hotel ….. ‘ (Thank you Barbara Halliburton for this item – Ed).

CHEAP FOOD AND DRINKS
As part of its regular series comparing Costs of Living around the world BUSINESS TRAVELLER (October 1993) reported that buying an alcoholic drink remains much cheaper in Tanzania than in most countries. Out of 36 countries listed, Tanzania, with an average cost per drink of US$2. 87 comes 28th. The price of the same drink in Japan would be US$16 and in Britain US$4.82. In another survey (November 1993) the journal noted that the cost of a business dinner at US$31.25 in Tanzania compares well with average prices of $69.98 in the UK and $142.22 in Russia.

THE ELEPHANT SHREW
The work of one of the 92 research teams sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society in 1992 – a team which went to the Ruvu South Forest Reserve – was mentioned in the GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE (July 1993). It reported that the Black and Rufous Elephant Shrew (Rhyncochocyon petersi) had never been photographed before the Oxford University Njule expedition unearthed it from its den in the forest and that this was the first occasion in which one had been captured. The shrew is a diurnal, insectivorous creature which can grow to 50 centimetres in length and is concentrated in primary, undisturbed forest. ‘The data collected will be invaluable to the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania in furthering its efforts to protect the coastal forests from further destruction.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS
In an article full of nostalgia about air travel in Africa in the ‘good, old days’, BUSINESS TRAVELLER (November 1993) recalled a Journey by flying boat in the 1930’s which included a collision with a fishing smack off Italy, descent into the swamps south of Khartoum followed by a a canoe trip to the Nile and a forced landing in Tanganyika where ‘a fleet of Model T’s ferried the passengers to the nearest airfield to continue their journey’. By 1937 British-built Empire flying boats, capable of 200 mph, had cut the flying time from London to Capetown to only four days and passengers were treated to an excursion via Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Lourenco Marques and Durban. Nowadays it takes 11 hours 35 minutes.

NOT AS FORBIDDING AS INDIA’S BUREAUCRACY
TRADING POST (Issue No 11) has been reporting on the trading experience of Traidcraft Exchange’s Overseas Business Development Services (OBDS) which has developed strong linkages with the Tabora Beekeepers Cooperative, the instant coffee factory in Bukoba, and Handico, which markets traditional crafts such as Maasai bookends. ~anager Murdoch Gatward has said that Traidcraft is known 1n more senior levels of the state in Tanzania than anywhere else in the world ‘due to the relatively easy access to the senior civil service, in comparison with something as forbidding as India’s bureaucracy’. “We are looking towards a promising future in Tanzania” he said. (Thank you Christine Lawrence for this item – Ed).

JAMBO TANZANIA!
This was the heading of a colourful page in a recent issue of THE YOUNG TELEGRAPH which mentioned the visit to Tanzania of the Duchess of Kent in her capacity as patron of UNICEF UK. Among UNICEF projects mentioned was the Kuleana (Swahili for helping each other) Street Kids’ Centre in Mwanza. Street kids can call into the centre at any time, take a shower, learn to read or just paint and make models from bits of garbage. Most importantly they can be safe, make friends and feel they are part of a family. (Thank you Paul Marchant for this item).

COMMUNITY RADIO
As part of its October 1993 cover story on the ‘Media in Africa’ AFRICA EVENTS’ Ahmed Rajab referred to various efforts made in Tanzania over the years to provide community radio. He mentioned a number of 1970’s campaigns such as Uchaguzi ni Wako (the Choice is Yours – on the general election), Wakati wa Furaha (Time for Rejoicing – about the tenth anniversary of independence) and the highly successful Mtu ni Afya (Man is Health education campaign of 1973). ‘However’, he wrote, ‘the Tanzanian experiment was hampered by the constraint of control. The initiative had always come from the top. This went in tandem with the reluctance of those who directed the initiatives to give freedom to the consumers of radio messages to be able to originate their own messages.’

NYERERE AND NKRUMAH
Analysing the issues facing the Pan-African movement prior to its recent 7th Conference in Uganda, AFRICA EVENTS compared the Nyerere and Nkrumah approaches to African unity. It stated that they were both right and they were both wrong. The more radical Nkrumah was right about the need for African unity but wrong in his proposal for an instant union government. Nyerere (‘perhaps the only living senior African leader who actively participated in the great and acrimonious debate between the two in Cairo in 1964’) and who believed in gradualism and regional cooperation, was correct in recognising the practical problematics of African unity but time was to prove him wrong in his conviction that nationalism could be relied on to build African unity. Nationalism and the residual pull of the metropolitan countries proved to be real obstacles.

THE F L K KARONGO
Reporting the recent death at 92 of the second Mrs (Frida) Leakey the GUARDIAN (October 14) reported that, while working with the famous Dr. Leakey at the Olduvai Gorge, she became an expert in the drawing of hand tools. Among her important finds was a fossil site in a side gully which was later named the FLK – Frida Leakey Karongo (meaning gully).

THE DOWNING STREET YEARS
Margaret Thatcher’s international best selling book THE DOWNING STREET YEARS includes at least two references to Tanzania. She first recalls how she had to rush back from her country residence at Chequers to deal with the crisis caused one Sunday in the early eighties when an aircraft was hijacked from Tanzania to Stanstead airport near London.

Lady Thatcher also mentions briefly a meeting with Mwalimu Nyerere at a summit gathering at Cancun in Mexico. “Julius Nyerere was, as ever, charmingly persuasive, but equally misguided and unrealistic about what was wrong with his own country and, by extension, much of black Africa. He told me how unfair the IMF conditions for extending credit to him were: they had told him to bring Tanzania’ s public finances into order, cut protection and devalue his currency. Perhaps at this time the IMF’s demands were somewhat too rigorous: but he did not see that changes in this direction were necessary at all and in his own country’s long-term interests. He also complained of the effect of droughts and the collapse of his country’s agriculture – none of which he seemed to connect with the pursuit of misguided socialist policies, including collectivizing the farms”.

WHY THE FOOTBALL VANISHED
It was a first division football match in Moshi between Pamba from Mwanza and Ushirika from Moshi. According to NEW AFRICAN (October) a few minutes before the final whistle, with Ushirika in the lead, Pamba’s star player, Alphonse Modest, kicked the ball out of the ground. And then the ball ‘went missing’. After 20 minutes of searching the referee blew his whistle and the match was over. But some time later a passerby found the deflated ball just where everybody had been looking for it. Even more mysterious was the fact that no-one in Moshi seemed to have a spare. ‘No satisfactory explanation has been forthcoming except the theory that juju once again played its part in African football. Ushirika players said that Pamba comes from a region famed for its juju – “old ladies have been killed simply because they have red eyes”. Ushirika, on the other hand, came from a region which had lost most of its traditional arts including juju’. What about the lack of a spare ball? “That is because at the time everyone was hypnotised to forget about the spare ball” one of the Ushirika players said.

This note was accompanied by a cartoon by a well-known Tanzanian cartoonist in which a group of players were shown saying “I’m telling you, one of these days they are going to make the referee disappear … “!

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TANZANIA AND GOLDMAN SACHS?
The GUARDIAN asked this question on December 10th. The answer: ‘One is an African country that makes $2.2 billion a year and shares it among 25 million people. Goldman Sachs is an investment bank that makes $2.6 billion and shares most of it between 161 people ….. ‘

TANZANIA COULD GET US$ 1.2 BILLION
At the Consultative Group meeting of 16 countries and eight bilateral and multilateral institutions in Paris on July 12 donors agreed, on the basis of accelerated economic reform, to provide Tanzania with up to US$ 1.2 billion for the coming year – $840 million of project assistance and $360 million of balance of payments support. WORLD BANK NEWS (July15) wrote that donors had welcomed recent progress in opening Tanzanian society to more democratic processes but had expressed concern that the pace of economic reform was inadequate to put Tanzania on a sustainable growth path. They had counselled against continued dependency on flows of external assistance, a risky strategy given the rapidly changing aid situation. They noted the continuing gap between announced intentions and actual delivery of reforms particularly with regard to the fiscal and parastatal reforms. (Bulletin No. 45). The Government of Tanzania had reiterated its commitment to enhancing the role of the private sector.

THE BRAILLE PRESS
SIGHTSAVERS, the journal of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind in its Spring 1993 issue explained how the ‘stereotyper’ at the Braille Press in Dar es Salaam produces metal plates used to emboss Braille paper. The Press transcribes books for primary education. Now its output has been greatly increased so that as well as being able to produce computer discs to drive embossers, it can also generate aluminium plates (Thank you reader Paul Marchant for this item – Editor).

CUSTOMARY LAND TENURE LAW AND THE BARABAIG
SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER (No 31, 1993) referred in its issue No 31 (1993) to recent developments in the 10-year struggle of the Barabaig people ‘fighting for their land rights’ in an area developed by the Government, with substantial Canadian help. into a vast wheat production scheme. The article reported that Tanzania’s Parliament had passed a law in 1992 which had abolished virtually all customary land tenure in the country and had done it retrospectively. The Barabaig court case had thus been made invalid at one stroke. Lawyers acting for the Barabaig were maintaining that this law was itself invalid as it contravened the right to security of property in the Tanzanian constitution. (Thank you reader Christine Lawrence for this item – Editor).

THE PERSIAN FACTOR IN KISWAHILI
Muhsin Alidina of the Institute of Kiswahili Research at the University of Dar es Salaam, writing in the May issue of AFRICA EVENTS, argued for the importance of Persian words in the make-up of Kiswahili. He quoted an authority as having said that there are 78 words which may have been ‘borrowed’ directly and at least 26 others that may have entered the language through indirect contact, perhaps though Arabic. He provided lots of examples: In a Swahili household one would be served with pilau or biriani and sambusa with limau and pilipili and perhaps bilingani (egg plant) and dengu (lentils). The food would be served on a jamvi (mat). You might need ice (barafu – another word of Persian origin) in your water.

The writer stated that the present composition of Kiswahili is as follows:
Bantu 72.17%
Arabic 23.09%
Persian 1.57%
English 2.09%
Hindi 1.04%
plus lexical borrowings (loan-words) from Portuguese, German, French and Chinese.

ADD A DASH OF TANZANIA TO YOUR COOKING
An unusual way of raising funds to make it possible to participate in one of Health Projects Abroad’s projects (in Tabora) was reported in the MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS. With the help of contacts in the British Council, Anna Aguma has produced an attractively illustrated 31-page booklet of Tanzanian recipes under the title ‘Add a Taste of Tanzania to Your Cooking’, Copies can be obtained @ £2.50 (incl. p&p) from her at P 0 Box 29, Levenshulme Manchester M19 2JA. (Thank you reader Cuthbert Kimamba for item).

SWITZERLAND, FRANCE AND BELGIUM
In its most recent issue URAFIKI TANZANIA, the journal of the French Society ‘Amities Franco-Tanzaniennes’ described Swiss attitudes to Tanzania – ‘It is a country which has always been the subject of different and usually passionately expressed analysis because of the exemplary nature of its original experiences. I am not sure that Tanzania’s return to what might be described as international norms will change this situation’.

The journal also quoted from a long article in POLITIQUE AFRICAINE on Democracy in Tanzania in which a similar conclusion had been drawn – ‘La Tanzanie continue de suivre un cours singulier sur le continent africaine …. depuis le debut de 1990, le debat (on democracy) n’a cesse de se developer, notamment pour savoir s’i1 va1ait mieux conserver un systeme politique a parti unique ou passer au mu1tipartisme … ‘
URAFIKI TANZANIA also advertised a Belgian OXFAM exhibition of Tanzanian art scheduled to run from June to September 1993 at. the ‘Archives et Musee du Mouvement Ouvrier Socialiste’ at Gand.

ZERO GRAZING
At Dareda in Babati District the FINANCIAL TIMES reported (June 22, 1993) that the small herds of goats owned by most families are not only grossly inefficient for both milk and meat production, but as they roam the village, are also denuding the area of vegetation and trees. The British-based charity ‘Farm Africa’ recommends to the women (who do most of the work in farming) that they erect small huts for the goats and keep them confined all the time. The feed is then cut and carried to them by a system called ‘zero grazing’. The paradox is that animal welfarists in the West condemn such systems for limiting the movement of animals. In Tanzania however, the article goes on, the priorities are different and damage to the environment leading to lack of food and soil erosion is seen as the most important considerations (Thank you reader Hugh Leslie for this item – Editor).

SWAHILI SERVICES MOVE
After nineteen years a Swahili-speaking Congregation of many different denominations has moved from the Lutheran Church House for its Sunday worship to St. Anne and St. Agnes Church which is at the corner of Gresham St. and Noble St. in London. Announcing this in its June issue LUTHERANS IN LONDON stated that more than 100 East Africans attend the services.

A VANISHED AGE
writing about the development of studies in African history John McCracken in AFRICAN AFFAIRS (April 1993) described what he considered to be the well-funded ‘vanished age’ of the 1960’s. He mentioned John Iliffe’s book ‘Modern History of Tanganyika’ published in 1969 as an example of British Africanist scholarship at its best. ‘Based on an extraordinarily comprehensive investigation of both primary and secondary sources, Iliffe’s massive study bore witness to the greatest single potential strength possessed by British Africanists of his generation – the fact that so many of us had the opportunity to work in African universities. At one level it reached back into the 1960’ s in its then unfashionable reassertion of the significance of African ideas and agencies; on another, it pioneered themes that would come to be seen as of increasing importance in the 1980’s; notably the changing nature of African ethnicity (“the creation of tribes”) and the causes and consequences of ecological change … it provided its readers with history of an African territory … of a coherence, depth and style that none of the modern histories of Britain published over the last 20 years have begun to approach – though it is salutary to note that among the neo-Marxists who followed Iliffe to Dar es Salaam in the 1970’s it failed to win acceptance. In the standard ‘radical pessimist’ account of Tanzanian historiography, Iliffe’s work is relegated to a footnote and categorised … as ‘pure bourgeoise’ in its celebration of market forces’.

LIVINGSTONE’S GREAT TREK
The TIMES has reported that Livingstone’s great grandson, Dr. David Livingstone Wilson (67), a retired family doctor, is a member of an expedition retracing the famous explorer’s final epic journey. The four-month expedition was to start in Zanzibar and go via Bagamoyo to Ujiji where Henry Morton Stanley stumbled upon Livingstone in 1871. The expedition would then proceed to Lake Bangweulu in Zambia, which was where Dr. Livingstone died from dysentery and haemorrhage two years later. Dr. Wilson was born in Africa and was brought up there until he was ten. Where, in 1873 Livingstone relied on sextant and compass for navigation, Dr. Wilson was to be guided by three satellites and a computerised global positioning system.

ECOLOGISTS LOCK HORNS WITH TANZANIA
In what has become known as the ‘Loliondogate Scandal’ enraged environmentalists are in battle with the Government over the granting of hunting rights to the United Arab Emirate’s Brigadier Mohamed Abdul Rahim al Ali. Summarising the matter, which has raised a storm of protest in Tanzania, AFRICA EVENTS (July 1993) explained that the Prince had made friends in 1984 with the Tanzanian elite and had allegedly presented some gifts. 20 years later he has been granted a 10- year lease enabling him to hunt with his friends (67 people were said to have accompanied him on a January visit to Tanzania) in the Loliondo Game Reserve. The Director of Wildlife was said to have opposed the move as it would deprive registered hunting operators of the opportunity to conduct paid hunting safaris. However, it is believed that the Brigadier has paid a substantial sum for the lease. He is also said to have paid US$ 2.0 million for his hunting expeditions in 1991 and 1992 during which, the article claims, the Brigadier’s party shot indiscriminately and killed or maimed many animals.

WHO IS TO BLAME?
Commenting on the recent widely publicised attack by OXFAM on what it described as the failed IMF and World Bank structural adjustment policies in Africa, the FINANCIAL TIMES (April 29, 1993) admitted that the IMF and the Bank were hard pressed to find an African country where structural adjustment had led to a sustained recovery that had not been supported by continuing aid. But, the paper wrote, OXFAM’s proposals would be enhanced by a more detached and comprehensive examination of the causes of Africa’s crisis. ‘OXFAM’ puts most of the blame on external villains …… a markedly more cautious and inhibited approach characterises OXFAM’s analysis of Africa’s shortcomings, past and present. Zaire’s Mobuto and Malawi’s Banda are roundly and rightly condemned; but there is no appraisal, for example, of ex-President Julius Nyerere’s disastrous pursuit of African socialism in Tanzania …. ‘

CDC’S GROWING INVOLVEMENT IN TANZANIA
The Commonwealth Development Corporation’s DEVELOPMENT REPORT (May 1993) and the Annual Report for 1992 wrote about CDC’s growing participation in development in Tanzania. It referred to its oldest investment in forestry, the Tanganyika Wattle Company, which is now producing, on what was once unproductive grassland, 5,000 tons of wattle extract, 10,000 tons of fuel wood and 3,600 tons of sawn timber; the Kilombero Valley Teak Company, established in 1992 which is planning to produce 50,000 telephone poles, 300,000 building poles and 23,000 cubic metres of firewood with the first production expected in 2001; the Tanzania Development Finance Co Ltd, the most important. source of medium foreign exchange loan funds; the Tanzania Venture Capital Fund Ltd providing equity finance for small entrepreneurs; the Fatemi Sisal Estate which it is hoped will produce some 8.000 tons of sisal for export after an eight-year rehabilitation project; and, the East Usambara Tea Company – which was featured in Bulletin No 45.

A CIRCLE OF DEATH
‘I became afraid of the common Communion cup. This fear never diminished. I began to make sure that I sat in front in church so as to be at the head of the line going up to Communion; if I got behind anyone, I hoped it would be a missionary’. So wrote Gillian Goodwin in THE TABLET (June 12) describing her own fear of AIDS during her five years of teaching in Mwanza. Her article went on to describe the final days of a Ugandan friend who caught the dread disease (Thank you reader John Sankey for this item).

WHO ARE YOUR ROLE MODELS?
Asked, during an interview in AFRICAN CONCORD (February 1 1993) who were his role models, Chief M K 0 Abiola, one of the two candidates standing in the elections for the Presidency of Nigeria, selected two leaders. The first was John F Kennedy – for his charisma, his commitment and candour.

And second was President Nyerere. What qualities do you admire in him? he was asked. “His incorruptibility, his great belief in his ideals (although he hung on to them too long even when he knew that they were not working) … here is a President who would gladly fly in an economy seat, a man of God who believes that life should be a life of service. I met him at the summit of First Ladies in Geneva. He is a man of tremendous generosity. I will always remember him for the encouragement he gave me that day; he told me that I would soon not be just a chief but the most powerful of all chiefs. I am talking about someone whose attitude and whose policies to life and to people I want to emulate”.

‘IN A FEW YEARS DODOMA SHOULD BE A GREEN TOWN’
‘In 1973’ wrote Abdulrahman Said Mohammed in the April-June issue of the BBC’s FOCUS ON AFRICA MAGAZINE, ‘Tanzanians decided to move their capital inland from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma. But progress has been slow and not a single Embassy or High Commission had yet moved to Dodoma … The city is four times bigger than it was ten years ago and now boasts a population of 200,000 people … the Gogo people were the original inhabitants but few now live in the town centre. They have been displaced by the Chaga and Rangi, Indians and Arabs who dominate commerce and trade …. despite the Government’s apparent lack of enthusiasm, industry has been attracted to Dodoma. There are two bottling plants producing different kinds of wine, red port and Imaga brands. There are two printing presses … More than 5,000 new homes have been built … no buildings more than three stories high … emphasis on the use of burnt brick and tiles … and a modern sewerage system has been provided …. Millions of trees have been planted, creating a micro-climate, improving the rains and the scenery and reducing strong winds…. But, in spite of all this, Dodoma’s future is gloomy. As a new multi-party era dawns, more and more politicians contend that the transfer of the capital from Dar es Salaam is too costly for a country as poor as Tanzania’.

INDIRECT RULE
Reviewing a book called ‘Enigmatic Proconsul: Sir Philip Mitchell and the Twilight of Empire’ in the DAILY TELEGRAPH Elspeth Huxley wrote: It was in Tanganyika that (the Colonial Governor) Mitchell made his name as an exponent of indirect rule the system by which the colonial power governed through indigenous institutions such as chiefs, their councils of elders and so on. Education was his other priority. He concentrated on teaching an elite fitted to take over an eventual western-type democratic government. But when a hand-picked African elite did emerge, its members turned on their chiefs and elders and indirect rule passed into history’.

“TEA FORESTS RATHER THAN TEA BUSHES”
The problems involved in rehabilitating tea at the Eastern Usambara Tea Company’s Kwamkoro and Bulwa Estates were described by Judith Gerrardon in the CDC MAGAZINE No 2 1992. ‘During the 20 years prior to the Commonwealth Development Corporation’s arrival in 1988 the estates had been allowed to deteriorate. According to Estate Manager Chris Mselemu, during the period of parastatal management they had tea forests rather than tea bushes. The mountain road was impassable and the factories were run down. The workers were paid erratically. Now, four years later, it is hard to believe that so much has been achieved. virtually all the fields have been weeded and production has quadrupled ….. the road has been rebuilt … a satellite dish provides television for the first time in the workers recreation hall. … a government primary school is being built and a college for 400 was due to be opened in late 1992 ….. ‘but renovation is a slow process … it can sometimes be more expensive than starting again …. there were serious labour problems at the beginning, as, after 20 years of state ownership, the people in the area did not believe the new management would be any different from the old …… now 40% of the labour force is from the surrounding area ….. ‘

‘THIS MADDEST OF PURSUITS’
Martin Cropper, reviewing a book called ‘Hearts of Darkness’ by Frank McLynn in the SUNDAY TIMES had much to say_ Extracts:- ‘ … the pious and cyclothermic Livingstone; the brilliant melanothobe Burton; the height-challenged Stanley; the unspeakable John Hanning Speke who could hardly face dinner without first laying waste to the embryos of pregnant females he had slaughtered ….. What were these men doing in Africa? Suppressing the slave trade? But they inadvertently opened up new routes for the Arabs.: even the Royal Navy antislavery warships in the Zanzibar roads were supplied by slave labour. Spreading Christianity? But “Saint David” Livingstone himself never made a single permanent conversion. Spreading civilisation? Well, yes – civilisation as understood by the purveyors of firearms … The sheer captiousness of the great explorers, exacerbated by paranoia-fomenting malaria, beggars belief … (the book) concentrates on the pre-colonial actualities of this maddest of pursuits …. ‘

PRIVATE INITIATIVE, PUBLIC APATHY
Under this heading AFRICA EVENTS (March 1993) wrote about the ‘accelerated pulse of private activity in Tanzania pounding the economic arteries of the country …. on a scale unheard of six years ago’. ‘A mushroom carpet of new up-market houses is sweeping across empty lots of land around Dar es Salaam. Two-legged mobile stalls, in the shape of teenage boys, parade the streets, their outstretched arms each carrying half a dozen shirts of so on steel wire hangers, looking like walking urban scarecrows … 3 , 500 vehicles are imported every month, the bulk turning into taxis, minibuses and light goods transporters: …. in the outskirts of the town, drive-in roadside market gardens vie with developers for vacant niches of land: … the unemployed and the underpaid and the budding entrepreneurs are all jostling for release and fulfilment. It is no easy task. It would have been a damn sight easier if government played its part … but …. poor roads, telephones not good enough.. erratic power supply, suicidal Bank credit (30% interest) ….. and the most damaging aspect of official lethargy is the heightened intensity of bureaucracy and behind it the corruption … ‘.

TURNED INTO SEMI-DESERTS
Efforts over many years to curb environmental degradation in the Bariadi district of Tanzania have failed and some areas have turned into semi-deserts according to an article in DOWN TO EARTH (December 1992). They failed because they ignored the traditional knowledge of the people. The authors of the article praised what they described as the former sophisticated system of governance in the villages: one institution was the dagashida – a men-only community assembly that meets once or twice a year to formulate customary laws and to settle issues. The colonial state and later, the independent government, brought about a diminution in the authority of the dagashida but it survived because it retained power in two areas the state did not control – regulating the occult and organising defence against cattle raiding. At recently revived meetings of the dagashida the district authorities were called on to stop issuing permits for charcoal makers to cut trees, ensure that the people collaborated in the digging and maintaining of wells, restricting bush fires and so on. However, the authors noted that village leaders and petty politicians were beginning to show resentment. The author of the article concluded that we do not know where all this will lead to’.

CURBING THE PRESS
NEW AFRICAN (April 1993) quoted President Mwinyi as stating that “All the newspapers are against us. They have been calling us names until they have exhausted their bad vocabulary. We won’t tolerate further invective”. Shortly thereafter the Swahili newspapers MICHAPO (Palaver) and CHEKA (Laughter) were banned.

“CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN IS THE BEST THING YOU CAN DO”
The son of the mountaineer Chris Bonnington was recently found not guilty of a £10,000 burglary (DAILY TELEGRAPH January 12). Speaking of his vast relief Mr Bonnington (Sen.) said that he had taken his son, on bail awaiting trial, to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. “It is technically an easy mountain … but it was a rich and very good experience. Having something like this hanging over you is not pleasant … climbing a mountain is the best thing you can do. It focuses your mind on getting to the top” . The son is a musician with the pop group ‘Puro Sesso’ (Italian for ‘Pure Sex’) .

DOCTOR OF LAW FOR AN ALUMNI OF MAKERERE
President Museveni of Uganda awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (LLD) on Mwalimu Nyerere at Makerere University on January 29 1993. He gave five reasons for the award Nyerere’s support for the liberation struggles in Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, the welding of Tanzania into one united people, his clean leadership, his crusade for human development in the Third World and, of course, as most Ugandans remember, his being instrumental in the removal of Idi Amin Dada in 1979. But, as AFRICA EVENTS (March 1993) pointed out, it was ironical that, of the two previous similar awardees, one was none other than Idi Amin himself!

TANZANIA WITHDRAWS FROM THE WORLD CUP
Tanzania has withdrawn from the World Soccer Cup because of financial problems. NEW AFRICA (March 1993) stated that the team had no hope of qualifying after its 3-1 defeat by Zambia. Most of the players in the Zambia team perished in an air crash off Gabon at the end of April on their way to play Senegal.

SMUGGLING
TIME MAGAZINE published a lengthy cover story under the title ‘The Agony of Africa’ in its September 7th issue. On East Africa it wrote ‘Trade between Kenya and Tanzania is supposed to be closely regulated. At Namanga on the border, there are police, customs and immigration posts on either side …. but the boundary does not physically exist. Tanzanian instant coffee is smuggled into Kenya. Tanzania produces fresh milk that is sold in sachets but it has a short shelf life so Kenyan ultra-heat-treated milk is smuggled into Tanzania. Tanzanian gold, diamonds and emeralds come across the line; state controls on mining in Tanzania have made smuggling the export route of choice ……’

WITH HINDSIGHT
Would he, now that he was in retirement, and with hindsight, have done things differently, Mwalimu Nyerere was asked in a lengthy interview published in Volume Number 1 of AFRICA FORUM. “In the basic things, I would not change anything” he replied. “I do not think I would change the Arusha declaration. With hindsight, I would have tried to implement it differently. On nationalisation, either I would have nationalised more carefully or taken joint ventures with the owners, rather than nationalise outright”. On rural policies Mwalimu would have toned down ‘Siasa ni Kilimo” (Agriculture is Politics), the rallying cry of the Iringa Declaration that led to villagisation. “I would have tried to develop agriculture differently. Agriculture is very difficult to communalise. I would have emphasised the family but encouraged the people to work together. We wasted too much energy trying to develop community farming. We could have been more relaxed about it… but the object would have been exactly the same….”.

In his retirement Mwalimu was said to go every day to his farm, to inspect his cattle (most of them retirement presents from grateful citizens), work with a hand hoe, keep fit by walking ten miles some days – he dislikes an unfit appearance and has often told off officials who developed beer guts ….

ZAMBIA PULLS OUT
After failing to take off as scheduled on April 1st this year as scheduled, African Joint Services which was being planned as the forerunner of a regional airline of the Preferential Trade Area (PTA) for Eastern and Southern African States, has received a jolt according to the October issue of AFRICAN BUSINESS. Zambia, which had been one of the founder members with Tanzania and Uganda, has withdraw because of economic constraints. New partners are now being sought.

TANZANIA COMING INTO ITS OWN
In a lengthy and well illustrated article in the November 1992 issue of its publication HIGH LIFE, British Airways gave an update on safaris in Africa. ‘Tanzania’ the author wrote, ‘for so long overshadowed by Kenya’s booming safari trade, is at last coming into its own. Certainly, there is nothing to beat the spectacle of the wildebeest migration in the vast Serengeti plains. The greatest wildlife show on earth. I was there in February at the start of the rains when the plains are green and the wildebeest – all 1.2 million of them – were massed in the south of the park. It is an extraordinary sight. Most of the calves are born in the space of a couple of weeks. The day I arrived I saw only a handful. By the end of the week the plains were alive with gangling new-born babies ….

TANZANIA PLANS AN ENVIRONMENT HOUSE
Tanzania’s Minister for Tourism, Natural Resources and the Environment was quoted in the January 1993 issue of AFRICAN BUSINESS as having announced that the government is planning to establish an Environment House to accommodate all non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) involved in conservation.
The aim was to ensure more efficient coordination and use of common facilities. He made the announcement when welcoming Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, founder President of the World Wide Fund for Nature, who was in the country to inaugurate Tanzania’s first forest park – the Udzungwa Mountains National Park in Morogoro Region.

TAARAB MUSIC
‘As the Kiswahili language links Uganda, Kenya and
Tanzania, the Taarab music of Zanzibar links ancient customs and modern behaviour’ wrote Graeme Ewens in a book quoted in the December issue of AFRICA LIFE. ‘The music grew from women’s wedding music (first recorded by Siti Binti Saad in 1928) to today’s large orchestras. The classic Swahili top song is ‘Malaika’ recorded by the singer Miriam Makeba. This aside, however, East African music has not spread like other styles. Instead, it has been dominated by waves of Zairean influence…..

SEED FROM THE LIVINGSTONE TREE GERMINATES
110-year old seeds from the tree under which the heart of the explorer David Livingstone was buried have been germinated at a school in Kent, according to the DAILY TELEGRAPH (October 5). The seeds were from among several brought to Britain as souvenirs by one of the parents in 1882 and stored in a cardboard box in the school’s archive room. The Scottish explorer had been found dead by his servants in May 1893 at Ghitambo in what is now Zambia. They removed his heart and viscera in order to embalm his body and buried them in a tin box under a mapundu tree. His body was later brought to England for burial in Westminster Abbey. Livingstone’s niece was a pupil at the school. The seeds have been planted in the school greenhouse and the ones which germinated were growing during the summer by six inches a month but the Headmistress fears that they will soon outgrow the greenhouse and she is looking for someone to adopt the trees.

NOT OVERLY PLEASED
According to an article by Hans Bakker in a recent issue of the JOHANNESBURG STAR the Tanzanian leadership is not overly pleased with the end of the cold war and the beginning of what is referred to as the ‘New World Order’. It quoted President Mwinyi as saying that Africa had become the loser. “To us it remains a new order. Order in the real sense of order. We have to obey orders. In the past, when we were given orders by one side we could always find refuge in the other. But now … we have to obey orders whether we like it or not. At present, with commodity prices continuing to fall, we have no alternative but to go with our caps in hand and ask for aid….”

Similar sentiments were expressed by Mwalimu Nyerere in an article he wrote in the GUARDIAN (November 16) ‘The market has become religion’ he wrote, ‘and the money speculators have become the leaders of the world. So we have a ‘New World Order’….. there are no signs of a (real) New World Order. What we have is a world dominated and ruled by the wealthy and the strong…. basically international affairs are conducted in accordance with the law of the jungle, where might is right….’.

FOOTBALL VIOLENCE WITH A DIFFERENCE
According to the DAILY TELEGRAPH (September 7) football violence took a new turn in Tanzania recently. Not fans v fans, not police v fans, but police v players. When Milambo players disputed a referee’s decision in the game against Simba, 50 policemen intervened, giving some of the footballers a severe pasting. The goalkeeper fractured his knee and a defender suffered a serious rib injury. An MP told Parliament that the players should be paid compensation for the ‘cruel’ actions of the police.

THE BIGGEST STEEL PILING JOB IN EAST AFRICA
The COURIER, in its September-October issue gave considerable prominence to an account of the many European Community projects in Zanzibar. These include a US$ 31 million project for rehabilitation of the ports of Malindi in Zanzibar town and at Mkoani, Pemba. The government hopes that the completed port works at Malindi, which include demolition of the old wharf, the construction of new west and north wharves and the construction of a new container storage area of 5,500 square metres, will facilitate plans to make it into a free port. The depth of water at Malindi after dredging is now from 7.5 to 11.5 metres compared with only 4 metres before the rehabilitation. For the first time, ocean-going vessels will be able to sail direct to the two islands thereby reducing transit times, eliminating lighterage charges and saving the expense of transhipment in the port of Dar es Salaam. A total of 543 steel piles were driven 60 metres deep through the ocean floor at Malindi. Each pile was filled with reinforced concrete and had to accept a theoretical load of 200 tons. This had to be done after a soil investigation revealed that it would be impossible to construct the deck by drilling boreholes into the ocean floor since the coral limestone would not be able to sustain the pressure. British contracts engineer, John Appleby, said that the works at Malindi represented the biggest piling job ever carried out in East Africa.

The EC has also financed the rehabilitation of the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital in Zanzibar (built in 1927) and Chake Chake Hospital in Pemba (built in 1914).

The EC has provided US$ 336,000 for urgent repairs to the House of Wonders (built in 1870) in Stone Town and the restoration of the Old Fort.

The EC has also financed (US$ 11.5 million) the rehabilitation of the north feeder road in Pemba which runs for 38 kilometres from Maili Tano to Konde.

COOPERATIVE ACCOUNTING
The journal of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, CERTIFIED ACCOUNTANT, in its October issue featured Tanzania in text and illustration in recounting the experience of VS0 volunteer Aileen Lyon who worked for three years at ‘one of the largest cooperative colleges in East and Central Africa – the Cooperative College at Moshi’. Here she taught a tertiary course leading to an advanced diploma.

‘MIRACLE TREES’
The Editor of the TROPICAL AGRICULTURE ASSBCIATION NEWSLETTER (December 1992) has described a ‘treasure hunt’ under way at Mbeya for ‘miracle (coffee) trees’ that do not appear to suffer from two major diseases affecting coffee in the region – Leaf Rust and Coffee Berry Disease. One clue to the source of the disease resistance found in the miracle trees (some of which have been found on Kilimanjaro) is the elongated shape of the berries.

DAR ES SALAAM THE BASE?
Dar es Salaam was mentioned on the front pages of several South African newspapers almost every day during December 1992. This followed attacks resulting in the deaths of white people by what was described as the ‘Dar es Salaam based African People’s Liberation Army (APLA) – the military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) which was believed to have associated itself with the attacks. The Johannesburg CITIZEN quoted the PAC as stating that APLA was controlled from Dar es Salaam. However, in spite of several attempts, South African journalists were unable to obtain a response from the PAC’s office in Dar es Salaam. The Johannesburg STAR subsequently reported that strong statements had been issued by the OAU, ANC, and SA Communist Party condemning statements reportedly made by APLA cadres, declaring war on whites.

WORLD CUP
The December issue of NEW AFRICAN gave the latest results in the preliminary rounds of the 1994 World Cup. There were some surprises. Burundi beat Ghana 1-0. Niger held the African champions Cote d’Ivoire to a goalless draw and, in group H, ‘Tanzania and Madagascar slugged out a dour 0-0 draw’.

‘MISSIONARIES WILL ALWAYS BE NEEDED’
When I asked Archbishop John Ramadhani if missionaries were still needed in Tanzania he replied that they will always be needed because Christians need to be constantly reminded that they are a worldwide Church and, as partners, have much to learn from one another”. So wrote Andrew Ashton in the GUILDFORD DIOCESAN HERALD (November) after a visit he paid to St Raphael’s Hospital in Korogwe.

STAYING TRUE TO PRINCIPLES THAT INSPIRED A CONTINENT
Writing in a ‘Tanzanian Special Report’ in THE GUARDIAN (May 21 1992) Brian Cooksey pointed out that Tanzania is one of the last four counties in the world to retain socialism as its official creed. Although the National Assembly had recently passed legislation for multi-party government, proposals to remove all reference to socialism from the constitution had been roundly defeated. A decade of pressure from the World Bank and Western donor nations had so far failed to persuade Tanzania to ditch former President Nyerere’s collectivist ideology. For years his distinctive brand of African socialism had inspired millions of the continent’s poor and oppressed. One of the ironies had been that, until the early 1980’s, Western donor policy advice – the World Bank included – had been almost entirely supportive of the statist policies of the Nyerere years. With capitulation to the Bank and the IMF, Tanzania’s radical international reputation had declined and interest in Tanzania’s development model had waned.

AN OVERSEAS BRANCH OF THE CCM?
AFRICA EVENTS (July 1992) quoted CCM Party Secretary General Horace Kolimba during a speech given on June 11th at the Tanzanian High Commission in London as saying: “The work place must remain a place of work , Including this mission”. In the past, he said, the High Commission had been considered as an overseas branch of the (CCM) Party. “Not any more, from July 1st” he went on. “No party will be allowed to have any branches in any place of work” .

TWO FREE PORTS
Zanzibar President Dr Salmin Amour was reported in the August issue of AFRICAN BUSINESS to have announced that the islands are to establish two free ports – one on the West coast of the main island and the other at Micheweni in Pemba, two sites where virtually no economic activity is going on at present .

IN THE BEST SENSE UNIQUE
‘This novel (whose Swahili title is ‘Bwana Myombekere na Bibi Bugonoka na Ntulanalwo na Bulihwali’) is in the best sense unique, Never before was a novel of its kind been written in Africa and never again can such a book be written.’ With these words the WESTDEUTSCHER RUNDFUNK (West German Radio) revealed that a novel about early life in Ukerewe written by the late Aniceti Kitereza and already published in Swahili and English (the latter by the Tanzania Publishing House) has now been published in part (the first of two volumes) in German. (The remarkable story of how the book came to be written and the large number of persons and agencies involved was given in Bulletin No 14 in 1982 – Editor).

THE ONES THEY LEFT BEHIND
In introducing to its readers a new African-Russian Society designed to help the children of African fathers and Soviet mothers who are still in Russia (the oldest are 26 because the Soviet Union began a large scale scholarship programme in the early 60’s) the BBC magazine FOCUS ON AFRICA recently featured 13 year-old Maria Ferdinadova Balige. Her Tanzanian father had eventually been deported from the Soviet Union to Tanzania for having overstayed on a vacation in Sweden. He had spent a clandestine year in Leningrad with his Soviet wife and baby. Maria, a promising athlete, had had to be withdrawn from her gymnastics school complaining that her fellow Russian pupils had begun to hate her when she started coming top in most of the exercises. “They called me names” she said. “Obeziana (monkey), black paint, chocolate, black sea …..”

TANZANIA AND SOUTH SOUTH COOPERATION
Pointing to recent visits to Tanzania by Indonesian President Soeharto and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, AFRICA ANALYSIS in its June 12 issue reported on Tanzania’s ‘dynamic policy to reactivate Afro-Asian solidarity … The new South South focus is expected to result in joint ventures . . .. already Malaysia is helping with a palm tree project in Kigoma and discuss ions are under way with Indonesia on gas exploration’. President Mwinyi was said to be taking a keen interest also in regional conflict resolution. Because of its relative political stability and geography” Mwinyi had been able to successfully mediate between Burundi and Ruanda and between Kenya and Uganda and had played a pivotal role in efforts to revive East African economic cooperation.

NOT GEARED TO TOURISM
“I travelled around Pemba in the local covered, but open sided ‘buses’• wrote Frank Nowikowski in a full page art1cle on Zanzibar in the BUENOS AIRES HERALD (March 1 1992). “I asked for directions to a nice sandy beech … but such a concept did not seem to be understood …. In the main town Chake Chake there is one small hotel with five rooms . In the other two settlements on the island there are identical hotels, even down to identical wall clocks in identical positions, behind identical reception desks ….. Pemba is not geared to tourism” .

BELIEF SYSTEMS OF THE TANZANIAN PEASANTRY
As part of a supplement on Human Development in the June 1992 issue of AFRICA EVENTS Prof Sulaymen Nyang, Director of the African Studies Centre of Howard University, Washington DC, gave his views on what he described as the’total failure’ of Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa policy. ‘I am inclined to make a tentative conclusion’ he wrote ‘that a significant part of the failure was the coerced villagisation .. Unwilling to pay adequate attention to the belief systems of the diverse ethnic groups of Tanzania … President Nyerere’s ilks wittingly or unwittingly committed a serious blunder … the separation from their (the peasant’s) ancestral lands could not be compensated by creature comforts identified with this illusive stage called development … perhaps the fate of Ujamaa could have been very different .. . if a programme of effective social psychological mobilisation (had been) mounted by the government ‘.

COFFEE TO JAPAN
Reporting on a recent visit to Japan by members of the Tanzania Coffee Marketing Board the JAPAN TIMES recently explained that Japan is ranked second to Germany as far as the trade value of coffee imports from Tanzania is concerned. Demand for Kilimanjaro coffee was stable in spite of increasing imports from other countries such as Kenya.

IS KAMBONA TANZANIAN?
‘It is ludicrous for anyone inside the Tanzanian ruling elite to suggest that (former Tanzanian cabinet minister) Oscar Kambona should be any other than a Tanzanian by birth’ wrote a reader in the June issue of NEW AFRICAN replying to an ellrl1er article 1n which a Tanzanian had been quoted as saying that he was originally from Malawi. ‘Mr Kambona, who was once the number two in the Tanzanian leadership hierarchy and a crown prince to Dr Nyerere, had dedicated his early political life to the fight for Tanzania’s independence. How can anyone doubt such a man’s patriotism? .. The Government should rehabilitate Mr Kambona and incorporate his party into the new political life of the country’ the reader concluded.

The LONDON EVENING STANDARD (August 14) published a letter from Mr Kambona in which he stated that he wished to join those paying tribute to the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Sir Robert Muldoon, who has just died. Kambona wrote that it was Sir Robert, in a humanitarian act, who had used his influence to bring about the release from detention in Tanzania in 1978 of his two brothers, Otini and Mattiya.

MONEY RELATIVELY WELL SPENT
Writing in a recent issue of the IRISH TIMES Peadar Kirby criticised in some detail Ireland’s aid programme in Tanzania – a programme which takes a quarter of Ireland’s total aid budget. During recent years the Kilosa District Vocational Training Centre at Mikumi had taken 40% of this annual budget which, last year amounted to £2. 4 million. ‘It is an impressive campus of which any Irish town would be proud’ he wrote. 73% of the first output of trainees have been placed in employment which is good by Irish standards …. Compared to larger aid programmes Irish taxpayers’ money seems relatively well spent … but what isn’t disputed is that the Irish Aid Programme is now left with a Centre too costly for Tanzanians to maintain themselves. A plan to get the Tanzanians to cover 60% of the costs by 1993 has been shelved in favour of 1996 . … the haphazard nature of the Irish Aid Programme and the mistakes made with Mikumi point to a major weakness – it is administered by diplomats who are rarely left long enough to build up expertise in development issues …’

DEBTORS TO THE FORMER SOVIET UNION
An article in MOSCOW NEWS quoted in the July issue of ‘ New African’ described how the Russian Federation, groaning under a huge external debt, is demanding payment of some 14 billion convertible roubles (£804 million) owed to the former Soviet Union by various African countries. A table listing 32 African debtor countries had Tanzania in the sixth position (after Angola, Algeria. Zambia, Libya. and Mozambique) with debts of 295 million roubles for military assistance and 34 million roubles for economic assistance.

THE VICIOUS CIRCLE IN SHINYANGA
In one of a number articles on the Rio Earth Summit in the May issue of AFRICA EVENTS Belinda Coote quoted a Shinyanga social worker as explaining the role of cotton in degrading the soil. ‘When people first started growing cotton it was relatively well paid. They were able to buy cattle with the proceeds but this led to overgrazing. Then they began to use tractors to prepare the land for cotton. This meant that larger areas were cleared and trees uprooted. Now there is less rainfall 1n the area. Farmers can no longer grow maize so have switched to sorghum. Because there is little wood left for fuel they have to use cow dung and cotton stalks which would otherwise be left to fertilise the land. The result is severe soil erosion and declining soil fertility’. Thus, the author wrote, Shinyanga’s farmers were caught in a vicious circle. ‘Cotton production is one of the very few ways they have of earning money, yet by growing it they further degrade the area’s fragile soils . As a result, yields decline . . . Shinyanga’s cotton industry illustrates the complex link between trade, poverty and environmental degradation.’

THE LAST GREAT UNTESTED NICKEL BELT IN THE WORLD?
In what was described in the July issue of AFRICAN BUSINESS as a milestone in Tanzania’s drive to secure foreign investment the magazine revealed that the government had signed an agreement with Kagera Mining Company, a subsidiary of Sutton Resources of Canada which would provide mining exploration and development options to the company for an area of 25,400 sq kms in the Kagera Region . The agreement represents a follow-up to exploration in a corner of the region, Kabanga, where the nickel deposit is estimated to contain 40 million tonnes, grading 1.05% nickel, and also cobalt and copper.

MAANDISHI YA KIAFRIKA (AFRICAN WRITING)
This is what its inventor, Shiyana Saleh Mandevu, a 58-year old peasant, poet and former truck driver, calls his new Swahili script according to an article in NEW AFRICAN (July). His writing was said to be rather like Pitman’s Shorthand with Arabic influences. It was his collection of ancient objects bows, arrows, clay pots and other handicrafts – which inspired him to devise the new script. Two horizontal bows with their strings facing upwards mean ‘baba’ (father), two traditional stools read ‘mama’ and so on.

NYERERE ATTACKED
Anthony Daniels (the author of the book ‘Filosofa’s Republic’ based on his experiences as a doctor in Tanzania and reviewed in Bulletin no 36) launched an unusually vitriolic attack on Mwalimu Nyerere in the DAILY TELEGRAPH on July 3, 1992. He wrote: ‘Present-day reality has an autosatirical quality about it. How else is one to account for UNESCO’s recent award to ex-President Nyerere of Tanzania of the Simon Bolivar Prize for services to freedom, independence and the dignity of peoples. (The award of US$25,000 was shared with Burmese Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi; the jury said in its citation that Nyerere had worked tirelessly in the struggle against poverty, disease and ignorance; it took note of ‘the ethical ideal of honesty that personifies Julius Nyerere’ – Editor).

Daniel’s article went on: ‘Nyerere strutted and fretted his hour (or quarter of a century to be precise) upon his own small stage (Tanzania) and forced millions of people from where they were living, herding them into collectivised villages so that they could come under the control of his Chama Cha Mapinduzi .. . . not only did the Swahili Stalin get away with it but he received the bien pensant of Europe even as the huts of the recalcitrant peasants were burnt down …. Nyerere was not entirely original in his ideas … he received a Fabian training at Edinburgh University but his road to Damascus was actually the road from Peking airport to Peking. Mao arranged for a couple of million helots of welcome to wave flags at him … it turned his head and all that was needed to complete the catastrophe were a few economic advisers from the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University ….

…. AND PRAISED
AFRICA EVENTS Zambian reader Jimmy Mdluli in the July issue compared President’s Kaunda and Nyerere. President Kaunda had eliminated all opposition and the only people he had genuinely attempted to groom as his successors had been his own sons. By comparison, when Tanzania’s first President (Nyerere) stepped down, he had left a couple of obvious successors whom he had thoroughly schooled in politics and statesmanship.

ACHINGLY BEAUTIFUL
Writer Jim Berry used these words to describe the Selous Game Reserve in the DAILY TELEGRAPH ON July 25th. ‘ Much about the Selous is unexpected ‘ he wrote. ‘Despite being Africa’s largest wildlife sanctuary it is also one of the least known and least visited. Its 2000 sq miles make it almost the size of Ireland … within its perimeter there are three separate ecological entities whereas the – admittedly smaller – Serengeti National Park cannot accurately boast one …. this vast area was named after the celebrated Frederick Courtney Selous, a towering figure among early white hunters … he was killed by a German sniper near Beho Beho. One afternoon we walked the few miles to where he fell. Old cartridge cases and other rusted military paraphernalia still litter the overgrown trenches. Selous’ grave, marked by a marble plaque set in a simple concrete slab, stands nearby ….

LADY CHALKER FIRES BACK
Lady Chalker of Wallasey, Britain’s Minister for Overseas Development, replied robustly in the SPECTATOR (May 9 ) to an earlier article attacking foreign aid which had been sceptical about the reality of the southern African drought. The article had spoken about Tanzania earning twice as much through foreign aid as it did through exports and of the lack of incentive for Tanzanians to grow exportable crops in a hot climate – only to be paid a fraction of their worth’ when you can go to Dar es Salaam, sit in an air conditioned office and lay your hands on untold dollars by bureaucratic intrigue’. Lady Chalker wrote to the editor that she really could not decide whether it was his arrogance or ignorance which appalled her the more. She pointed out that the article was out of date and listed the numerous changes that had occurred during recent years in aid policy.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KARUME
In 8 cover story on Political Assassinations in Africa AFRICA EVENTS (August 1992) went into some detail about the assassination (while he was playing dominos) of the late President Karume of Zanzibar on April 7, 1972 . ‘By no means’ said the article ‘was the assassin, Lt Humud Muhammed Humud , a lone player. He had accomplices at the scene who were subsequently either gunned down by the security forces or committed suicide. Humud died on the spot in circumstances that are still not clear … the Government (had) insisted that the assassination was part of a plot to overthrow it. But Humud had had a personal motive … his father had been arrested a few months after the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964 and, while Humud was training later in the Soviet Union he had been told that his father had been executed … he had vowed revenge ‘. But there had been political factors also. By 1972 the revolution hed degenerated into a tragic farce – gross abuses of human rights, political killings, a curious system of people’s courts, forced inter-marriages , a declaration by Karume that there would be no elections for fifty years …. Karume had become an embarrassment to Nyerere and a danger to the future of the Union .. . ‘ . The blood of Humud and his colleagues had not been shed in vain, the article concluded, as it had enabled Nyerere to subsequently consolidate the Union through the joining together of the TANU and CCM parties, the neutralisetion of those who considered themselves to be Karume’s legitimate heirs and the subsequent far-reaching constitutional changes and liberalisation which had followed under Zanzibar Presidents Jumbe and Mwinyi.

SOMETHING GOOD HAS HAPPENED
AFRICA EVENTS had a six-page special feature on Tanzania in its March 1992 issue. In the introduction it wrote that ‘Informed Tanzania watchers … point to fresh sprigs sprouting off the economy, distinctly hinting that a new spring of surging prosperity is finally approaching. Economic growth, for example, has regained its lead over population growth. Standards of living, long frozen, are stirring towards modest improvement. Record export crops are reaching outlets on upgraded roads. Donor confidence and foreign investor interest are both on a cheery upturn. Monopoly politics is giving way to reforms which should stiffen up the benefits of this economic change. In broad measure, the sense that something good has happened is fair enough. Equally fair must be the sense of optimism that tinges the future. However, Zanzibar might turn out to be a gadfly ….

TANZANIA LIFTS CURBS
The Johannesburg WEEKLY STAR (April 1, 1992) announced on its front page that Tanzania’s Foreign Minister, Ahmed Diria, had stated that Tanzania was to lift sanctions on air travel and sports relations in recognition of the changes brought about by President de Klerk. Economic sanctions would continue for the present he said.

LIVINGSTONE’S LAST RESTING PLACE
BRITISH OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT had an article on Bagamoyo in its January 1992 issue. It recalled how David Livingstone had died in 1873 in what is now Zaire. His heed had been buried in Africa end his embalmed body had been carried to Bagamoyo on a journey which took nine months. The last resting place of the body on the African mainland (before burial in Westminster Abbey) had been the Bagamoyo Catholic Mission. Britain is now paying for the restoration of the tower of the mission.

BASKING ON THE BEACH
The Johannesburg STAR gave publicity to a recent statement quoting Tanzanian Prime Minister John Malecela to the effect that South African tourists might soon be basking in the sun on Tanzania’s Indian Ocean beaches. “Don’t be surprised to see Boers coming here or Tanzanians going to South Africa” he had said in Parliament. Air Tanzania subsequently announced agreement on the start of a regular service to South Africa.

IMPORTANT DRUG SEIZURE
Tanzanian Customs authorities have seized 5.5 tons of illicit drugs according to AFRICA EVENTS (April 1992). The authorities in Dar es Salaam were said to be worried that Tanzanian drug traffickers might begin to play a role similar to that of their Nigerian counterparts in West Africa by acting as a conduit for drug transfers to Europe and North America. Police records showed that in the past six years more than 10,000 people had been arrested for alleged involvement in drugs.

A MEMORY OF LUSHOTO
In its series ‘A Memorable Wine’ the WINE SOCIETY’S BULLETIN for February 1992 contained a story by a Dr C. Granger in which he exercised some poetic licence in recounting a tale of many years ago. He had carried a quarter bottle of champagne in his rucksack – first by air (with the bottle in the decompressed hold), then across two frontiers by train, then by bumpy road for 18 hours to join his wife, who was working in Tanganyika, to celebrate their first anniversary of wedded bliss. The destination was Lushoto ‘a small verdant valley which the British Governor of the then Tanganyika had tried to buy (!) as a summer refuge from the heat’. ‘Our hotel’ he wrote’ overlooked the town, which, with its German missionaries and Bavarian churches, might have been in the foothills of the Alps. On the day of our thirteenth (month) anniversary we walked along the mountain crest to a spot known as ‘The View’ and sat on a rock overhanging a plunging cliff. Far below, the plains of Africa stretched away under the great sky …… I pulled the bottle from my rucksack triumphantly. My wife whooped with delight, I ceremoniously unwound the wire cage. Jill dug out our plastic mugs. I popped the cork. Only there was no pop, no bubbles. Just a hollow plop, and an evil smell. The champagne, like the anniversary, was overdue. It had probably undrinkable for a decade. (Thanks to reader Patrick Duff – Editor).

‘A PEARL OF MANY BRILLIANT COLOURS’
In a colour illustrated article in the April issue of NEW AFRICAN, the origins of Tanzania’s famous ‘Tinga Tinga’ paintings was told. Former fisherman Edward Said Tinga Tinge (who died in 1972) had started painting in his distinctive style using household gloss paint, rescued from abandoned tins, end commonplace surfaces such as hardboard, plywood or tin instead of costly canvas. The result? ‘A riot of multi-coloured images of African life; animals, birds, butterflies, flowers and tropical vegetation’. Now, one of the persons he taught, Rashid Bushiri, is teaching others in Swaziland under a project supported by the European Community; later this year, he has been commissioned to do murals on the wall of a hotel in Denmark.

POP FLOP
Many newspapers around the world catalogued the ill-fated visit to Africa of the American mega star Michael Jackson. For example, the BOTSWANA DAILY NEWS reported on its front page that Jackson had arrived in Tanzania on February 17th after visiting Gabon and Cote d’Ivoire where he had been greeted by tens of thousands but had upset Many of them. ‘On arrival in Dar es Salaam, the paper wrote, the singer ran to a waiting car, clutching his nose and hiding his face with a handbag, ignoring Tanzanian Foreign Minister Ahmed Diria who was waiting to welcome him’.

The DAILY NEWS in Tanzania gave many more details of the visit. Michael Jackson had visited the Sinza Centre for Mentally Retarded Children where he had left fond memories and had, later, met President Mwinyi who had asked him, after his proposed visit to the Serengeti, to become Tanzania’s envoy abroad and explain about the country’s tourist potential. However, the Singer suddenly cut short his visit and left for London, leaving thousands of admirers in Arusha and Kenya disappointed. The apparent reason was that he could not fly in any plane other than his own (which was too large for the Serengeti airstrip) and could also not drive in a car for more than one and a half hours. He was said to be allergic to dust.

The general response in Dar es Salaam was said to have been ‘good riddance’. Others agreed with earlier comments from Abidjan which had described Jackson as ‘a recreated being, bleached, neither white nor black, so delicate, so frail …’

A COUNCIL OF ELDERS
The London TIMES in its March 24th issue reported that former African Presidents had decided at a meeting in Tanzania to form a Council of Elders to tackle the continent’s perennial conflicts. The meeting was attended by former presidents Pereira of Cape Verde, Kaunda of Zambia, Obassnjo of Nigeria and Nyerere of Tanzania.

SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPHY TO MONITOR DEFORESTATION
WORLD BANK NEWS in its February 13 issue stated that Tanzania is to obtain an IDA Credit of US$ 18.3 million in support of a project to stop rapid deforestation through preparation of maps showing forests, agricultural areas and grazing lands and establishing a National Resource Information Centre to coordinate the collection of information on resources, land use and environmental conditions. The project would also support measures to improve land tenure systems, and, in the Mwanza and Tabora regions, help improve the management of 45,000 hectares of forest.

AIR TANZANIA SUSPENDED FROM MEMBERSHIP
Air Tanzania has been suspended from membership of the International Air Transport Association because of its financial problems according to the March 16 issue of the INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE. The paper said that the IATA members would not now honour Air Tanzania tickets. The Tanzania DAILY NEWS reported on February 22nd that the Government had ordered the Air Tanzania Corporation (ATC) to cancel flights to Europe and India following serious losses on these routes using a plane leased from Ethiopian Airlines. The newspaper reported that ATC had had to ground its planes on April 1st because it apparently could not renew its insurance cover. It is also understood that the Government has decided to privatise the airline.

DAR THE MOST SATISFACTORY
In an article on shipping services between East Africa and Europe the AFRICAN ECONOMIC DIGEST (February 24) quoted Steve Barlow, Commercial Director of the ZAMCARGO organisation, as saying that, of the East African Ports, Dar es Salaam generally gave the most satisfactory performance. “The port itself functions quite efficiently following recent heavy Investment” he said. Similar comments in AFRICA EVENTS (April 1992) which reported that Mombasa’s efficiency had somewhat slumped and That it was meeting robust competition from Dar es Salaam which was fast modernising.

CHEESE MANIA IN TANZANIA
In its February 15th issue the DAILY TELEGRAPH gave considerable prominence to an apparently insatiable appetite for cheese which had suddenly developed amongst Tanzanians and others. So great was this demand for cheese, in fact, that Dutch customs officers had become suspicious. Thousands of tons of Dutch dairy products had apparently been shipped outside the European Community but had later found their way back to traditional market such as Germany thus allowing certain persons, now being investigated, to obtain attractive export subsidies from the Community.

TANZANIA TO GET A REDUCED ALLOCATION
The first issue in 1992 of HABARI, the Journal of the Svensk-Tanzeniska Foreningen in Stockholm, revealed that Swedish aid policy is in the process of change. Tanzania, Mozambique and Vietnam have had their allocations reduced. A change in ideological course in Sweden was said to be plainly evident. In the case of Mozambique, the reduction was attributed to poor uptake capacity. The same was said to be true of Tanzania, which was considered to have had too large a programme. The reduction would be of the order of £5.5 million. The State Secretary responsible had said that in his opinion the whole Tanzanian aid programme had been too greatly dramatised. He dwelt long on the question of democracy. ‘The Government unmistakably equated democracy with a multi-party system irrespective of the considerable differences in historical, political, social and economic circumstances of the different countries’ the Journal wrote.

JUST A HANDFUL OF NUTS
NEW AFRICAN (March 1992) reported that drinkers in Dodoma are up in arms about a blanket ban on locally brewed liquors. The ban had been imposed following a cholera outbreak which had caused 200 deaths between November and January. Local producers of ‘Wanzuki’ – a fermented honey liquor – had got around the ban, however, by putting the liquor into commercial wine and beer bottles end pretending it was something else. This had confused the health inspectors (and presumably also the customers) for a time, but then the Police found out and began to seize illicit stocks. But the brewers showed considerable ingenuity. They started hiding the liquor in other ways. In one case alcohol was stored in a coffin. Customers were told to join the ‘funeral procession’. Others soaked nuts for a long time in illicit grain (gongo). It was said that people could get drunk on just a handful of nuts.

HYGIENE AT THE KIGMANBONI FERRY FISH MARKET
The SOUTHERN AFRICAN ECONOMIST in its December/January issue featured Dar es Salaam’s well known Kigamboni fish market. ‘The fish and food vendors have been supplying meals at the affordable price of Shs 70 for some time. But they noticed that their clients often had to go away to answer the call of nature, usually not to return. They therefore raised Shs 50,000 to build a latrine. At Shs 2/- per shot the clients were happy but the project lost money for lack of management’. Now the Tanzania youth Development and Employment Foundation has undertaken a feasibility study designed to improve overall hygiene at the Ferry Fish Market.

HOW TANZANIA LINES UP
NEW AFRICAN THE WORLDS’S MOST FAMOUS BEEKEEPER
In a lengthy article on the man it described as the ‘Einstein of bee breeding’ the SUNDAY TIMES

Tanzania figured prominently recently in two significant and totally contrasting broadcasts.

The first was a four-part weekly series of talks on BBC Radio 4 under the title ‘AFRICA: DEADLINE FOR THE DARK CONTINENT’ by the well-known presenter Michael Buerk in which one whole programme was devoted to Tanzan1a. Such was the interest in the series that the BBC received over 1,000 letters about it from listeners.

The second was a television programme broadcast on Channel 1 at the peak hour of 9.30 pm on April 17th 1992 which must have had an audience of millions. This was called ‘THE COMIC RELIEF SNAPPILY TITLED AND UTTERLY SPONDITIOU5 STAB OF EXPLAINING WHY SO MANY PEOPLE IN AFRICA ARE S0 DAMN POOR’. It turned out to be powerful advocacy of continued foreign aid and it was filmed in Tanzania. Christine Lawrence has reviewed it as follows for the Bulletin:

This BBC programme is a novel way of raising funds for needy causes. People who contribute wear absurd red plastic noses. The presenters of the programme play on our sense of the ridiculous and attempt to let nothing be boring. Their success last year raised £20 million, every penny of which has gone to deserving causes in the UK and in Africa.

The recent programme was a look ‘Behind the Nose’ and included a documentary on poverty in Tanzania. We followed Tony Robinson as he travelled from the slopes of Mt. Meru, through Arusha to the Maasai highlands, Ngorongoro, and then to a hot, dry village miles from anywhere”. In Meru there was the coffee market problem; in Arusha dreadful shanty town poverty; in Maasai-land permanently sick children and a school without books or pens; Arusha hospital lacking drugs and equipment; in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the Maasai, suffering from hunger and their cattle dying but forbidden to grow crops on their traditional land; and, in the hot dry Village, a young man explained in beautiful English that all they could do was to sit and wait for the rain.

In between these scenes from Tanzania, we were returned to the UK first to witness farcical interviews by Peter Sissons (Newscaster) of a so-called British Government Minister (Kenneth Winelake), then to hear comments from a comfortably well-off family lounging in their sitting room guzzling chocolates. It certainly made one think. And ask why? Statistics of disasters in the Third World compared with those in the West had the same effect. How much is the West responsible for? Imposed terms of trade; misplaced loans and interminable interest payments; Western politics and the arms trade and big business all come into it and the’ trickle-down’ effect is felt by the poor who are not helped by corrupt and bad government.

In Tanzania, will multi-party elections give the poor more of a voice? Will they result in more justice for the oppressed? And how much more can we in the West do to influence our governments? Will the coming UN Earth Summmit help at all? I fear it 1s very much an up-hill struggle but I think that Comic Relief’s documentary must have had a more positive impact on viewers than the usual straightforward programme and so there should be more reaction.

The radio broadcast perhaps redressed the balance, as many felt that the TV programme had been biased in not paying enough attention to faults on the Tanzanian side. Both programmes had a point to make, however, and both tended to exaggerate in order to do so.

Michael Buerk’s contribution was much more serious, more specifically critical and more sophisticated. It was designed to ‘see how the First World’s solutions for the Third World’s problems are working out’.
The third paragraph of the transcript set the tone: Inside my African taxi the music’s jaunty, reassuring; outside it’s different. This is Dar es Salaam, the ramshackle capital of a bankrupt country, where Tanzania’s dream of African Socialism turned into a nightmare of economic collapse. In colonial times this city, with its wide harbour and palm-fringed beaches was one of the most beautiful in Africa, Now, my taxi picks its way through the potholes, down unlit streets, past dirty and decaying buildings; I sometimes think the most obvious difference between the First World and the Third is fresh paint. I remember, when I used to travel this region in the eighties, Tanzania, though not quite the poorest, was the most depressing place on the continent. No colour, no life, nothing in the shops, an epidemic of apathy. Two decades of defining profit as economic sabotage had destroyed all incentive. The slogan was self-reliance; the reality, the highest per capita dependence on foreign aid in the world.

Next we turned to the IMF and the World Bank. Tanzania had had to start running its economy on lines prescribed by these organisations. A quiet, undemonstrative Englishman was ‘now one of the most powerful men in Tanzania’ – Ian Porter, World Bank Representative. Not so, said Tanzanian Finance Minister Stephen Kibona – “There is no question about it – their (the Bank’s) approach is quite acceptable. We are not “going along” with the World Bank. Much of what we are doing is our own thinking. We want to liberalise the economy. We want to create new initiative. We want people to have ownership ……”

There followed a discussion with coffee farmers in which the pros and cons of foreign intervention were well explored. Populist Home Affairs Minister Augustine Mrema (‘a disconcerting figure, in his black suit and flat dog-toothed hat’) expressed his views as forthrightly as ever – “We are trying to implement the policies of the IMF and the World Bank ….. but the prices (of coffee) are determined by you. So things will never change. So long as you’re benefitting from our economy, so long as you’re getting what you want from us, we’ll remain your labourers really forever”.

Michael Buerk’s conclusions? “After six years of determined Western intervention the formal economy is only a little less hopeless than it was …. Down on Kongwa Street the black market is booming. It’s a neat irony that the World Bank’s most obvious success has been to promote an underground economy which can’t be recorded in its statistics. Tanzania is a good place to go, to realise how resilient Africans are, how what we see as the continent’s slow march to doom isn’t the whole picture, and how the West has never been able to remodel Africa into its own image – DRB.