TANZANIA IN THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Posted on January 1, 2001 by editor

Many publications featured Tanzania’s elections but they expressed highly critical views. Examples:

The TIMES (October 31) showed a picture of an opposition supporter in Zanzibar being thrown into a truck after clashing with police. The INDEPENDENT quoted the adverse comments of the Commonwealth observers. NEWSAFRICA (November 20) headlined its election coverage: ‘Nyerere’s legacy sold out; Party political squabbling and claims of fraud and vote rigging have exposed the political vacuum left by Julius Nyerere’. The BBC’s FOCUS ON AFRICA (October-December) lamented the lack of debate during the election on policies eg: AIDS, economic restructuring, public health, the East African Community, Burundi. All attention had been directed to personalities and they all seemed to have broadly the same policies. Under the heading ‘Costly victory’ Jackson Mwalalu in AFRICA TODAY (December) wrote that Tanzania’s ruling party got the candidate it wanted into the presidency of Zanzibar ‘but the Union may suffer as a result. President Karume, promising to open a new chapter in the history of the islands, must be aware … that the new chapter could well turn out to be as ugly as the olive branch he is extending to his opponents could be pointless ….. ‘ But NEW AFRICAN (December) under the heading ‘America can learn a thing or two’ brought in a new angle. ‘What’ it asked ‘do Tanzania and America have in common? Tanzania listens while America preaches what it doesn’t practice’. It quoted adverse American comments on the Zanzibar election and went on: ‘Interestingly, two days after the re-vote in Zanzibar, ‘irregularities’ were established to have taken place in Florida; … unopened ballot boxes found in a church … results delayed …. people divided, America, the great preacher of free and fair elections had not been able to have one. .. Salman Rushdie writing in The TIMES (December 9) said that it would be a long time before America could preach to the rest of the world about electoral transparency. The American election had been about as transparent as ‘a Floridian swamp’. The ECONOMIST (November 4) headed its article ‘Not so good in Zanzibar’ and wrote that CUF had almost no access to radio or newspapers during the election period and had reason to be angry. The EAST AFRICAN’S leader (November 6) under the heading ‘Thuggery by Mahita’s Men’ (Omar Mahita is Tanzania’s Inspector General of Police) wrote that ‘a cloud of shame is hanging over Tanzania because of the brutality visited upon citizens in Zanzibar …. In the same issue Tanzanian Michael Okema said that CUF knew that CCM would not readily concede defeat … but it needed an election through which it could expose the real intentions of CCM. CCM also needed an election behind which it could act and also to portray CUF as a party of troublemakers …. CUF obviously feels it cannot topple the government democratically or otherwise because the nature of the Union is such that the mainland will always prop it up. Weakening or even breaking up the Union then becomes a priority for anyone who wants to seize power in Zanzibar. In the same issue, Tanzanian Issa Shivji’s article was headed ‘CCM Clearly Out to Steal the Election in Zanzibar’. He concluded: ‘People are said to get the rulers they deserve. I would like to believe that that does not apply to the children of the Mwalimu’. Under the heading ‘A question of democracy’ NEWSAFRICA (December 4) quoted CUF presidential candidate Ibrahim Lipumba as saying that the election process had been full of fictional goings-on that could only be found in Chinua Achebe’s novels. The article went on: ‘Given the level of acrimony, it was unsurprising that the opposition boycotted President Mkapa’s inauguration ceremony. How could one celebrate the crowning of a leader who stole votes’. President Mkapa however had dismissed the unco-operative opposition as people blinded with greed for power. The article added ‘President Karume, Zanzibar’s youngest President, is already cutting the figure of the humane and considerate President he is….. Many people, the opposition in particular, say the outcome of the last elections was depressing and disappointing. Many Tanzanians must be missing the late President Nyerere’. But FOCUS ON AFRICA’S January-March issue reported that ‘On polling day the ZEC official responsible for the Urban West Districts absconded, not reporting in until the following day. As a result many polling stations opened hours late’ thus confirming the CCM explanation ofwhat had happened.

In South Africa among the headlines in BUSINESS DAY were: ‘Victory for Mkapa will be bitter sweet. … Election Chaos as Tanzanians Vote’. An article by David Martin in the SUNDAY INDEPENDENT had a touch of nostalgia. He wrote: ‘There was much to be cherished in the old system in Tanzania: The two contestants in each constituency (both from the CCM party) had to travel together in transport supplied by the party, sleep in the same room and eat from the same plate….from their joint platform the candidates could not promise, as is the way with politicians worldwide, that if voted into power they could do this or that for the electorate … under the western multiparty system anything goes, it has spawned a new breed of politicians who are younger and often unaware of the country’s history … money counts and buys votes … ethnicity and religion are rearing their ugly heads … ‘ (Thank you David Leishman for these and other items below from the South African press Editor).

ROBINSON CRUSOES ONLY
Under this heading The South African MAIL AND GUARDIAN (November 10) advised readers, if they visited Zanzibar (,where the beaches are postcard perfect~ white sand, green sea’) to leave again. It recommended them to go to a tiny strip of land about 13 km away which was even better: ‘Chumbe Island’s nature reserve beat 115 projects from 42 countries last year to win British Airways ‘Global Tourism for Tomorrow’ award. . . . Chumbe Coral Park was founded by Sibylle Riedmiller, a German environmentalist in her 70’s who visited the uninhabited island in 1991 … she turned it into an eco-resort for the free education of local children … only 14 overnight guests are allowed on the island at a time and they must have ‘zero impact’ … climb the 131 steps of the lighthouse built by the British in 1904 and you get the full 24 ha. extent of the place so thick with vegetation that no one has seen its rare deer population in years …. ‘ .

The Australian CAMBRIDGE POST (October 21) featured as its main headline the arrival at the Isanga primary and secondary schools adjacent to the Resolute Gold Mine in Nzega of two container loads of books, sports gear and clothes donated by the paper’s readers. There was so much material that four other schools in the district benefited also. (Thankyou Mr Gledhill for sending this item -Editor).

UDZUNGWA
The 124~page winter edition of TRAVEL AFRICA contained an article on one of Tanzania’s least known and least visited national parks astride the Mikumi~Ifakara road -the Udzungwa Mountains. Extracts: ‘The park is renowned for its endemic species which include monkeys, the rare Abbott’s duiker, the endangered wild dog, the unusual and globally threatened forest partridge, the Rufous-winged sunbird, the dappled mountain robin and many butterflies and other smaller creatures found nowhere else. It is also the only place in East Africa with unbroken forest cover from lowland to montane. But most people who visit the area want to climb up to see the beautiful Sanje Falls’.

CONSERVATION AND THE MAASAI
Issue No 11 of DEVELOPMENTS, the International Development Magazine, contained a letter from environmentalist Dr John Henshaw complaining about criticism of the Tanzanian wildlife service for its alleged ill treatment of Maasai. He wrote that he saw no evidence of a vendetta against them by Tanzania National Parks, the Wildlife Department nor the Ngorongoro Conservation area many of whose staff were Maasai. Local people were involved in community participation programmes and the Maasai had received economic, compensatory and cultural benefits as a direct result of wildlife conservation and management programmes. The same journal also gave the story of a factory on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam -a mothballed clothing factory put out of business by second-hand western clothing imports -which had been converted into weaving mosquito nets. The factory now employed 140 people and was producing a range of nets sold on the streets where business was booming. In some regions less than 5% of the people were using nets -the only practical weapon against malaria where the drugs westerners rely on, at 20 US cents a daily dose, are prohibitively expensive.

ASYLUM SEEKERS
The political crisis in Zanzibar has turned the islands into a refugee-producing hot spot according to NEWSAFRICA (November 6) but British immigration authorities will not list Tanzania as a refugee-producing nation. The result is that the Zanzibaris are now applying for political asylum masquerading as Somalis, Sudanese, and Burundians.

STAMPS
THE SWAHILI COAST (No 7, 2000) had an article headed ‘Zanzibar: Its history in stamps’ which explained how the first stamps were Indian and sold from a little office in the British Consulate in 1875. In 1890 Zanzibar became a British Protectorate and Thomas Remington was sent out from London to become the first postmaster. The Indian stamps were overprinted with the word Zanzibar. The first set of Zanzibar stamps showed Sultan Hamid bin Thwaini but before the stamps arrived from UK the Sultan had died. The article then traced the rule of other Sultan’s represented in stamps. After the 1964 revolution all mail had the Sultan’s face crossed or blacked out in ball pen and then new Zanzibar Republic stamps were produced. Other articles in this issue featured Bagamoyo and photographs of ‘millenium’ fashion.

TANZANIAN GIRLS HANDICAPPED
The UN’s AFRICA RECOVERY (July) wrote about the education of girls. Extracts: Tanzania has been more successful than many other developing countries in achieving gender equality, with girls making up 49.6% of the enrolled primary students in 1997. But only 56.7% of primary school age children attended school in 1998 … more than a million girls were still not in school. But girls in school suffer discriminatory practices like household workloads and their performance is consistently lower than that of boys especially in science and maths ….

SOUTH AFRICAN ZANZIBARIS
The November issue of SAWUBONA contained an illustrated article about a community of people whose origin is Zanzibar but who live in Chatworth, Durban. The article recalled how the slave trade had been abolished in 1807 and the Sultan of Zanzibar had declared the export of slaves forbidden in 1845. However, the abolition merely served to increase the price of slaves since only one in four of the dhows transporting the slaves managed to slip through the British and French warships patrolling the oceans. An Arab dhow transporting Zanzibaris to Arabia was intercepted in the Red Sea by a British warship and escorted back to Zanzibar. The British Consul had heard that there was a shortage of labour in Natal and over the next three years 600 Zanzibaris, an rescued from Arab dhows, were shipped to Durban as indentured labourers. The Zanzibaris established a community at King’s Rest in Durban. They cleared the land and built homes; they planted fruit orchards and large vegetable gardens. During apartheid in 1966 they were forcibly removed to Chatsworth. The government, not knowing how to classify them, put them in the ‘other Asians’ category. But the Indian community didn’t identify with them and the Zanzibaris found themselves isolated. 34 years later the community has grown from 600 to 5,000. Many have married into various African cultures while remaining faithful to Islam. The community is campaigning to be allowed to return to their old homes in Kings Rest. Sadly, many younger men are suffering from drug abuse and delinquency but the older generation still dream about being able to visit their motherland.

It is not often that the WALL STREET JOURNAL features Tanzania on its front page. On September 25 it wrote: ‘For a Tanzanian long-distance runner the first order of business at the Australian Olympics was to bring the finish line into focus’. Restituta Joseph’s spectacles had been stolen at a track meet in Algeria but in Sydney she soon had a new pair. The day after, four other Tanzanian athletes went to see the dentist. “1 got my upper dentures refitted” said chef de mission Erasto Zambi showing off a smile. “They’ve got very good medical examinations here” he said. “Very good” …… The clinic helped over 1,000 people during the games. (Thank you Nick Weston for sending this item -Editor).

‘A GRAND OLD LADY’
Under this title REFUGEES wrote some time ago about how refugees who fled Zaire in 1996 were helped to return home by the 1,500ton lake steamer which shuttles between Kigoma and Uvira in the Congo. Originally named by the Germans ‘Gotsen’ she was converted into a gunboat during the First World War before being scuttled just outside Kigoma harbour, first taking care to oil all her machinery so as to be able to salvage her after the war. She was raised by the British and her story inspired the book ‘The African Queen’ and the 1950’s film.

MISCELLANY

Posted on January 1, 2001 by editor

SHARK ATTACK
28-year old medical student Godfrey Msemwa of the Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences, was killed by what was believed to be a shark in July. He had had gone swimming with friends at Coco Beach in Dar es Salaam and cried out for help frantically waving his hands in the air but was gradually pulled out to sea. Colleagues saw the water filled with blood a few minutes later. Following this horror, the marine specialist Hugo van Lawick , Director of Ocean Safaris, set off to sea in a special shark hunting boat. He took with him a bucket of frozen cow’s blood to attract the shark. This son of the renowned British chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall said the blood can attract a shark even from two miles away. He continued to hunt the shark and eventually managed to catch one on his line. After some hours of tussle he managed to land it. It was a Zambezi shark noted for its killer instinct. Last year the Express had reported another shark attack which had involved an official of the Japan International Cooperation Agency who had had three fingers bitten off. Coco Beach has been placed out of bounds for swimming by Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Yusuf Makamba who also announced that a base station with satellite antennae and fast patrol boats to chase off sharks is to be established at Oyster Bay -The Express, the East African and the London Financial Times.

A RARE TOAD
Tanzania is facing an archetypal environmental issue. At stake is the future production capacity of a major new electric power station and the survival of a tiny toad scientifically known as Aspergnus nectophty. The new Kihansi Hydro power project is designed to generate electricity desperately needed for the national grid but it will only be able to operate at full capacity if it can use enough water. The tiny toad is found only in the Udzungwa ranges in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands. It is said to give birth to young ones rather than lay eggs and occupies an area of about 200 metres wide. However, if the power station were to operate at full capacity it would deny the toad sufficient water supply. It needs 20 cubic metres per second and if it doesn’t get it the environment could be destroyed leading to its extinction. TANESCO has therefore devised a temporary artificial water spray that delivers two cubic metres of water per second and has also agreed to participate in an international forum on the subject involving the National Environmental Management Council, foreign donor agencies like NORAD and the World Bank. -Daily News.

COPYRIGHT
Following the passage of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act of 1999 a new ‘Business Registrations and Licensing Agency’ has been set up. Persons found guilty of infringement of others rights will be fined up to Shs 5 million or get imprisonment for up to five years -The East African which headed its article: ‘Tanzania Copyright Act is Music to Artists’ Ears’.

SLEEP
A few days after President Mkapa called upon MP’s to help him to awaken sleeping ministers, the MP’s requested the Speaker to bring in new regulations to stop journalists from taking photographs of sleeping MP’s -The Guardian.

RICKSHAWS IN DAR
An Indian Company, David Piereis International has introduced three-wheel hooded vehicles called Rajaj or more familiarly rickshaws in Dar es Salaam.

OBITUARIES

Posted on January 1, 2001 by editor

Dr. A KEITH AUCKLAND, OBE who died on October 22 was described as a ‘hands on’ plant breeder in Tanzania where he spent almost 20 years from the early fifties. At Ukiriguru and Nachingwea he worked on sorghum, rice, sesame, and soya and in 1971 became Director of Plant Introduction and Distribution. He later served on many international research organisations around the world.

IRENE BROWN was a lecturer in political philosophy in Dar es Salaam from 1964 and when she left was preparing a book on the ideas of political thinkers throughout history. (Thank you Joan Wicken for sending this obituary -Editor).

BIBI TITI MOHAMED (75) who died in South Africa on November 6 was the first woman in the then Tanganyika to engage herself in full-time politics, relinquishing all else including family business to devote her life to the anti-colonial struggle in the 1950’s. She was divorced twice as she travelled the country mobilising the women, founding the women’s wing of TANU and being the first chairperson of the Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania (UWT). She faced a major crisis in 1970 when she and six others were charged with treason; she was sentenced to life imprisonment but released two years later under a presidential amnesty. For the rest of her life she was dogged by ill health but was seen supporting CCM at the famous Temeke by-election last year and was with President Mkapa this year when he collected his presidential nomination forms in Dodoma -The Guardian.

REVIEWS

Posted on January 1, 2001 by editor

NARRATIONS OF SHEIKH THABIT KOMBO JECHA . (MASIMULIZI YA SHEIKH THABIT KOMBO JECHA) with a preface by Mwalimu Nyerere. Author: Minael H 0 Mdundu.
Editor Paul Sozigwa. Dar es Salaam University Press. 270pp.

In 13 chapters, several appendixes and bibliography based on recorded cassettes, the author captures Sheikh Thabit in his own words narrating his 82 years of life which covered both world wars. He died in 1986. His formal education finished at Form IV but he worked in a variety of jobs from seaman to weighing scale mechanic. The author traces Thabit’s history of the six political parties that arose in Zanzibar on what he calls racially based grounds and details the setting up of the Mro-Shirazi party and the later assassination of President Karume at which he was present Extract from a review in the Dar es Salaam Guardian by Edwin Semzaba.

AGRARIAN ECONOMY, STATE AND SOCIETY IN CONTEMPORARY TANZANIA. Ed: P G Foster and Sam Maglrimbi. Ashgate. 1999. 282 pages. £42.50. Key areas covered in this book include credit, land refonn, agricultural extension, environmental issues, population, migration and social control.

GENDER, FAMILY AND WORK IN TANZANIA. Eds: Colin Creighton and C K Omari. Ashgate. December 2000. 31Opp. £42.50. The social construction of marriage, the interplay of family life and gender relations with economic processes and forms of work.

DAR ES SALAAM WATER DEMAND. AN END-USE PERSPECTIVE. Tanzania Centre for Energy, Environment. 1999. £9.95 from the Africa Book Centre. 138 pages.

THE BIG C. A BBC Radio 4 programme on the 9th August.
Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald. In this programme Geoff Watts met the doctors and nurses of Tanzania’s only Cancer Institute. The Cancer Institute is in Dar es Salaam’s old Ocean Road Hospital. All five of the country’s oncologists are based there. Geoff Watt’s interview was conducted mainly with the doctor in charge who explained that there were about 20,000 new patients each year, many more women than men. It used to be thought that there was not much cancer in Africa but this is not so nowadays. There are even children with the disease. But not many cancer cases enter the health system in Tanzania. Sufferers often come too late because they are ignorant of the disease. Others do not come because they have to pay for all the drugs which are very expensive. Radiotherapy treatment is free but not chemotherapy. The National Health budget is about one dollar per person per year. The Institute relies on donations to keep going.

A lot of sick people go to traditional healers for help. These healers are thriving because they understand the needs of the people, cultural and spiritual, better than professional doctors. Rather like our own holistic practitioners, I thought. Sometimes cancer is HIV related. HIV is really taking over medical resources. There are no funds for preventive measures for cancer so the emphasis on is on curing patients, but because of drug and equipment shortages, an innovative approach has to be adopted. The doctor in charge was trained in Glasgow and at first found trying to apply what he had learnt very difficult to apply in Dar es Salaam. Later he was able to return to Glasgow for a year, bearing in mind the conditions in Tanzania, and now he is able to approach his work in a more appropriate way. He said very definitely that he would rather work in Tanzania than for the NHS in the UK. There is no despondency at Ocean Road, he said. He added that lung cancer is not a problem yet but he is not happy with the commercialisation of tobacco firms. More people are smoking now in Tanzania.

This was an informative and very interesting programme. When one considers all the medical facilities at our disposal in the UK, one can only admire the struggle in Tanzania to meet the needs of sick people.
Christine Lawrence

THE ASSESSMENT OF VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS IN TANZANIA. M J Mwandosya, B S Nyenzi and M L Luhanga. Tanzania Center for Energy, Environment. 1999. 235pp. £11.95 from
African Book Centre.

KARIAKOR. THE CARRIER CORPS. THE STORY OF THE MILITARY LABOUR FORCES IN THE CONQUEST OF GERMAN EAST AFRICA. Nairobi
University Press. 2000. 247pp. £12.95.

TANZANIANS ARISE AND GET RICH. H N Kida. Kai. Dar es Salaam. 1999. 205pp.

ASIAN COMMUNITIES IN TANZANIA: A JOURNEY THROUGH PAST AND PRESENT TIMES. Institut fur Afrikakunde, Hamburg. 1999. 211pp. Maps.

ALMASI. Peter Wilson. Pentland Press. 109pp/ £7.50. In his retirement Peter Wilson has departed from Swahili grammar (‘Simplified Swahili’ and related books) and written an intriguing detective novel. When a Cessna plane crashes on Kilimanjaro in suspicious circumstances, diamond smuggling is suspected and a detective from UK is requested to assist the Tanzanian police. Some of the action takes place on the mountain and some at the diamond mine Buibui (spider) near the village of Sisimisi (very small ant) not far from Arusha. The whole tale moves along swiftly. I much enjoyed the humour throughout and the good descriptions of familiar places. Finally all the villains come to a sticky end and ‘la femme fatal’ who wins the heart of the British detective until he has second thoughts -retreats to her comfortable villa in Hounslow. Might there be a sequel? I wonder.
Christine Lawrence

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IN TANZANIA: ORGANISATION AND EFFICIENCY THROUGH PROCESS CONSULTANCY. Ronald McGill. International Journal of Public Sector Management. 12 (5).1999. 9pp.
Behind the tortuous jargon that perhaps an article in the learned IJPSM requires, lies a very interesting and heartening account of recent efforts in civil service reform in Tanzania. One real question is whether the management concepts and terminology really help us in any way. This article is apparently about ‘institutional development’ and ‘process consultancy’; it could equally be about ‘organisational development’ and ‘change management’ -all these are in practice fairly common sense approaches to capacity building in administrative reform.
Tanzania like nearly all Sub-Saharan African countries had seen drastic declines in civil service efficiency and effectiveness. Demoralised officials could not and did not deliver and were increasingly being drawn into corruption; resources were far outrun by responsibilities, moving public administration onto an almost symbolic level; and service provision to citizens was increasingly non-existent.
The reform programme recognised that external consultant driven reforms had proved completely ineffective. In an approach that has been paralleled, in for example, Zambia and Ghana, the alternative was to rely upon the knowledge and eventual commitment of middle level civil servants themselves. Once an overall framework for the reorganised ministries, departments and attendant functions had been established, officials were brought together in diagnostic and planning workshops where, after intensive rudimentary training, they were able to define problems and resulting solutions -and make plans for implementation. The commitment and motivation developed by this diagnostic/planning exercise also helped in implementation. Very impressive results are claimed in streamlining and efficiency improvement -though it is not clear whether these were actually achieved or merely declared targets.
Experience in reform programmes of this type does show that this is an effective approach. Two of the essential requirements are recognised by McGill: some overall framework and guidance in terms of functions, ministerial portfolios etc; and skilful facilitation and guidance in workshops to ensure movement in the right direction. What is not made so clear is: the need for politicians to be involved in the process and share in the ownership and motivation; and the need for resources to be made available to implement reforms and new directions. The latter are not impossible though harder to provide in contemporary African conditions. Nonetheless, this is an encouraging account of an approach to CSR that is more productive than most.
Garth Glentworth

TRADING ON INEQUALITY: GENDER AND THE DRINKS TRADE IN SOUTHERN TANZANIA. Maia Green. Africa. 69 (3) 1999.
Maia Green’s article offers a carefully researched and detailed study of one of the most important, and most neglected, areas of the informal economy. The sale of locally-made liquor is a vast business in Tanzania. The bulk of the alcohol consumed in Tanzania is made and sold in the informal sector -though always on a very small scale, so that this economy is vast in the aggregate, but also minute and ubiquitous. Yet we know very little about it, and the 1980s has somehow never come to embrace this most active and informal sector of the economy_ This article provides precise details of the costs and returns of brewing for small-scale women producers. Green shows how women’s involvement in brewing beer for this trade is a sign of political and economic exclusion -since they are denied access to other sources of income -but is also a potentially empowering economic strategy. In doing so, she makes a very significant contribution to overcoming the extraordinary lack of interest in or knowledge of this economy what Mike McCall has called the phenomenon of the ‘invisible brewer’. She argues that many women in the Mahenge highlands, her study area, rely on income from brewing, and that in doing so they are in effect buying their way out of involvement in grain farming, for they are unable to mobilize the labour needed for effective accumulation through agriculture. She distinguishes between investment brewers -a group of women who brew for sale only occasionally, to meet specific cash needs -and a smaller body of livelihood brewers. The latter are often female household heads, and rely almost entirely on brewing for a cash income. Interestingly, Green’s findings suggest a slightly different pattern of brewing here to that which I found in research in Rungwe/Kyela, and in other parts of East Africa. There it seemed that the most regular brewers were those who did have some other source of income, though generally a slight one. These women were, apparently, the most regular brewers because they could call on these other resources when their brewing activities ran into problems: when brews went wrong (as they do), when drinkers failed to pay (as they do), or when there was some unexpected demand for cash from some local official. Regrettably, Green does not deal with this last issue in this otherwise very valuable piece of research. There is a further story here -which Beidelman touched on, many years ago -of how the dynamics of sale and debt, and the rents extracted by local officials and ‘club’ owners, have an important effect upon the distribution of the cash income from the sale of local liquor, bringing benefits to men and to minor functionaries of the state, rather than to women.
Justin Willis

THE CULTURAL CONTEXT OF CHILDHOOD DIARRHOEA AMONG GOGO INFANTS. Mara Mabilia. Anthropology and Medicine 7 (2). 16pp.
This article records the findings of Mabilia’s research into two types of childhood diarrhoea, attributed by the Gogo to states of breast-feeding and influenced by sexual behaviour. The Gogo interpretation and treatment was found by Mabilia, an Italian anthropologist, to differ markedly from the more clinical diagnosis and treatment which would be provided by a health centre. Herein lie considerable dangers for young Gogo children’s health and survival.
Through her in-depth research Mabilia has identified cultural reasons why prescriptions of health clinics so often fail in the prevention of diarrhoea and malnutrition in Gogo infants, and by extrapolation in infant’s of other African countries (and Brazil). The importance of finding reasons is highlighted by the UNICEF report of 1998 which states that up to 2.2 million infant and child deaths (a year) are the result of dehydration due to persistent diarrhoea often accompanied by malnutrition. In Tanzania these diseases are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in children under five.
Using a variety of methods for her research in the Dodoma District Mabilia included a survey at the Cicongwe village dispensary in which a baby’s health was shown to be at risk after the first six months. Since Gogo explanation of diarrhoea seemed to be closely related to beliefs about sexual taboos and practices, the most rewarding results came from information obtained from friendships and intensive discussions with women and healers in the area. For this a deep knowledge of ‘cigogo’, the Gogo language, was essential to follow the use of double meaning, metaphor and mithonymics used by the women to explain the different situations involved in a child’s health.
As Mabilia says “the utilisation of information concerning the mothers’ understanding of the nature and causes of diarrhoea can be very important for paediatricians in the treatment of diarrhoea”. It opens the way to new forms of communication with the users of medical services. A new (different) doctor patient relationship, more sensitive to the local meanings of disease effects, causes and practices, needs to be part of the multi-variable causes of diarrhoea and malnutrition. Thereafter successful health intervention is better assured. This article is recommended reading for all interested in the welfare of children and communities but especially for health specialists and biological anthropologists who work in Africa.
Fiona Armitage

PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM IN A POOR, AID DEPENDENT COUNTRY -TANZANIA. O. Therkildsen. Public Administration Development 20 61-71. 2000. This article describes how the multiple changes in the public sector during recent years have been pursued despite fragile political support and few service delivery improvements on the ground. The paper argues that this has been because of substantial external influences, fragmented domestic policy making, weak links between policy making and implementation and questionable assumptions about some of the reform measures -DRB.

BURNING WITH ENTHUSIASM: FUELWOOD SCARCITY IN TERMS OF SEVERITY, IMPACTS AND REMEDIES. F H Johnsen. Forum for Development Studies. 1999 (1)
24 pp.

BUILDING ON YOUR OWN DOORSTEP. Aida Kisanga. Courier. 182. August/September 2000. 3 pages. This paper points out that 40% of Tanzania’s annual development budget goes on construction but that foreign contractors (less than 3% of all contractors) are still dominating the building trade. There is now a policy to increase the share of indigenous firms to between 20% and 30% of the value of foreignfunded projects in the medium term. The paper goes on to discuss the problems -underestimation of overheads, scheduling of hired equipment use, management and marketing and makes recommendations on ways to improve the situation by technology transfer and targeting -DRB

CULTURAL TRANSFER IN ADULT EDUCATION: THE CASE OF THE FOLK DEVELOPMENT COLLEGES IN TANZANIA. Alan Rogers. International Review of Education. 46 (1/2) 25 pages.

This paper, about the Swedish financed Folk Colleges in Tanzania between 1975 and suggests that, for success to be achieved, there needs to be a match between the ideologies, discourse and functions of the educational institutions within both societies and that the transfer of more than one element of any educational system would assist take-up.

EFFICACY OF VOLUNTARY HIV 1 COUNSELLING AND TESTING IN KENYA, TANZANIA AND TRINIDAD. Voluntary Counselling and Testing Efficacy Study Group. Lancet. 356
(9224). July 2000. 9pp.

FROM SOCIAL NEGOTIATION TO CONTRACT: SHIFTING STRATEGIES OF FARM LABOUR RECRUITMENT IN TANZANIA UNDER MARKET LIBERALISATION. S Ponte. World Development. 28 2000. 13 pages.

WHY DO FARMERS EXPAND THEIR LAND INTO FORESTS? THEORIES AND EVIDENCE FROM TANZANIA (A Angelsen et al) and TANZANIA’S SOIL WEALTH (K A Brekke). Environment and Development Economics. 4 (3) July 1999. lSpp and 23pp respectively.

EXPORTING, OWNERSHIP AND CONFIDENCE IN TANZANIAN ENTERPRISES. World Economy. 22 1999. 16pp.

TANZANIA – EXPORT MARKET DEVELOPMENT SERVICES FOR SME’S
L Tomesen and A Gibson. Small Enterprise Development 10(4)December 1999. 9pp

THE SEARCH FOR THE SOURCE OF THE NILE: CORRESPONDANCE BETWEEN BURTON, SPEKE AND OTHERS FROM BURTON’S UNPUBLISHED EAST AFRICAN LETTER BOOK… Ed Donald Young Roxburghe Club 1999 207pp, maps

When Michael Wise, Reviews Editor of Tanzanian Affairs, passed away in November 1998 he left behind a big gap. We are now looking for a volunteer to take over the job he used to do. This involves collecting new books and articles about Tanzania, selecting those worthy of a full review, requesting help with such reviews or merely mentioning or briefly summarising the others. Just three times a year about 8 pages of Tanzanian Affairs are given over to these reviews and mentions. We will supply full details of all new publications and also a list of possible reviewers. Qualifications for the job? An interest in Tanzania and in books and word processing capacity. Please give me a phone call, or send a letter or an email (the addresses are at the back) if you are interested in helping. Many thanks -Editor.

TA ISSUE 67

Posted on September 1, 2000 by editor

TA 67 cover

ELECTIONS 2000
What happened last time?
The candidates
Nomination and registration
Will they be free and fair?
Who will win?

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READERS LETTERS

ELECTIONS 2000

Posted on September 1, 2000 by editor

THE TIMETABLE
On election day, October 29, 2000, the People of the United Republic of Tanzania living on the mainland vote for the Union President, members of the Union National Assembly and District and Town Councillors. On the same day Zanzibaris vote for the Union President, the President of Zanzibar, members of the Union National Assembly, the Zanzibar House of Representatives and Zanzibar councillors. Nomination of candidates took place in August. Registration of voters was scheduled to take place from August 8 to 21. The election campaign began unofficially in July but the official campaign period was scheduled to be from August 22 to October 28.

WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME?
At the end ofthe 1995 elections these were the results:

UNION PRESIDENCY:
Mkapa (Chama cha Mapinduzi -CCM) 4.0 million votes (61.8%)
Mrema (NCCR-mageuzi) 1.8 million votes (27.8%)
Lipumba (Civic United Front -CUP) 410,000 votes (6.4%)
Cheyo (United Democratic Party -UDP) 250,000 votes (4.0%)
Mr Mkapa became President.

UNION PARLIAMENT:
CCM: 186 MP’s were elected, 27 women became nominated MP’s plus the Attorney General plus five Zanzibar House of Representative members = 219 CCM MP’s. The CCM formed the government.

CUF 24 elected MP’s (all came from Zanzibar) plus 4 nominated women = 28 MP’s. These MP’s in alliance (on the mainland) with the UDP MP’s became the official opposition in the Tanzanian National Assembly NCCR-Mageuzi: 16 elected MP’s (mostly from the Kilimnjaro Region and urban areas) plus 3 nominated women = 19 MP’s.

CHADEMA (Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo): 3 elected MP’s plus one nominated woman = 4 MP’s. UDP: 3 elected MP’s plus one nominated woman (all from the Mwanza Region) = 4 MP’s

These elections were considered by observers to have been broadly free and fair but there were many administrative teething troubles (especially in Dar es Salaam) in this first multiparty election following the demise of the one-party state and CCM enjoyed advantages because of the fact that it had been the ruling party for over 30 years.

ZANZIBAR PRESIDENCY:
Amour (CCM) 165,271
Hamad (CUF) 163,706
Dr Amour became President of Zanzibar

ZANZIBAR HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
CCM: 26 MP’s elected plus 10 nominated by the President plus 5 nominated women plus 5 Regional Commissioners plus the Attorney General = 47 MP’s.

CUF 24 elected MP’s plus 4 nominated = 28 MP’s. CUF took every seat in Pemba and four seats in Unguja (the main island).

These elections proved highly controversial and there was a widespread feeling amongst independent observers that they were not free and fair. The Isles were divided politically almost exactly 50:50 and even if CUF had been declared the winner the result would have been very close. (For further details on this see the Reviews Section below -Ed.). During the following three years there was political tension and CUF boycotted parliament in protest against the results. There were also widespread allegations about infringement of human rights of CUF members by the Zanzibar government.

Since 1995 there have been over 20 BY-ELECTIONS for Union MP’s in which the CCM further illustrated its continuing dominance by winning all but two. One of the two ensured the entry into Parliament of NCCR-Mageuzi presidential candidate Augustine Mrema (a seat he later lost when he was no longer able to work with his colleagues and joined the Tanzania Labour Party -TLP); CCM then regained the seat. The second allowed UDP presidential candidate John Cheyo to enter Parliament where he took a prominent role as Deputy Leader of the opposition and Shadow Finance Minister. In most by-elections CCM won by huge majorities but in two Dar es Salaam by-elections in 1999 CUF illustrated its growing strength in areas with large Muslim populations and would have won if the opposition had been united behind CUF.

THE ELECTORAL PROCESS
The electoral system is ‘first past the post’ -the person with the largest number of votes in a constituency wins. On the mainland there is an Electoral Commission chaired by Judge Lewis Makame. It has issued a tough ‘Election Code’ designed to stop government officials and party leaders using their facilities (planes, vehicles, offices, churches, mosques, the media) in political campaigning.

To be nominated as a candidate for the presidency it is necessary to pay Shs 1 million ($1,250) and have written support from 250 ‘trustees’ from each of eight mainland regions and the two Zanzibar regions. Parliamentary candidates have to pay Shs 100,000 ($125). The government has been subsidising parties with representatives in parliament according to the number of seats they hold. There are 13 registered parties. Independent candidates are not permitted.

CANDIDATES FOR THE UNION PRESIDENCY

Candidates for the Tanzanian Presidency

Augustine L Mrema (TLP)
Ibrahim Lipumba (CUF)
Benjamin W Mkapa (CCM)
John Cheyo (UDP)
ZANZIBAR
Seif Shariff Hamad (CUF)
Amani A Karume (CCM)

UDP: JOHN MOMOSI CHEYO. In his capacity as Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts Cheyo has been relentless in pursuing the government on such issues as corruption, excessive government expenditure and the large number of South African investors. Explaining why he and his party had failed to join the CUF/CHADEMA Alliance (see below) so as to put up a united front against CCM he said that as the presidential candidate and his running mate were both Muslims this showed religious bias. He said that the two candidates should have come from different parties and be of different religions. In order to comply with the law one should have resigned from his party and joined the other party. He added that UDP did not favour ‘tooth for tooth policies. “We are against vengeance” he said.
Running mate: Omar Massoud Omar.

CUF/CHADEMA ALLIANCE: PROFESSOR IBBRAHIM LIPUMBA. Formerly economic adviser to President Mwinyi at the time Tanzania’s economy was being liberalised, Lipumba
was a Professor of Economics at the University of Dar es Salaam. He believes that CCM is tired after 40 years in power, wants to offer an intelligent alternative to government policies, recommends an increase in mining royalties, reduction in taxes handicapping small business and borrowing to help improve
education. Lipumba has been making more and more radical speeches criticising almost every aspect of CCM government policy, lashing out against corruption and has charged the CCM with accepting funds from petroleum smugglers. He wants big
companies to be taxed more.
RUNNING MATE: Nassoro Hamis Mohamed, a lawyer who is defending the accused in the treason trial (see below)

CCM. BENJAMIN WILLIAM MKAPA (62) got 99% of the votes at the Party’s National Executive Committee. A journalist and former editor of several national newspapers, Mkapa was Press Secretary to Mwalimu Nyerere before becoming a
diplomat representing Tanzania in Nigeria and then becoming Foreign Minister. He was elected President in 1995 and since that time has managed to retain his reputation as an honest, hard working man who has steered Tanzania on a route of economic conservatism. He has tried hard to justify his campaign promises to fight corruption and has preserved Tanzania’s good reputation for stability and peace in the outside world. He has resisted pressures from donor countries to intervene in the troubled politics and judicial problems of Zanzibar (See Reviews Section below Ed). If elected he is likely to be in a much stronger position to rule and to deal more forcefully with corruption as he will be less likely to be in the hands of former leaders many of whom are reaching retirement. Running mate: Dr Omar Ali Juma, the present Vice-President.

TLP: AUGUSTINE LYATONGA MREMA, a former teacher and state security officer, reached the position of Deputy Prime Minister before being sacked by former President Mwinyi in 1995 and establishing himself as the leader of NCCR-Mageuzi just before the last elections. He re-invigorated the party and attracted great support for his populist speeches defending the common man and vigorously attacking corruption. Although he represented a real threat to CCM in 1995 he has since lost much of his lustre. He tends to behave erratically and fell out with most of the other NCCR leaders before breaking away to take over a previously virtually unknown party -the Tanzania Labour Party -TLP. Mrema still has a personal following amongst the under privileged and amongst his Kilmanjaro compatriots but his own apparent inability to work with others and his third change of party allegiance has damaged his credibility. His party also has financial problems as many of his wealthy supporters are believed to have fallen away. As the TLP has no MP’s it therefore receives no government subsidy. Running mate: Ali Iddi Ali

The once influential NCCR-MAGEUZI party has collapsed because of internal dissension, with several of its 15 MP’s deserting it for the CCM and TLP. Its attempts to launch candidates for the Tanzanian and Zanzibar presidential elections both failed. For Tanzania -Edith Lucina, a nominated woman MP -was refused permission to stand by the National Electoral Commission when she failed to get the necessary 200 supporters in Rungwe Region before the closing date for nominations. For Zanzibar, Naila Jiddawi, a nominated CUF MP, was rejected by the Zanzibar Electoral Commission as she tried to change parties to the NCCR just before nominations closed. NCCR leader James Mbatia said that he had refused to join the CUF/CHADEMA Alliance because CUF insisted that both the presidential candidates had to be from the one party.

-AND FOR THE ZANZIBAR PRESIDENCY

CUF. SEIF SHARRIF HAMAD is the charismatic and strongwilled CUF Vice-Chairman and effective leader of CUF in Zanzibar. As Zanzibar Chief Minister from 1984 to 1988 he worked with former President Mwinyi in liberalising the economy. He was dismissed in 1988, expelled from CCM and detained in prison charged with taking away confidential documents before the case was dropped. After the 1995 elections he refused to recognise President Amour and his party and boycotted the Zanzibar, but not the Union parliament until this year. At nomination he said that, if elected, he would form a coalition government with CCM but CCM refused to reciprocate. He vigorously denied in an interview in August 2000 with BBC Swahili Service Head Tido Mhando that his party was being used by Islamic countries, and favoured Muslims. He was in favour of a three-tier government for the Union, a major point of difference between himself and the CCM candidate who wishes to retain the present two government system.

CCM: AMANI ABEID KARUME (51) is the only ‘new’ presidential candidate -all the others stood in 1995. The tall and soft-spoken Minister of Transport and Communications in the outgoing Zanzibar government is the eldest son of the assassinated former President Sheikh Abeid Aman Karume. When he went to collect his nomination forms he first went to pray before his father’s statue. He said that, whenever one wants to embark on any crucial assignment, one has to seek blessings from one’s parents. When Karume, whose campaign had been led by Tanzanian Foreign Minister Jakaya Kikwete (who came near to beating Mkapa in the selection for CCM Tanzanian presidential candidate in 1995) returned to Zanzibar in a six-boat fleet, accompanied by former President Mwinyi, after the Dodoma selection process, there was an explosion of joy in the streets. Government offices and shops closed as thousands greeted Karume’s 50 vehicle procession, showing, according to the East African, that CCM still knew how to ‘play politics’. Even CUF leader Seif Sharrif Hamad welcomed the choice reportedly saying that Karume was a man who ‘knows how to listen’. Others interviewed in the press spoke of him as being clean, non-corrupt, not pompous and the only candidate who had shown any commitment to ending the four-year long political conflict in the Isles. In his campaign for election as candidate he promised to revive the programmes of housing development and land reform initiated by his father who is fondly remembered by many Zanzibaris. He is credited with all significant development in the Isles. Many people are nostalgic about the time when Zanzibar had a near monopoly on the world market for cloves and hence a healthy economy. At nomination Karume said he wanted to purify the polluted political atmosphere in the Isles and to restore unity, brotherhood and solidarity by removing the prevailing animosities but he did not favour a coalition government. Karume has been suffering from health problems for three years but said that he had a check up in May 2000 and was now fully fit.

PARTY POLICIES.
As this issue of ‘Tanzanian Affairs’ went to press the party manifestos were not available. Based on previous experience it seems unlikely that there will be clearly defined differences between the policies of the different parties (except in Zanzibar). Politics in Tanzania (as in many other countries) is dominated by personalities. Starting in August Tanzanians were subjected to a massive dose of rhetoric in which CCM defended its record and the other parties promised all kinds of benefits, often without indicating how they would be paid for. It is impossible in the limited space in ‘Tanzanian Affairs’ to even summarise the flow of rhetoric but the following are examples from the earliest stage of the campaign:

Mkapa pointed to the 91 bills passed by parliament in the last five years which had gone far to improve management of the economy and create an enabling environment for the participation of the growing private sector. Cheyo, who has always had something of a Thatcherite approach to the economy, promised to privatise land and abolish primary school fees. Mrema would raise workers pay, increase the prices of agricultural crops and abolish laws which made loitering and prostitution offences. Karume would deal with people advocating parochialism based on the islands of Unguja and Pemba and would end the delays civil servants were suffering in obtaining their salaries. Lipumba criticised Mkapa for concentrating on his achievements but not touching on the looming famine in 11 regions. Seif Hamad would revive a plan for the establishment of a free port in Zanzibar.

The death of Tanzania’s hero, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, last year was expected to damage the ruling CCM party but in spite of internal tensions it has retained a remarkable degree of well-disciplined unity and hence its vice-like grip on power. The party began as an open advocate of socialism with widespread state ownership in the 1960’s but changed its polices in the eighties and now follows a middle of the road line including privatisation and the encouragement of individual enterprise and foreign investment. The main reason for its continued popularity is that it has kept the country at peace and politically stable while most of Tanzania’s neighbours have experienced periods of turmoil.

The other parties seem to differ little on policy although all are highly critical of what they consider CCM’s economic failures, the widespread corruption and the running down of social services like education and health.
Mrema’s policy has always been to support the undergdog. CUF is alleged by its opponents to be biased in favour of the Muslim part of the population but denies this. UDP suffers from having most of its membership concentrated in the regions near Lake Victoria.

CUF in Zanzibar advocates a three-part government for the Union. CCM staunchly defends the present two-government system.

‘Grow up you multiparty brats’ was the heading in an editorial in the East African (May 15) which went on: ‘Sadly .. . hopes that the passage of time had given political parties …… . and the electorate a chance to grow up and cultivate a disposition suited to democratic politics, appear to have been over ambitious. Witch hunting, character assassination, demonstrations of anger and sensationalism are overshadowing constructive analysis, fair comment and articulation of policies’.

It is difficult for outsiders to understand why the CCM government often takes actions which some would describe as undemocratic, for example, by changing the constitution in its favour (the President was recently granted power to nominate 10 MP’s) and by often banning opposition meetings and taking advantage of its control of radio and government newspapers, when its position in the country is so dominant that it has little to fear. It is equally difficult for outsiders to understand the folly of most opposition parties in not cooperating with each other to try and defeat the CCM. The consequent weakness of the opposition means that many electors are becoming disillusioned about the democratic electoral process which could be harmful in the long term.

NOMINATION AND REGISTRATION

There was really no serious opposition to President Mkapa as the CCM candidate for the presidency. A former CCM Executive Committee member, a certain Eugene Sabi Munasa, declared his democratic right to enter the contest but it was soon clear that the die was already cast. When Munasa arrived at the CCM HQ for nomination papers he was told that he could not contest because he didn’t have a degree.

‘Africa Today’ was critical of the process in its March issue: Extracts: ‘Critics aver that Tanzania under Benjamin Mkapa is drifting towards dictatorship at a rate even cynics did not foresee. To be sure, part of the blame for this turn of events is …. the union between the mainland and Zanzibar and the constitution …. President Mkapa has set the tone for his party’s hardliners by accusing the Kisanga Constitutional Commission of overstepping its mandate (it recommended a three government structure for the country) and the media for highlighting the Commission’s findings ….. But of even more concern is the fact that nowadays the Tanzanian press is awash with cases of government excesses against its critics’.

As successful selection as a CCM candidate almost guarantees a place in parliament because of the popularity of the party, the CCM preferential candidate selection process in July/August was, according to the Guardian, ‘characterised by intense competition and drama with repeated allegations of corruption, withdrawals, boycotting of results, personality clashes and alleged bribes (from money to clothes to bicycles). But Dar es Salaam University’s Dr Daudi Mukangara said that CCM should be commended for the way in which it conducted this exercise in democracy at its basic level. “Other parties do not do anything similar” he said.

So strong was the media pressure against allegations of corruption in the CCM selection process that the leadership stepped in on August 13 and announced the names of 40 incumbent MP’s who had been banned from taking part in the election because of what was described as their ‘violation of party ethics and regulations’. President Mkapa had earlier complained in a speech about ‘the rich who used their financial muscle in an attempt to privatise the Party for their personal gains’. Amongst those not allowed to stand, even in some cases where they had been selected by local party members, were the Minister and Deputy Minister for Water, two ministers of state, MP for Kawe Zainurdin Adamjee, Ambassador Paul Rupia MP and former High Commissioner in London Ali Mchumo. The CCM leadership’s move was widely welcomed by the media.

The CCM was fighting for every seat. CUF selected 48 Zanzibar members to fight for seats in the National Assembly and 47 for the Zanzibar House plus 32 mainlanders also for National Assembly seats. NCCR-Mageuzi named some 90 candidates for the Assembly and 22 for the Zanzibar House.

TLP was hoping to nominate a total of 120 but lack of funds was likely to handicap its efforts.

In Zanzibar competition was fierce for the CCM candidacy after the party had decided that the present President Salmin Amour could not stand for a third term (TA No.66). Six candidates picked up forms including Zanzibar Chief Minister Dr Ghalib Bilal who was said to be favoured by President Amour. He obtained 44 votes out of the 77 cast when Zanzibar’s CCM branch met; however, when the issue was moved to CCM HQ in Dodoma and the mainland members had their say, their choice, Kamme, got 111 votes to Billal’ s 61.

The registration of voters also proved contentious especially in Zanzibar. In the early stages of registration in August several houses were burned down, allegations were made that mainland CCM supporters had been shipped in to Zanzibar, other resident mainlanders were told by CUF supporters to leave the isles, and some 150 CUF supporters were arrested.

As this issue went to press the National Electoral Commission said that during the first two weeks of the threeweek registration process 5.5 million people had registered. Registration was high in Dar es Salaam, Coast, Dodoma, Mbeya and Singida regions but low in Kilimanjaro, Lindi, Iringa, Mtwara and Tanga. In the 1995 election 8.9 million people registered.

WILL THE ELECTIONS BE FREE AND FAIR?
Recently retired Chief Justice Francis Nyalali was quoted in the Guardian on May 3 as saying that Tanzania still had a long way to go before attaining free and fair elections and the dissemination of information through independent media.
Some weeks ago Political Parties Registrar George Liundi told journalists that all 13 political parties in the country had committed serious mistakes in one way or the other over the last seven years which warranted them all being struck off the register. But this would leave a political vacuum. He said that all parties had received assistance from outside the country and none had disclosed the amount; few parties practiced internal democracy; there had been too much internal bickering.

However, most observers believe that the 2000 elections are likely to be basically free and fair on the mainland. Some 75 international observers are expected.

In Zanzibar the election is again likely to be hard fought between CCM and CUF. ‘Tanzanian Affairs’ has covered in earlier issues recent moves in Zanzibar including the Commonwealth-brokered Inter-party Agreement signed but not fully implemented, CUF’s insistence on an independent electoral commission, rejection by CUF of a constitutional amendment Bill which would have allowed such a change but would also allow President Amour to be free of any charges relating to his period in office.

Dr Moses Anafu, the architect of the Zanzibar peace agreement, who was also the Commonwealth Secretariat’s most senior advisor on African Affairs resigned on June 5 following revelations in The Times that he had an interest in a diamond mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo -in an area defended by Zimbabwean troops -while he was part of the Commonwealth team monitoring Zimbabwe’s elections. Most of the attention in the press and amongst donors over recent years has concentrated on allegations of the government’s deprivation of human rights of CUF supporters and as the election approached the intermittent violence between the parties increased.

Four Zanzibar ministers published in May a 60-page booklet ‘Zanzibar Politics: A proper perspective’ listing 144 criminal acts and acts of intimidation said to have been committed by CUP since it was formed. Included in the list was intimidation of CCM members, destruction of their crops, expulsion of CCM tenants, barring of CCM members from communal services and from attending weddings and funerals. The ministers blamed some western countries for persistent criticism of Zanzibar and using blackmail associated with their aid programmes.

Whether the 2000 elections will be free and fair in Zanzibar is not clear. Early good signs were peaceful initial party rallies, the broadcast live (for the first time) of a CUP campaign rally and the news that the Zanzibar Electoral Commission had a new chairman (Abdulrahman Jumbe) and had agreed to remove polling stations from army camps. There were some worrying initial indications including an increase in the number of army personnel in the Isles, the apparent refusal of the government to allow international observers from the BU (ostensibly because, unlike the OAU and Commonwealth, neither Tanzania nor Zanzibar were members of the EU) and many serious disputes and some violence during the electoral registration process plus serious threats from CUP leaders of a ‘tooth for a tooth’ attitude and a warning that if the elections were rigged there would be violence.

One political observer thought that the popular Zanzibar CCM candidate might win the presidency while CUP won the majority of the seats in parliament. He considered that this could be the best possible result for the future of Zanzibar as a coalition would then be necessary.

WHO WILL WIN?
There seems little doubt that Benjamin Mkapa will win the Union presidency comfortably and that CCM will win the vast majority of seats on the mainland. CUP should again become the largest opposition party in the mainland parliament with the help of its strong base in Zanzibar and recent progress made in building up the party in the coastal regions of the mainland where Muslim voters are numerous. Other mainland opposition parties are expected to do badly.
The Swahili paper ‘Wiki Hii’ estimated in August that CCM would increase its overall number of MP’s, CUP might gain a few seats on the mainland for the first time and TLP was likely to gain a few seats at the expense of NCCR-Mageuzi.
In Zanzibar with both parties determined to wm (seemingly at all costs) it is difficult to forecast the result.

THE COST
The elections will be expensive -some $40 million (Shs 32 billion) -to pay, according to President Mkapa ‘for the excessive transparency demanded by the externally voiced test for a free and fair election’. Donors initially offered $8 million and the President has appealed for more assistance.
Monthly subsidies to the five parties with MP’s in Parliament will continue only until the election. NCCR, being the largest mainland opposition party has been receiving Shs 31 million, CUF Shs 36 million, CHADEMA and UDP Shs 18 million each (TLP gets nothing as it has no MP’s) but CCM gets Shs 330 million per month because of its much larger presence in parliament.

THE ‘COMPLICATED’ TREASON TRIAL
On May 3 the prosecutors amended the charges against the 18 Zanzibar CUF leaders who have been in detention for two years to include the accusation that they had secretly enlisted the party’s private security guards -former government soldiers called ‘blue guards’ -in the alleged plot to bring down the government. The defendants pleaded not guilty to the new charge.

CUF Chairman Ibrahim Lipumba said that they had lost faith in the Zanzibar High Court and would now appeal to the Tanzanian Court of Appeal. In the most recent adjudication the Nigerian judge had erred in his interpretation of the Union Constitution. Zanzibar was not a sovereign state (Tanzania was) and therefore treason could not be committed against it. The defendants also appealed again for bail.

At the hearing on April 18 CUF’s Seif Sharrif had himself been involved in a demonstration outside the Court and was arrested and charged with stealing a sub -machine gun with violence and attacking four police officers. He was released on bail.

At the Appeal Court on August 21 the three judges listened first to three ‘friends of the court’. One of them was constitutional lawyer Prof. Jwani Mwikusa who later gave ‘Tanzanian Affairs’ the gist of the advice he had given. He had pointed out that the Zanzibar Penal Decree under which the applicants were charged had not been repealed since the days of the British Protectorate. He said that what constituted the offence of treason was the intention, imagination or manipulation against the supreme authority (the then Sultan) and not the killing of a president which was murder. He said that law makers were to blame for not observing this problem. He thought that the appellants had been charged with nothing. He also pointed out the differences between the constitution of Tanzania as regards treason and that of Zanzibar. As regards the application for bail he said that no adequate reasons had been given for this to be refused. After hearing the two other ‘friends of the court’ the judges said that the whole matter was complicated and they needed time to do more research on the laws and the arguments which had been presented. They would therefore reserve judgement to a later date.

TANZANIA IN THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Posted on September 1, 2000 by editor

GOING UP
AFRICA TODAY (August) quoting the latest data from the UN’s annual Human Development Report said that Tanzania had risen 17 places to 156th last year out of the 174 countries included in its human development index. Uganda was down because of a drop in life expectancy to 39.6 years and Kenya was up by 18 places. Bottom of the list were Burundi, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone.

LUGUFU
The July issue of the GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE included four pages of pictures and some text under the heading ‘Life on the Inside’ about Lugufu refugee camp, one of three purpose-built Congolese refugee camps in what was described as ‘a remote area of mosquito-infested marshland’ in Kigoma region. Extracts: ‘This urban society of 45,000 people supported by donors including the Red Cross, living in 34 villages is larger than Kigoma with shops, discos, wrestling arenas and hairdressers in abundance. The camp even has its own radio station and cinema and numerous bars selling pombe and banana beer to the accompaniment of Congolese Lingala music. The Lugufu bicycle-taxi company runs 20 ‘cabs’ between villages and, for the equivalent of $2 offers a bone-crunching day trip along rutted roads to the nearest Tanzanian village. There are 40 churches, a mosque and 10 primary schools following the Congolese (French) curriculum plus one additional subject -‘peace and conflict’ .

A less happy picture of Lugufu was presented earlier in the year by INDEPENDENT INTERNATIONAL which wrote as follows: ‘Most of the refugees are women, and to compound their desperate plight, they are sexual prey for the men … rape is something you have wherever you have refugees said Kenyan Red Cross Reproductive Health Coordinator Mama Obaso. “The men want children …. to replace their dead relatives. They cannot afford the bride price to marry again so they rape a girl. The victim’s family, anxious to cover the shame, force the girl to marry the man … they turn it into a positive thing. About three months ago 50 refugee women were raped one afternoon while trying to reach the camp from the Congo’ .

LIFE AND DEATH
The SUNDAY TELEGRAPH published a moving story on July 2 by Lindsay Hawdon under the heading ‘An Englishwoman Abroad’. Extracts: ‘I notice him first because he seems too old and tall to be leaning on his mother’s shoulder. His head tilts to one side as if it is too heavy to hold upright. They are the first to board the bus. They move slowly up the aisle, settling somewhere in the middle; she by the window, he by the aisle. The bus engine starts and coughs black fumes from its exhaust. “Are you American?” the driver asks as I pass him. “No, English” I reply. “Ah, Margaret Thatcher” he says, flashing a gold tooth in his smile. Finally, everyone is aboard and we set off down the bumpy road out of the Tanzanian capital. I am cramped across my rucksack with my feet almost around my head ….. the driver is singing. And then there is a groaning sound that becomes distinct above the noise of the engine. The tall boy has flung his head back against the seat and his eyes are moving erratically from side to side. His groans catch in his throat and seem to choke him. The mother takes his head in her hands and brings it down to rest on her lap. I try to think of other things. I’m counting potholes and dreaming of home …. The mother starts rocking back and forth. She holds the body against her chest, squeezing him tightly. His eyes are open, staring unmoving at the roof…. It is only when she starts to sob high, drawn-out wails that I know he is dead. She tries to close his eyes but the lids seem fixed open. The driver is no longer singing and is looking worriedly behind him. Eventually he stops the bus. But the mother tells everyone that there’s nothing they can do and that she wants them to let her take him home. Everyone is quiet. Occasionally a hand reaches out to squeeze her shoulder comfortingly. For most of the four hour journey we sit in silent sadness. The mother looks back towards her son -and still she cannot close his eyes … (Thank you Paul Marchant for sending this Editor).

MAMA NYOKA (SNAKE WOMAN)
“This business has been dominated by men for too long” said Salma Moshi in an interview published in the EAST AFRICAN (May 8). Extracts: ‘Sahna (38) claims to be the only woman in East and Central Africa who dances with snakes and makes a good income from doing it. She has six snakes of different sizes and types which she refers to as pets. Her favourite dance partner is a cobra, whose ability to stand on its tail thrills the crowds who flock to watch her. She has been bitten twice on the hands and once on the chin. When that happens, she quickly wipes off the blood and keeps going or otherwise the crowd would take off… .Apart from being a source of income, the snakes also keep thieves way from her house. “Sometimes I leave the doors open, but no one dares come in” she says.

TRADITIONAL PLANTS AND MALARIA
The Maasai people have a strong tradition of using plants for healing, often as a ritualised retreat called orpul aiming to increase both physical and spiritual strength. POSITIVE NEWS (Spring 2000) explained that many of the plants used by the Maasai have already been demonstrated scientifically to be effective against particular diseases, such as zanthoxylum chalybeum for malaria. Research into this field is being undertaken by the Aang Serian Peace Village in Arusha, in association with the Global Initiative for Traditional Systems of Health at Oxford University. To celebrate this vibrant heritage of ancient healing wisdom a festival of traditional medicine and culture was recently organised in Arusha. The festival also commemorated the inaugural meeting of the Research Initiative on Traditional Anti-Malarials (RITA) which was held there to develop a strategy for more effective, evidence -based use of traditional medicines. The Peace Village contact address is P 0 Box 21103, Arusha (Thank you John Porter for sending this item -Editor).

RAP -REGGAE -TAARAB
Yusuf Mahmoud described in the Spring issue of ORBIT how in Zanzibar, between calls to prayer from the many mosques, you can also hear American rap and Jamaican reggae. But around the next corner you will just as likely hear music from India or the latest chart toppers from Egypt and the Gulf States. The article went on: ‘Equally popular are local musical forms, in particular, ‘modem Taarab ‘. This is derived from the Arabic Taarab meaning to be moved or agitated -it is sung poetry. The Malindi Music Club is the oldest group dating back to 1905. Legend has it that, in the 1870’s, Sultan Bargash sent a Zanzibari to Cairo to play the qanun, a kind of zither, common to the Arab speaking world. Besides the qanun other instruments in a taarab orchestra include the oud (an Arabian lute), violin, accordion, cello and keyboard. ‘East African Melody’, currently, the biggest act in Zanzibar, plays ‘taarab to dance to’ which has sparked a debate about the debasement of traditional culture’

WATER OF LIFE
The intervention of former US President Carter together with the very persistent persuasion of a London-trained Bavarian-born anaesthetist has led to a unique production system for the water which is dripped intravenously into patients to enable them to recover from a multitude of illnesses. So wrote MISSION AVIATION NEWS -MAF (June-August) which went on to explain how the liquid is produced using the reverse osmosis method (once clean and softened, using ion exchange, the water is forced through an osmotic membrane so fine that it stops microbes from passing through; it is later further cleansed through a filter made of pressed glass dust) -a method employed by NASA as part of the USA space programme. Although it was secret, President Carter allowed Dr Kamm at the Christian Medical Centre in Moshi to develop production and the system has now been installed in 54 Tanzanian hospitals. MAF uses its planes to help technicians to travel to even the remotest hospitals and to distribute medicines and medical equipment (Thank you Christine Lawrence for sending this item -Editor)

HOW UGANDA LED TO NYERERE’S DOWNFALL
There was strong reaction in the July/August issue of NEW AFRICA to an article by Henry Gombya which it published and which was referred to in Tanzanian Affairs No 66. A Kenya reader described the suggestion that Nyerere lost power because the soldiers he sent to Uganda were exposed to Ugandan ‘riches’ as a lie. Another reader described the article as ‘shocking’ and said that it portrayed a ‘very ungrateful Ugandan’. ‘It is a pity’ , he wrote, ‘that Gombya did not see that Nyerere deserved credit for trusting his ‘school dropouts’ to chase ‘the rich’ Idi Amin out’.

THE NEW DAR ES SALAAM
In a glowing 16-page supplement on Dar es Salaam in its May 22 issue the EAST AFRICAN said that ‘the sun never sets for Dar’s exciting nights; the city is as awake at night as it is during the day’. Articles spoke of the new Strategic Urban Development Plan (SUDP) -the city now occupies 1,350 square kilometers compared with 51 Sq. Kms. at independence; annual revenue collection rising in the last three years from $125,000 to $11 million largely from rapidly expanding business and industry; many new high rise buildings; massive refurbishment of roads and telephone services; 200 licensed taxis; a huge modem port which welcomed its first cruise liner this year ….. .

A ‘TRAINEE COMMUNITY MUSICIAN’
Kate Murdoch writing in THE INDEPENDENT (April 22) told of her experiences last year when she was taught traditional music -as a ‘trainee community musician’ by the nephew of the well-known Tanzanian musician Dr Hukwe Zawose. ‘The Zawose household boasts 11 professional performers and everyone else in the family plays sings and dances too’. Her classroom was a shady mango tree and under it she learnt ilimba (the Gogo word for ‘thumb piano’ -a series of metal or bamboo tongues fixed to a wooden plate). After classes, a room stuffed with thumb pianos, stringed gourds called ‘zee zees’, skin drums and xylophones became the focus of activities. She explained how ilimba music evolved in the dry dusty plains of Dodoma as cowherds played while walking their cattle to water.

GENITAL MUTILATION
The EAST AFRICAN MEDICAL JOURNAL in its May issue published a table comparing estimates of the prevalence of female genital mutilation in African countries. Countries topping the list included Egypt (98%), Sudan (89%) and Mali (94%). Kenya was said to have 50% while the figures for Tanzania (10%) and Uganda (5%) were the lowest in the table of29 countries.

‘A SKIN-DEEP AFRICAN AFFLICTION’
“Kaburu” children scream as Mohamed Msoma pushes by on his bicycle. Being called a Boer is just one of the many taunts hurled at the middle-aged religious teacher. He is an Albino, chairman of the 80member Albino Society in Morogoro. As in other African countries albinos in Tanzania face social stigma. Mr Msoma claimed that he was sacked from the local tobacco factory because he is an albino. The superintendent said that he could not work properly with poor eyes. Health problems do indeed compound discrimination. Weak eyesight, blisters, bums from the sun and skin cancer are common afflictions …. American researchers estimate that one in 17,000 people has some form of albinism -THE ECONOMIST. (Thank you Jill Bowden for sending this item -Editor).

THINGS HAVE CHANGED
Michael Korda writing in the NEW YORK TIMES (May 7) contrasted a recent visit to the Ngorongoro crater with what a visit used to entail 15 years before. Extracts: ‘Our first surprise was that everyone at Kilimanjaro Airport was pleasant, helpful and friendly. On previous visits it had been like flying into East Germany in the old days … .At the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge the decor is breathtaking. The phrase ‘over the top’ scarcely does it justice. Not since I was in Cher’s house in Malibu have I seen anything so extraordinary. Here are giant fireplaces, African sculpture and weapons, fine bronzes, English country furniture, very beautiful tile work in the Moorish tradition …. The men’s room is so unexpected and luxuriously decorated that we all go to visit it -it’s as if Versace had been asked to design a urinal -only then did we discover that the ladies room was even more baroque…….’ (Thank you Peg Snyder for sending this story from New York-Editor).

THE PRIVATISATION SONG
‘There cannot be many countries that have composed a privatisation song but this has happened in Tanzania and is a point of pride for the Parastatal Sector Reform Commission and symptomatic of the transformation taking place as the country changes from socialism to capitalism … ‘ This was how Mark Turner and Michael Holman of the FINANCIAL TIMES began a 6-page supplement in the July 24 issue. After a slow start, Tanzania was said to be gathering momentum: ‘Dar es Salaam, once not so much sleepy as comatose, now boasts cybercafes and satellite dishes. New hotels are opening to cope with the foreign investors now responding to the new business climate. South Africans are in brewing, British in banking, Canadians in mining, Japanese in cigarette making, Germany in telecommunications and a Philippine company is about to take over the port’s container facility. But when President Mkapa goes to the polls in October he will have a lot of explaining to do ….. ‘ The article goes went on to list the alleged rigging of the last Zanzibar elections, the treason trial, heavy-handed powers to limit freedom of expression, poverty, unemployment, corruption, AIDS, the fear of competition amongst local manufacturers and hence tariff barriers and cumbersome bureaucracy. ‘But Tanzania now looks a better regional investment base than ailing Kenya and the sooner Tanzania meets the objectives of the new East African Community Agreement the better’ .

BUSINESS NEWS

Posted on September 1, 2000 by editor

Exchange rates (August 15): £1 = TShs 1,200 $1= TShs 800

Minister of Finance Daniel Yona announced on May 25 that the budget requirement for 2000/2001 would be in excess of Shs 2.4 trillion but that the government could provide only 50% of this -Shs 1.3 trillion from its own resources. The estimate was almost double the previous year’s budget but Tanzania expected some $200 million (about Shs 160 billion) in debt relief under the HIPC initiative. Shs 15 billion would come from the sale of parastatals. Representatives of over 30 governments and international agencies at the Consultative Group meeting had promised about $ 1 billion (Shs 800 billion) for each of the next three years. Tanzania had achieved an average annual growth rate of 4.1 % during the last three years; it had not had to borrow from banks and inflation had come steadily down to 6% in April.

Main features of the budget:
-excise duty on cigarettes, beer and spirits up by 5%
-excise duty on 46 products abolished
-more money for social services
-reduction of the present 70 petroleum companies to only those with permanent infrastructure -to stem the loss of revenue
-an increase of up to 40% of the budget for social services (20% for defence)

Britain remains one of Tanzania’s main trading partners with some Shs 64 billion earned by British exporters last year said British High Commissioner Bruce Dinwiddy while launching ‘Trade Partners UK’ at the Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair on July 3. He expressed the hope that with Tanzania’s booming gold mining industry, exports to Britain, which currently consisted mainly of commodities, would grow so as to narrow the trade gap. He was delighted that the UK had been chosen as a safe depositary for Tanzanian gold. Under ‘Trade Partners UK’ a website offered details of 55,000 companies wishing to develop overseas trading links, he said -The Guardian.

There was a well attended Trade and Investment Forum at the American Embassy in London on April 27 at which the keynote addresses were given by Industry and Commerce Minister Iddi Simba and High Commissioner in London Abdul Shareef. It was designed to provide opportunities for US companies, especially those with regional headquarters in Europe, to interact with Tanzanian officials and business representatives.

President Mkapa commissioned the $165 million Geita Gold Mine on August 3. It is capable of producing 500 ounces (16 tonnes) of gold a year -Daily News.
The largest hotel operator in Africa, Southern Sun, a subsidiary of South African Breweries has launched a Rands 85 million project to build a Holiday Inn in Dar es Salaam -South African Times.

Tanzania has confirmed that it will withdraw from the 21-state Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) when its one-year notice period ends.

Libya has announced that part of the $46 million debt Tanzania owes it will be turned into Libyan investment projects in Tanzania -East African.

The Government awarded 35% of Tanzania Telecommunications (TTCL) to the consortium Detecon of Germany and MSI of the Netherlands which is paying $120 million and has agreed to increase the number of connections from the present 140,000 to 800,000 by December 2003 -The Guardian.

The First Adili Bankcorp Ltd closed shop on May 15 and was placed under statutory management by the Bank of Tanzania.

A semi-autonomous agency -TANROADS -will take over from the Ministry of Works responsibility for maintaining and rehabilitating roads starting next year. According to the East African this action follows pressure from the EU which has set aside $200 million for roads but doesn’t want the government to manage the programme -East African.

Tanzania is the first African country to sign for a World Bank ‘Programmatic Structural Adjustment Credit’ ($190 million) to help sustain economic reform and speed up poverty reduction.

A GLANCE AT SWAHILI POETRY

Posted on September 1, 2000 by editor

In Swahili culture, a poet’s role is ordained by his ability to reciprocate the needs and wishes of his community. In order to perform this duty to the fullest extent, a poet must have a highly intimate rapport with his own context and therefore he must occupy a position from which he has access to various edifying sources from within the community. According to Swahili ideology, a poet can be described as one of the Mlozi wa mji (proverb meaning, ‘pillars of the town’), signifying that his presence is fundamental to the maintenance of civilised society. Poets are known within the community as Shaha or ‘Shah’, a sign of their high status; they understand more of God than ordinary people, and it is said, ‘poets go deep into the sea to find secrets’. Thus the social position given to poets in the Swahili community is one of respect and high status, defined by the acquisition of the dual qualities of heshima, ‘respect’, and elimu ‘knowledge’.

Through the use of various different modes of presentation, which the poet employs, he may challenge any of the existing hierarchies and institutions that form the nucleus of changing Swahili society. In order to accomplish this nature of social commentary without causing offence or even potentially endangering himself (especially in the case of political poetry), a poet relies upon a wealth of enigmatic and metaphorical language in order to make himself understood to his audience. Through the use of such richly metaphorical language and cryptic or encoded imagery, the poet’s message may remain ambiguously hidden, and in many cases an understanding can only be achieved through the application of specific social or political circumstances onto the poem’s patchwork of language and imagery. Only then will the poem’s inner discourse become clear to the audience. Indeed, in Swahili society, where the importance of speech and words is paramount, people naturally strive to cultivate speech into art, and a Swahili is often judged by his linguistic skill.

Contrary to the opinions of several non-Swahili scholars who have described Swahili poetry as ‘dull’ and unattractive, it must be emphasised that its function is not to be beautiful but to be useful. At the same time let there be no confusion that Swahili poetry, whether traditional versification or modem free verse, exemplifies the Kiswahili language in its most aesthetic form.

Swahili poetry has suffered further at the hands of foreign scholars with the constant reference to its ‘ethnic or local form’, or in the use of the term, ‘traditional poetry’. The term ‘traditional poetry’ implies that the form and content have become outmoded by another form of self-definition. The reality is quite opposite, and in fact Swahili poetry serves as functional a purpose in a modem context as it has done throughout history.

In Swahili poetry, both form and content are of equal importance, and a Swahili poet must adhere to numerous structural criteria in order to produce a piece of work that can be regarded by the community as high quality. With growing access to Swahili poetry in the media there has been an increase in poems written by amateur poets and consequently much of the poetry published in the newspapers stands accused of being mere versification at the expense of meaningful content.

Free verse has gained considerable popularity on the mainland despite strong opposition from Swahili poets who feel it represents a loss of poetic artistry and is a product of eurocentric scholarship. The debate continues until today.
Jonathan Donovan

MISCELLANY

Posted on September 1, 2000 by editor

Africa’s biggest internet service provider ‘Africa Online’ has arrived in Tanzania with exchanges in Dar, Arusha, Mwanza and Zanzibar where customers can now dial up by paying local rather than national call charges. Ten new e-touch centres are being opened every month – Guardian

Former Tanzanian High Commissioner in London Anthony Nyakyi was appointed Chairman of the National Construction Council on April 4 Daily News.

The Deputy Minister of Education and Culture has told parliament that corporal punishment in schools will continue “until we think of another suitable way of punishing offences in learning institutions” -Guardian.

Tanzanian botanist Sebastian Chuwa has been awarded a Lindburgh Foundation Grant for his research project ‘Balancing Ecological Diversity with Art and Music -a Community-based Program to Replant African Blackwood’ (which is used for carvings and to make musical instruments but is facing extinction). Chuwa raises and replants the Blackwood and educates young Tanzanians about its conservation -Guardian.

Some 5,000 women underwent contraception by surgery in the Lake and West Zones during the past six years. But only 25 men agreed to vasectomy -Guardian.

Following several years of good rainfall, a low infant mortality rate and the continuation of the international ban on sales of ivory, the elephant population in the 2,600 sq km Tarangire National park is picking up after the heavy poaching of the 1980’s. The number of elephants in family groups has increased from 250 in 1993 to 420 now. One female produced six infants in seven years with three consecutive sets of twins -East African.

British High Commissioner Dinwiddy was present on July 23 when Tanzania’s WBA Continental Super flyweight boxing champion Mbwana Matumla beat Andy Roberts from Britain in a technical knockout in the second round. The fight was given massive coverage in the local press.

Of the 16 people being accused of involvement in the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar on August 7, 1998 one, 26-year-old Khalfan Khamis Mohamed from Tanzania, is destined to be the first defendant in an international terrorism case to be tried on capital charges in the United States. He is charged with helping to build the bomb used in Dar and to load it on to a truck which he rode part of the way to the embassy. The defence is arguing that he played only a minor role and was the least important member of the conspiracy and therefore should not be facing the death penalty -New York Times.

According to General Secretary Prof. Sebastian Sawatt of the Rural Foundation for Sustainable Development, Tanzania is now second only to South Africa in the list of African countries with advanced bio-gas technology. His organisation was now providing consultancy to other countries and was encouraging the use of a simple $100 tubular plastic biodigesters to provide domestic energy and reduce the demand for wood -The Guardian.

The Tanzanian People’s Defence Forces (TPDF) (through a subsidiary) opened a shop in Dar es Salaam on May 12 for the sale of light weapons and explosives. Consumers, who include licensed hunters, miners, construction companies and foreign markets, are able to buy locally (in Morogoro) manufactured ammunition and imported guns. Another of the five shops licensed to sell arms is the YMCA.