Once again Amnesty International’s Report covering the first six months of 1994 deals with Tanzania in less than a page. And once again most of the cases referred to were in Zanzibar. The CUF party was said to have been repeatedly denied permits to hold public meetings; CUF members had been arrested for short periods and at least two were imprisoned on charges of possessing seditious material. Two men were said to have been sentenced to three month’s imprisonment for possessing an audio-cassette of a public meeting.

In March two mainland journalists, Pascal Shija, Editor of the Express and Riaz Gulamani were arrested for 10 hours after an editorial accused the Union government of incompetence. The London Guardian reported on July 8 that Tanzanian authorities had arrested the publisher and editor of a Swahili paper Shaba because of attacks on the government.

Amnesty has complained about reports that Burundi and Rwandese refugees were in a few cases being forcibly returned to their countries by Tanzanian security forces.

Taarab is played for entertainment at weddings and other festive occasions all along the Swahili coast. In Zanzibar music can be classified as one of three main types: muziki wa densi (electric dance band music, heavily influenced by Zairean rumba), ngoma (local performance styles) and taarab. In my experience muziki wa densi does not play a substantial role in the live musical environment of Zanzibar. The music is viewed as a definite importation from the mainland.

A much more significant distinction can be made between taarab and ngoma. Ngoma includes all indigenous musical events and styles from the mainland. Ngoma are largely characterised by spectator participation, while taarab, in its narrowest sense, is non-participatory: one would “sit and listen”. We shall see that this distinction between taarab and ngoma becomes less clear as we take into consideration a broader definition of taarab.

While evidence exists in oral history for concrete musical cross-over between peoples of the Middle East, India and Zanzibar, Zanzibaris generally agree that taarab was introduced to the mainland from Cairo during the reign of the third Omani sultan, Sultan Barghash bin Said (1870-1888). Around the turn of this century, then, Egyptian music, sung in Arabic, was played in Zanzibar for the entertainment of the sultan and his upper-class guests.

At this time, the music of the takht ensemble was most popular in Cairo. The musicians were specialised performers, playing for an audience in a situation similar to the western concert. Separate male and female takht ensembles operated side by side, but during the first decade of this century the music was standardised to feature female solo singers backed by male accompanists on an ensemble including male chorus, a qanun (trapezoidal board zither), ‘ud (short-necked plucked lute), nay (oblique-blown flute), violin and a riqq (tambourine). They performed taqtuqah, short songs with a strophic form and short refrain associated with female takt performance. These songs used colloquial Arabic texts and most often dealt with sentimental themes. Non-traditional influences around the time of World War I gave rise to the increased incorporation of western instruments. By the 1940’s western orchestral and electronic instruments were added. still playing compositions based on the taqtuqah, this music flooded the film and recording industry at least until the 1970’s.

The group Akhwani Safaa, formed in 1905, is the epitome of what I term “ideal” taarab. Akhwani Safaa sang exclusively in Arabic until as late as 1955 and has continually modelled its composition, instrumentation and performance practice on music from Cairo as described above. The songs adhere to a formula: instrumental introduction, 3 or 4 verses of 3 or 4 lines with short refrains and a single ‘typical’ taarab rhythm (waltz, rumba etc.) throughout. An Akhwani Safaa event is formal with the orchestra on a stage and the audience, mainly women, seated in rows. Dancing is frowned upon.

In 1911 Siti binti Saad, a woman who was set to become a taarab legend, arrived from her village of Fumba in the south of the island. Her remarkable voice is still highly acclaimed. By singing in Swahili, and about everyday life in Zanzibar, Siti binti Saad brought taarab out of the palace and to ordinary Swahili- speaking Zanzibaris. In so doing she broke with Arab-orientated, traditional ideas and models. For many of these people this is where taarab began. Small informal groups of Africans formed to play siti’s songs for recreation and for the entertainment of guests (mainly women) at wedding parties. Initially they accompanied themselves only on two home-made drums (kidumbuka) , but soon, following the expansion of ‘ideal’ orchestras, they came to include the two vindumbak, a sanduku (a single-string tea-chest bass instrument), a violin, a pair of cherewa (coconut shell maracas) and a pair of mkwasa (sticks either beaten together or on a table). Performances are informal and take place outdoors. One of the main criteria for success is the extent to which the musicians can excite the women to dance. Popular taarab songs are performed once from beginning to end. This is followed immediately by a swift change in tempo and an improved text is performed in a mchapuzo (fast section). Kidumbak is characterised by its stylistic and aesthetic associations with African forms.

Closely aligned to the kindumbak groups, and an important result of Siti binti Saad’ s inspiration, a large network of women’s taarab groups emerged during the late 1930’s. The first of these already existed as lelemama associations: selfhelp associations for women which also provided a forum for the public performance of song and dance characterised by the traditional Swahili activity of often violently expressed disputation.

Women brought to taarab this Swahili tradition and, not playing instruments, they hired kindumbak musicians to accompany them. The style moved further into the public domain and began to be influenced more by local practices than by developments in Egypt. The sentimental themes and romantic metaphors used in ‘ ideal’ taarab songs were replaced with hard-hitting and abusive language. These lyrics have been termed mipasho deriving from the verb kupasha (to cause to get) .

With these new lyrics the music was bound to change. Women started to draw on taarab music from Mombasa which was more “up beat”. Soon they began to draw on local ngoma and it is no surprise that the most commonly adopted rhythm is the one performed at unyago, an exclusively female ngoma associated with the instruction of girls during their puberty rites. The girls are taught to dance kiuno a sexually explicit, hip-gyrating dance. Unyago is also performed for recreation at weddings. In these contexts, older, married women dance kiuno in pairs competitively to demonstrate their sexual prowess. Women also dance kiuno in this way in the kindumbak context. Women’s groups are typically smaller than ‘ideal’ orchestras and the orientation is percussive. Women enjoy dancing in the kiuno style at these events, the dress is informal, and mipasho lyrics are prevalent.

The emergence of a network of women’s taarab clubs is significant considering that it is they who organise and attend the performances (weddings). Women are therefore in a position to determine the kind of entertainment they want, and they can pressurise musicians into making changes. Most of these changes are manifested through Akhwani Safaa’s current rival group Culture Musical Club (CMC) which was set up by the Department of Culture following the revolution in 1964. It was equipped with a full range of instruments employed in Akhwani Safaa thus entering it into the ‘ideal’ taarab category. Members were from outlying districts, many of whom played kindumbak and for women’s groups, and still do.

Due to these experiences CMC musicians have a clearer understanding of what changes women are demanding. The majority of their songs now use mpasho-style lyrics and local rhythms, usually unyango. Today even Akhwani Safaa is performing an increasing number of songs along these new lines. This completes the circle: the ‘Swahili-isations’ brought to early ‘ideal’ taarab by Siti binti Saad in the 1930’s and developed by kindumbak and women’s taarab have filtered back into the ‘ideal’ category.

In order to understand taarab music fully from both musical and social viewpoints, it is necessary to consider all forms of taarab including what I have called the ‘ideal’ kidumbak and the women’s network. If only the ‘ideal’ is considered it becomes impossible to explain, for example, how change has come about, or how taarab has become such an important element in the lives of all Zanzibaris. The development of ‘taarab’ over the past century suggests an autonomisation from Arab influences as the music has localised and become identifiable as Zanzibari and Swahili.
Janet Topp Fargion

Although numbers allowed to attend were restricted and it was a stiflingly hot night, some 35 Britain-Tanzania members and a group of Members of Parliament participated in a joint event on July 18 at the House of Commons in London to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Britain-Tanzania Society and the establishment of an All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tanzania. Speeches were made by Roger Carter and Izabella Koziell from the Society and the Tanzanian High Commissioner in London Mr Ali Mchumo representing Tanzania. Lord Redesdale, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on overseas aid in the House of Lords, who was also representing Mr David Steel MP, was in the Chair.

Among the MP’s present were Mr Richard Page who is the Conservative member for S W Hertfordshire; he told TA that he had pointed out when he was in Tanzania with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Group last year, the importance of free and fair access to the media for all parties in multi-party elections; he added that, since he had now become Minister for Small Business in the Department of Trade and Industry he was no longer in a position to intervene in external matters like this, for fear of impinging on the prerogatives of the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary; Mr Win Griffiths, Labour MP for Bridgend who (with the Chairman of the Group, Sir John Stanley MP for Tonbridge and MaIling), has taken a leading role in setting up the parliamentary group; the well-known Eurosceptic Conservative MP for Stafford, Mr Bill Cash whose wife was born in Mwanza; Dr. Jeremy Bray, Labour MP for Motherwell South , who had also been on the visit to Tanzania last year and who told TA that he had been impressed by the responsible way in which Tanzania’s move towards multipartyism had been handled; and, Ms Hilary Armstrong, Labour MP for Durham North west.

Mr Andrew Faulds, Labour MP for Warley East (Smethwick), who was born in Isoko, Rungwe District, who also spoke, told TA that his father had been a Church of Scotland missionary at Isoko for four years from 1921 and had married there. The parents had spent most of their lives in Malawi however and had asked that, after their deaths, their ashes should be buried in Malawi. Mr Faulds spoke movingly about the long journey he took through Tanzania in 1990 to take his mother’s ashes to Malawi and how he had been able to see again the hills approaching Isoko after an absence of 70 years.

My reaction on reading the Tanzanian part of the recent book ‘No Man’s Land: An Investigative Journey through Kenya and Tanzania’ by George Monbiot (Macmillan. £17.99) was to want to know more about the latest situation in the Barabaig country of Northern Tanzania, where a large Canadian-supported wheat scheme (Described in Tanzanian Affairs issue No 24, May 1986 – Editor) has been steeped in controversy for many years.

I did some research. I spoke to Charles Lane of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, to an official of the managers of the project – the National Agricultural and Food Company (NAFCO) in Tanzania and also to officials of CIDA the Canadian International Development Agency) in Hull, Quebec Province.

But first, about the book itself.

George Monbiot’s earlier book ‘Poisoned Arrows’ exposed the plight of the people of Irian Jaya in Indonesia. For this he received a life sentence in absentia. He then wrote ‘Amazon Watershed’ about tribal life in Brazil. Now he has brought to our attention the plight of pastoral tribes in Kenya and Tanzania. To do this he spent some time living among them. He encountered much hardship and many dangers but found friendship and people as human as we are. In fact, once again, a book about East Africa reminds us who we really are: ancestors of the first travelling people like those whose footsteps are preserved in Olduvai Gorge. ‘Humankind was born on the road. Our brains, our physique, our emotional identity, are those of the migrant. The restlessness, which in one corrupted form or another, is felt by every human being on earth, is incurable, for it is fundamental to our nature’. Writing like this, in its widest sense, helps us to live together with more understanding so has something to give to all its readers.

Monbiot visited Hanang District in Tanzania in 1991 and 1992 and met some of the Barabaig people and also Canadian and Tanzanian officials concerned with the 102,000 acre wheat farms. This chapter of the book usefully gives the history of the project including some of the scandalous details of the treatment of the Barabaig. It does not make pleasant reading. CIDA has serious reservations about some of what is written: ‘The chapter, which is written in pseudo-journalistic style, is filled with innuendos and misrepresentations. Mr Henckroth flatly denies many of the quotes attributed to him. ‘The author appears to be following his own particular agenda which does not include accurate reporting’.

However, Tanzania and also Canada have now faced up to the fact that there was a failure on the part of the original planners to give any consideration at all to the 40,000 Barabaig who depended on the land concerned for their survival. It is to be hoped that this story could not be repeated in the world of today. No doubt, at the time, Canada’s proposal seemed like manna from heaven to the Government of Tanzania but our understanding of development has matured since 1970 and human rights matter more, though not enough, particularly in the building up of democracy.

Tanzania eventually set up a lay commission headed by Appeal Court Judge Robert Kisanga to look into the problems of the Barabaig. In its 1993 report the commission made recommendations for the continued existence of the wheat farms and the Barabaig together. Some changes of staff were made on NAFCO’s side and the District Commissioner for Hanang was replaced. The Barabaig were advised to organise themselves to take a full part in discussions at district level and this they have done. NAFCO’s policy now is to help construct water points and to provide proper routes for the cattle of the Barabaig; to allow the people to visit their sacred burial sites; to stop harassing them whenever they are seen trespassing and to settle disputes amicably. The Ministry of Agriculture was recommended to update its guidelines on Hanang District and increase its extension services.

CIDA, for its part, is contributing Canadian $4.5 million towards the implementation of the Kisanga Report. Of this sum, C$700,OOO have already been provided for photomapping the area for the purpose of confirming land use and its registration. Al though CIDA is no longer involved with the wheat farms, since July 1993, they regard them as ‘of strategic importance to the domestic food security of Tanzania’. In 1994 34,430 tonnes of wheat were produced but this was not a good year due to drought. An average 40,000 tonne crop would produce 180 million loaves of bread.

CIDA conducted a mission to Tanzania in January 1995 in order to produce ‘an updated social and economic profile of the Hanang District’. A social and community development project is now being drawn up.

I hope that ‘No Man’s Land’ will be read by many people for the light it throws on the plight of pastoral people today: most of it is highly readable, well-written with humour and understanding, even though some of it, notably the chapter about the Barabaig, is quite distressing.
Christine Lawrence

THE LAW has a vital role to play in the current transformation of government and politics in Tanzania, as Chief Justice Nyalali demonstrated in his impressive survey reported in the last issue of Tanzanian Affairs: as Chairman of the Presidential Commission which recommended ‘multipartyism’ he identified among the first essentials for a true democracy an environment of respect for the Rule of Law and for Human Rights. The Bill of Rights adopted in Tanzania by constitutional amendment in 1984 came into effect in 1987. The Nyalali Commission itself listed no less than 40 oppressive laws which violated the Constitution (many of them laws of Zanzibar); the expectation, yet to be fulfilled in most cases, was that these laws would be repealed, or suitably amended.

BOLD AND THOUGHTFUL JUDGEMENTS
Meanwhile Tanzanian judges have given many bold and thoughtful judgements over the past six years, often overturning laws which infringed human rights (most of them reported in the international series Law reports of the Commonwealth).

In the first case under the Bill of Rights Mr Justice Mwalusanya in 1988 struck down the Deportation Ordinance, a colonial legacy dating from 1921, which authorised the ‘rustification’ of individuals with no requirement for fair trial or hearing; Parliament responded strangely in 1991 by purporting to amend this septuagenarian Act which the court had declared to be void!

Another early case tested the power given to the Director of Public Prosecutions by the Criminal Procedure Act to prevent an accused person being released on bail, if the Director certified that bail would prejudice the safety or interests of the state. In the High Court at Mwanza in 1988 Mr Justice Mwalusanya held that this provision was unconstitutional and void, an improper denial of the basic right to personal liberty; he granted bail to Daudi Pete pending his trial for robbery with violence. The Court of Appeal, led by the Chief Justice, rejected the state’s appeal in a judgement which included several important points:

1) The Swahili version of the Constitution is the controlling one – the judges noted significant discrepancies in the official English translation, which lacks some subtleties of the original;

2) the Tanzanian Bill of Rights (which came into force in 1987) also, unusually, stipulates fundamental duties: ‘a constitutionally recognised coexistence of the individual human being and society’;

3) in applying the Bill of Rights the courts can take account of the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights 1981 signed by Tanzania in 1982.

WOMEN HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS AS MEN
The Bill of Rights prevails not only over statute law but also over customary laws. Holoria Pastory, an elderly lady, inherited some clan land in Muleba District, Kagera Region, under her father’s will and sold it for Shs 300,000. Her nephew disputed the sale, citing a rule of Haya customary law that a woman cannot sell inherited clan land. The District Magistrate (reversing the Primary Court) held that under the Bill of Rights women had the same rights as men; the appeal came before Judge Mwalusanya, who, in a judgement quoting sources as diverse as Religio Medici and the Beggars Opera, rejected it, upholding the sale.

LAWSUITS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT
The Bill of Rights guarantees access to the courts to settle disputes. A case of wide general importance (Kukutia Ole Pumbun) concerned a rule enacted in 1967 that a lawsuit against the government could not be started without first obtaining the consent of the Attorney General (a rule not unique to Tanzania). In 1993 the Court of Appeal held the rule was invalid because it violated the right of unimpeded access to the courts: although individual rights must be balanced against the collective rights of society, any derogation from basic rights must meet two conditions: the law must not be arbitrary and the limitation imposed on rights must be no more than are reasonably necessary to achieve a legitimate purpose.

VILLAGIZATION AND THE LAW
Land rights are obviously vital to most Tanzanians. In the Akonaay case a father and son by court order in 1987 recovered land in Mbulu District which had been taken from them during ‘Operation vijiji’ in the 1970’s. Then in 1992 an Act of Parliament purported to extinguish all customary law rights acquired before ‘operation Vijiji’ in ‘established villages’. The landowners brought a new case, challenging the validity of this Act. In 1993 Mrs Justice Munuo at Arusha held that the Act was void for violating several basic rights – the right to own property (subject to lawful acquisition and payment of compensation), freedom from discrimination and the right of access to the courts. In deciding the state’s appeal, the Chief Justice in the Court of Appeal examined the history of land law in Tanzania from the start of British rule, recognising that it was crucial, for a better understanding of the present, to understand the past (without living in it). The court noted the persistence of the underlying principle of protecting customary rights in land, held that such rights are property rights which the Constitution protects and identified ‘the Nyerere Doctrine of Land Value’ reflecting the value added to land by clearing and working it (citing Nyerere’s Freedom and unity 1966). However, the court allowed the appeal in part, because the customary rights in question had been effectively extinguished by legislation of 1987, before the Bill of Rights, which is not retrospective, became enforceable. Therefore the 1992 Act, which the court aptly termed ‘draconian legislation’, was not so much invalid as superfluous.

THE DEATH PENALTY
The most dramatic decision on the Bill of Rights was the scholarly, wide-ranging judgement of Mr Justice Mwalusanya, at a murder trial in Dodoma in June 1994, that the death penalty is unconstitutional as a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment; convicting the accused Mbushuu and Sangula of murder, he sentenced them to life imprisonment. However, in January 1995 the Court of Appeal disagreed and quashed his decision, affirming the constitutionality of the death penalty; but it also quashed the convictions for want of vital evidence and therefore set aside the life sentence. The court rightly commended the judge ‘for the unexcelled industry in his exploration of the human rights literature’.

These recent judgements are now being studied by the new Constitutional Court in South Africa, which is considering the very same question the constitutionality of the death penalty – as its first case under the new Bill of Rights there. It is notable that Tanzania, from its relatively short experience of a Bill of Rights, is able to make such a contribution to the application of an even newer system guaranteeing human rights.

THE JUDICIARY, THE EXECUTIVE AND THE LEGISILATURE
In his talk Chief Justice Nyalali noted that the trend in court cases challenging the constitutionality of oppressive laws, if mishandled, ‘is bound to generate some heat’ between the judiciary on the one side and the executive and legislature on the other. The latter has responded with the Basic Rights and Duties Enforcement Act 1994, which restricts the enforcement of basic rights by requiring a bench of three High Court Judges to sit and requiring them to refer any deficient law to Parliament for amendment, instead of immediately declaring the law to be void. The question has already been raised whether this act itself infringes the basic rights explicitly guaranteed by the constitution.

James S Read

Crocodile Image source unknown

Attacks by crocodiles on human beings have been reported in Korogwe since 1925 but accurate statistics are not available for the period before 1990. The table below compares human fatalities with the corresponding number of crocodiles shot by professional hunters or game scouts between January 1990 and April 1994:

Date – Human Deaths – Crocodile Deaths
1990 . . . . . . 5 . . . . . 10
1991 . . . . . . 9 . . . . . 5
1992 . . . . . . 8 . . . . . 8
1993 . . . . . .11 . . . . . 10
1994 . . . . . .19 . . . . . 16

It seems strange that these voracious human predators are not exterminated, indeed they seem to be flourishing at the expense of the local population.

According to local beliefs not all people are susceptible to crocodile attack. From long ago certain crocodiles have been fed meat and deliberately tamed for service. This ‘service’ has included transporting their ‘owners’ across the river in times of floods. However, more sinister activities are also attributed to the tamed beasts. At one point the Pangani River is punctuated by five small islands. Crocodile Owners are reputed to frequent these islands employing their animals as procurers of women. Hapless ladies brought by the crocodiles would undoubtedly be in no state to resist demands placed upon them. In addition, tamed crocodiles are believed to be used as assassins, disposing of enemies of their ‘owners. Crocodiles in this employ will apparently travel considerable distances from water in pursuit of their victims, even into their houses. These talented animals may be given as an inheritance to relatives or, particularly after any misbehaviour, they may be slaughtered for their skins.

WHY HAVE CROCODILE ATTACKS INCREASED RECENTLY?
Up to the 1950’s the river was clean; fish were plentiful and bathing and collecting water were relatively safe activities. Since then, overfishing, coupled with the dumping of the sisal industry’s waste products into the river, has reduced the crocodiles’ primary food supply. In addition, traditional riverine customs are no longer properly observed. Not only are cooking pots, maize cobs and offal thrown into the river, but menstruating women now visit the river, further provoking the crocodiles. Thus increasing attacks are seen as a consequence of human folly.

If a person is missing and a crocodile attack is suspected, advice is sought from certain authorities, who will then consult the beast in order to determine whether they have been involved. If a body turns up in the river these men, protected by witchcraft and by local medicines applied to their bodies, will fish it out with impunity. Such medicine is available for sale and may be applied, for example, by boys collecting sand from the river’ in order to ward off attack.

WHY ARE CROCODILES NOT HUNTED TO URBAN EXTINCTION?
Firstly, they are viewed as a natural resource and their destruction is controlled. Secondly, over and above the difficulty that government game scouts have in obtaining ammunition and a daily wage are other ingrained beliefs which inhibit both individual and group action. Foremost of these is the real fear of witchcraft used by the ‘tamed’ crocodiles’ owners. Others believe that it is impossible to kill a ‘tamed’ crocodile. Another worry is that a crocodile’s killer will subsequently lose a son to another beast. Finally, if one is successful in hunting, it is essential to bury the crocodile’s bile in front of witnesses to avoid the possibility that others might use it as a poison.

WHAT ADVICE CAN BE GIVEN TO A PERSON ATTACKED?
The best defensive action is to counter-attack the animal’s eyes; indeed, most survivors presenting to the two Korogwe hospitals attribute their escape to this manoeuvre.

HOW CAN CROCODILE BITES BE REDUCED IN KOROGWE?
The importance of a reliable, pumped water supply in reducing risky bathing and water collection is clearly shown in the statistics for 1994. Eighteen deaths – about one a week – coincided with the failure of the town water pump. Failing this, villagers could collect water from the various bridges by using a long rope. Concerted village activity to reduce the vegetation along the river’s edge would help hunters to flush out the enemy. Lastly, the role of education in counteracting the influence of superstition cannot be over emphasised. This would reduce the pervading fear and allow crocodiles to be killed more freely.
Richard Scott and Heather Scott

(This is an abbreviated version of an article which appeared in the British Medical Journal of 24-31 December 1994 – Ed).

TANZANIANS AND THE ARTS OF AFRICA
As part of ‘Africa 95’, a festival of African arts being presented in Britain from August to December this year, the Royal African society is organising an international conference titled ‘Mediums of Change’ at the School of Oriental and African studies from September 29 to October 1. Tanzanians taking part will be:
ABDULRAZAK GURNAH – Novelist, who teaches literature at the University of Kent;
EVERELYN NICODEMUS – Painter and writer; and
PENINA MLAMA – Playwright, Professor of Drama, University of Dar es Salaam.
Details from Richard House – Tel: 0171 637 4388/4389

PROMOTING TOURISM
Tanzania is planning a $1 million-a-year tourism promotion campaign to make tourism its main foreign currency earner (ahead of coffee) Mr Peter Mwenguo, Director of Marketing for the Tanzania Tourist Board announced recently. Last year Tanzania received 300,000 tourists who spent some $240 million. This compares with 230,000 and $147 million the previous year.
Recently published material includes a 36-page colour news quarterly, and the ‘Tantravel’ magazine. A 96-page in-flight magazine featuring the Serengeti National Park was published in cooperation with Lufthansa in January – East African.

MUSLIM FUNDAMENTALISTS
Four alleged Muslim fundamentalists have been sentenced to four years imprisonment each after being found guilty of rioting, stealing and damaging pork butcheries in Dar es Salaam – Daily News.

During 1993 and 1994 Ngara and Karagwe districts of Tanzania have received over 600,000 Rwandan and Burundian refugees. In late September 500,000 were still there and between 250 and 750 a day continued to arrive, adding to the Tanzanian population of 210,000.

The Tanzanian and international response to this influx has been remarkably good, although the food pipeline is under strain. In addition, Tanzania has to bear the burden of patrolling the border and preventing camp violence from overflowing into the Districts. However, the response to the needs of the people of the two districts has been very much poorer. With the honourable exceptions of UNICEF, AMREF, Caritas of the Netherlands and of Germany, the ICRC, OXFAM and the UNHCR, the international agencies and NGO’s are not well informed about the true situation. Whether the recent analysis spearheaded by the Prime Ministers’s Office and the UNICEF report by the present author will change this remains to be seen.

Over the years 1994 to 1999 the minimum cost in lost cash incomes and additional workload to the Tanzanians of Ngara and Karagwe will be about £40 million, an amount comparable with a whole year’s income of the residents of the Regions. Of this amount, food sales lost because of the ruined state of the roads and the collapse of the Kigali market account for over a third. These could be reversed by spending £14 to £17 million for the repair of the Kyaka-Rusumo highway and of the District networks and the installation of maintenance equipment at District and Regional levels assuming that the European Union completes work on the Burundi-Rusumo highway which has been delayed by the diversion of the contractor to camp building.

Environmental damage will take at least five years to make good if the refugees leave within a year. Germany (DTZ) has begun replanting trees and is sponsoring projects to promote fuel efficiency, but trees take time to grow and the denuded areas already extend six miles beyond the confines of the largest camp. Many new wells are needed but the ground water supply cannot survive the trebling of the population of Ngara district. The Dutch, who, like UNICEF, take a direct interest in the problems of the Tanzanians as well as those of the refugees, are adding an agro-forestry and livestock element to their existing rural development programme by including Ngara and Karagwe in the Districts covered. Both the German and the Dutch initiatives are medium to long term.

The losses suffered by the 100 or so villages may not seem large in terms of the replacement costs involved, but are massive for villages of between 1,500 and 3,000 inhabitants with a total annual cash income of perhaps £17,000. The difficulties encountered include pit latrines prematurely full, the stripping of trees and the burning of school furniture and books for fuel, the entire 1994 maize crop eaten green leaving no seed for planting, severe reduction of the plantain and potato crops eaten, or camped on, by refugees and the failure of springs. It appears that the only immediate help for villages hitherto has come from the Catholic and Anglican Dioceses and the Christian Council of Tanzania.

Unless the rains fail, no overall food shortages are imminent. Indeed, banana and beer sales to refugees and broader trade with personnel serving the refugees have probably balanced the loss of normal crop sales to date, albeit not by the same households. After the initial jolt, UNICEF, AMREF and Caritas have restored Government and Church medical supply systems reasonably fully and have helped to find additional staff to meet refugee needs.

REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE
The Tanzanian performance at national, regional, district and village levels is remarkable. But at each of these levels Tanzania lacks the resources to make whole again. About £20 to £25 million are needed to do that, over half for transport system restoration and a third for wood and water balance reconstruction.

The problems, especially as regards wood and water, will spiral out of control if the refugees remain where they are indefinitely. They will not return to Rwanda in the near future, if at all. The ‘dead boat’ still fishes for murdered men, women and children in the River Rusumo; wounded refugees arrive daily; all too credible reports of killings and looting are regularly received. Mwalimu Nyerere went to urge return, but on hearing and seeing he stated categorically that it could not happen before 1998 and should not happen now. The only real alternative to the Kagera camps is 10 clusters of refugee villages of 4,000 inhabitants each dispersed throughout Tanzania. These could eventually become normal communities self-sufficient in food and basic services and enable the refugees to build new lives for themselves. In refugee camps only hate grows.

The obstacles confronting such an approach are twofold. First, it is hardly an easy option for Tanzania’s leaders to espouse during the run-up to a general election. Secondly, the infrastructure cost, judging from the experience of the refugee crisis of 1959-60, may exceed £140 million and the moving and settling-in costs a further £30 million. Mobilising funds of that order will be hard, with the UN and UNHCR relentlessly demanding early return of the refugees, apparently for budgetary reasons unconnected with any serious assessment of the Rwanda situation.

Reginald Herbold Green

POSSIBLE UK ALL-PARTY GROUP

On their return from a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association visit to Tanzania in September Sir John Stanley, former British Minister and presently Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, and Labour MP for Bridgend, Wynn Griffiths, told Tanzanian Affairs how impressed they had been by the mature way in which Tanzania was adapting so rapidly to its new multi-party system. Mr Griffiths said that he was hopeful that in early 1995 the British Parliament would set up an All-Party Parliamentary Group which would be able to concentrate on discussion of matters concerning Tanzania.

TANZANIAN AWARD WINNER

Professor Keto Mshigeni has become the first recipient of the ‘Boutros Boutros Ghali $10,000 Scholarship Fund’. One award is made for each continent. Last year the Professor won another international award (for agricultural bio-sciences) for his work on seaweed farming in Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia.
TELEVISION CASE

The State has withdrawn a case (reported in Bulletin No. 49) involving 14 people who were facing charges of threatening to kill the Chairman of the IPP Mr Reginald Mengi and to blow up his Independent Television station (ITV). There was not sufficient evidence – Daily News.

Former Agriculture Minister Jackson Makweta has announced that Tanzania needed to import 200,000 tons of maize during this financial year. He said that the government would have to spend TShs 18 billion on maize alone and a further amount of money on 80,000 tonnes of rice and wheat. He feared that Tanzania could become a permanent food importer. There were indications that by the year 2005 there would be only four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that would not be experiencing food shortages – Express.