Pre-election violence: Samia warns foreign countries not to interfere in Tanzania’s affairs
Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan on Tuesday warned against meddling by foreign countries, as Dodoma seeks to get to the bottom of a spate of mysterious abductions and killings.
The crimes have arisen as the country prepares for local government elections in November. Samia asserted that her administration could and would handle the situation on its own.
In her first substantive remarks on recent events that have cast a shadow over the upcoming civic poll, the president said statements of condemnation issued by several Western diplomatic missions stationed in Tanzania were not welcome and were in violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
She stressed that Tanzania would not take instructions from any country on how to go about investigating the politically-linked violence that reached a new zenith on September 6 with the brazen abduction and subsequent death in Dar es Salaam of a senior official of the opposition party Chadema.
Chadema secretariat member Ali Mohamed Kibao was snatched by supposedly plain-clothed security operatives off an upcountry-bound bus in full public view on the outskirts of the city. His lifeless body was found in a nearby bush hours later with his face partly disfigured by what is believed to be acid.
The incident came on the back of a growing number of disappearances, detentions and beatings involving political and human rights activists in what the United States in Dar es Salaam described in a September 9 statement as "efforts to disenfranchise citizens ahead of (the) elections."
The European Union, British and Canadian High Commissions, and Norway and Switzerland embassies also issued a joint statement on September 10 condemning the incidents.
While the US embassy in Dar called for an "independent, transparent, and prompt investigation" into the incident, the other five missions called for a "thorough inquiry."
In a televised speech at an event in Moshi on Tuesday this week marking the 60th anniversary of the Tanzania Police Force's formation, President Samia said no "outsiders" could claim to be more pained by the sequence of events than Tanzanians themselves.
"It is our own responsibility to find out why they are happening at this moment in time. We know what we need to do as a sovereign nation and do not appreciate other countries telling us to do one, two, three," she stressed.
"I believe these statements were not sanctioned by the heads of state of those countries, but I have my own ways of checking with my fellow presidents and once I confirm that they were I will lodge formal complaints with them," she added.
Before the diplomatic corps intervened, the president had already ordered that Kibao's death be investigated as quickly as possible and the final report to be made public.
Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa on Monday said that although it was "easy to point fingers at the police" other disruptive elements working covertly could be responsible for "such incidents that tend to crop up during periods of elections."
Meanwhile, Chadema party leader Freeman Mbowe has called for Britain's Scotland Yard investigative unit to be incorporated into the probe on Kibao’s death, stating that the party did not trust Tanzanian law enforcement to conduct a "proper and transparent" inquiry.
The party has also threatened to lead nationwide protests from next week if there is no tangible progress in the Kibao investigation by then.
Kibao's death along with other incidents have sparked public outrage and heightened safety concerns in relation to the nationwide municipal poll scheduled for November 28, which is expected to form the template for next year's general election.
Next year, President Samia will be vying for another term as well as for the ruling CCM party to maintain its majority legislative control until 2030.
