Op-ed

An Island of Peace? Tanzania’s Unacknowledged Legacy of Violence

Tanzania’s reputation as a peaceful haven masks a complex history of internal and external conflicts, political assassinations, and recent violence demanding accountability.

Richard Mabala

November 27, 2025

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It is not exactly true that Tanzania has always been a haven of peace. Although Tanganyika won its independence through peaceful means, the revolution in Zanzibar and the later assassination of its first President show that, on that side of the union, it was not always peaceful.

This is without forgetting the appalling loss of life after the 2000 election, which President Benjamin William Mkapa recognised as a scar on his Presidency despite immediate denials at the time.

After independence, Tanzania’s peace was also under threat and indeed breached because of its principled stand on the liberation of Southern Africa. This was particularly true, of course, regarding our southern neighbour, Mozambique, which led to Portuguese incursions into our country.

In addition, Tanzania may have been peaceful, but it strongly supported armed struggle against colonialism and apartheid in its support for freedom and justice in southern Africa. It has always been recognised that, without justice, any peace is imposed and illusory.

The same applies to Tanzania’s decision, not only to expel Idi Amin’s army from our territory, but, far more so, to expel the dictator from Uganda. We can argue about how successful that has been subsequently, but the intention was clear.

Outbursts of local violence

Even within Tanzania, there have been outbursts of violence, particularly when some part of the population feels that their rights and security have been violated.

The 1980s saw the rise of the Sungusungu, a people’s armed militia, which aimed to defend their homes, families, and livestock against vicious cattle raiders, and also against what they perceived to be a corrupt police force and judiciary.

Originally, they were declared illegal by that very judiciary, but President Julius Kambarage Nyerere endorsed them as a legitimate people’s defence force. This led to the ruling party following suit and gradually co-opting the Sungusungu to become a part of the official security apparatus.

There was also the violent reaction of the people of Mtwara against what they perceived to be an unjust deprivation of their right to host gas processing, with all the economic benefits that would entail, instead of the gas being transported expensively to the home of the then-President.

This violent reaction was violently suppressed, and the scars still remain. This was followed by the MKIRU killings on both sides, which included some of the first instances of abductions of journalists for seeking the truth about what happened. Azory Gwanda, we still remember you.

Nor can it be said that the last 10 years qualify as years of peace, with increasing numbers of abductions, deaths, and the violent suppression of any attempt to protest by taking to the streets.

It is hardly surprising that, during this time, every time the opposition party announced a demonstration from x to y starting at a particular time, people did not flock to join, knowing they would only be baton fodder for the security forces waiting to batter them away.

The extremely violent language of the police every time anyone dared to suggest such a demonstration was a clear sign that, at least from their point of view, a haven of peace meant battering anyone who thought differently into silence and submission.

After the trauma of recent events, we can no longer close our eyes to the fact that Tanzania’s reputation as a haven of peace masks a history of political violence and unresolved injustice that now demands honest reckoning.

Coexistence vs. injustice

Yes, we have been, largely, a haven of peace, at least in terms of co-existing peacefully together in our relations as citizens. We have, largely, resisted siren calls to religious or tribal conflict, thank God, but thank above all our founding fathers who recognised from the beginning that such divisions would be the death of all of us.

Hence, the refusal even to include religious affiliation in the census. We can see that now in the language of our children, who are refusing the same siren calls in their own idiom, with Jumapili or Krismasi Mbaraka as a part of Wakrislamu being the latest verbal resistance.

We know full well that those calling for religious or tribal conflict are doing so purely for their own personal ends, which are entirely contrary to the religious principles of their founders.

Such peaceful coexistence among citizens is one of the keys to our haven of peace. So, too, has been – but is no longer – the official egalitarian policy of our country at the beginning.

Of course, as the middle and ruling classes cemented their status, they no longer felt the need to pay lip service to such egalitarianism. This is one of the major causes of the current situation.

A small class shamelessly devours much of the national cake and flaunts its riches without any compunction at all, and without any recognition of the suffering and anger this causes among the people. In other countries, that has always been, and always will be, a recipe for violence.

I think it is no accident that while one side mourns the death of so many of our young citizens, a small class seems far more concerned with mourning the loss of property. Indeed, they play the ostrich, denying that they have not seen what everyone else has seen, and suffered, and lost, and mourned.

For what has happened starting on October 29 is indeed unprecedented in our country, and nothing can hide it—no denials, no condemnations, no passing the blame to those who have been killed. People are traumatised; they are shocked beyond belief; they cannot come to terms with the fact that this is our Tanzania.

Even if ten per cent of the stories are true, it was not just the killings, although they are atrocious enough, but the sheer brutality of them, particularly in the aftermath. In other countries, deaths mainly occur during a demonstration, not in the nights that follow it.

And all this in defence of an election which even our best friends in SADC and the African Union and Thabo Mbeki find indefensible. You can shout all you like about CNN, but it is our own friends who have been shocked to the core and, for once, have said so publicly. It was not an election!

A call for reckoning

So here we are, just two weeks before December 9. It feels like we are facing a situation where an unstoppable force is heading towards an immovable object, and unless something happens, the result can be catastrophic.

Ok, there have been some positive signs. Some of those herded into remand prison have been set free—only some. And a church has been opened. But is that enough?

Why the burying of the heads in the sand when everyone can see the body above? Why can we not, as Madagascar has done when the killings were far fewer, admit the truth?

I would prefer the days before December 9 to be days of national mourning for the loss of all those young people – including from both sides – and the trauma inflicted on their families, friends, and neighbours, and us all. Days of national reckoning, too.

If the government elected in a process which even our friends do not recognise cannot talk with, or to, young people instead of haranguing them from their political pulpits, why can they not find others who can?

Not official state-sponsored enquiries from a different generation and class who are, rightly, viewed with suspicion anyway. Who is listening to our young people, who, after all, constitute the majority of our citizens?

At the same time, the mourning can have no meaning unless we address the causes of the mourning. We cannot harangue away the causes, which even our friends have stated clearly.

The violence around October 29 has obscured the fact that huge numbers stayed away from the polling booths, not because of fear of violence, but because it was not an election, from the very beginning.

We saw that, just as we saw people being killed after the demonstration. As a nation, we cannot heal without those who caused the shattering of our ‘haven of peace’ being held accountable.

Richard Mabala is an educator, poet, and author. He is available at rmabala@yahoo.com or on X as @MabalaMakengeza. These are the writer’s own opinions, and they do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of The Chanzo. Do you want to publish in this space? Contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com for further inquiries.