Dar es Salaam. Good morning! The Chanzo is here with a rundown of major news stories reported in Tanzania on the weekend
Government seized 30,000 livestock in 2022. Outcry continues in Loliondo and Ngorongoro as more livestock are seized
Activists and human rights stakeholders have condemned the ongoing situation in pastoral areas, especially Loliondo and Ngorongoro, where a significant number of livestock belonging to pastoral communities are confiscated on the grounds of encroachment into conservation areas.
On November 8, 2023, activists from 16 organizations said that in many cases pastoralists have encountered unlawful forfeiture of their livestock. They accused conservation officials of violating the basic rights of pastoralists in these exercises and also in some cases taking livestock from village land.
The government has been conducting various operations aimed at preventing herders from bringing livestock into conservation areas, which constitute approximately 32.5 percent of Tanzania’s total land area. According to the Economic Survey 2022, the government reportedly seized 30,030 livestock in 2022.
Herders, activists, and other stakeholders have continued to complain that many of the confiscation exercises are unjust, with some describing them as a project to impoverish pastoral communities in the country.
Full story here.
Tanzania police arrested a cleric and ten others for organizing a pro-Palestine demonstration
Tanzania Police has arrested the Secretary of the Council of Islamic Organisations in Tanzania, Sheikh Issa Ponda, for organizing the pro-Palestine rally in Dar es Salaam on November 10, 2023.
Ponda was arrested as he was addressing journalists during their demonstration,”Our goal is to ensure the oppression and violation of human rights is stopped in Palestine,” said Sheikh Ponda, a few minutes before he was arrested.
The leadership of the Council of Islamic Organisations has reported a total of 11 people were arrested including three women and eight men including Ponda.
Dar es Salaam Special Zone Commander Jumanne Muliro said they had informed Ponda to ask for permission from the Police but they never received any request, “the demonstration are not allowed, it’s illegal for anyone to participate,” said Muliro in the morning of November 10, 2023.
On October 29, 2023, the Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed on October 29,2023, that two Tanzanian nationals, Joshua Loitu Mollel and Clemence Felix Mtenga, are among about 230 hostages held by Hamas, a political and military organisation governing the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories.
Subsequently, on November 07,2023, Tanzania Ministry of Foreign Affairs spoke to Foreign Minister of Israel, Eli Cohen, who commitment to intensify effort in locating the two Tanzanian.
Tanzania reiterated its position on the ongoing conflict that, ‘priority should be given to observance of international humanitarian law, particularly the protection of civilian lives; cessation of military operations to permit unfettered humanitarian efforts; resumption of peace process, with two-states solution as its pillar’.
Since the beginning of the war, the death toll has reached 11,180 with over 4000 being children. UN experts and several other humanitarian institutions have warned that ‘time is running out to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”
He was a towering, multifaceted personality’: Happy posthumous 85th birthday, Benjamin William Mkapa
Benjamin William Mkapa, who had the rare privilege to serve as the third President of Tanzania for a decade from November 23, 1995, to December 21, 2005, and who completed his earthly race on Thursday, July 23, 2020, at 21:30 hours at the picturesque Emilio Mzena Memorial hospital in Dar es Salaam, would have turned 85 years today, November 12, 2023, had the cold hands of death not taken him away from us.
Almost three and half years have passed since the nation bid him an emotional farewell. It is mind-boggling how time flies! William Shakespeare, an English playwright, poet and actor widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, wrote on July 23, 1690: “The evil that men do lives after them, but the good is often interred with their bones.”
As I do not want “the good” that the late President Mkapa did for our country to be “interred with his bones,” I have, consequently, penned this special article in his honour.
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