Our Former Senior Campaigns Officer, Sunit Bagree, has written a blog on human rights in Tanzania. Please read the full blog below.
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The civil and political rights situation in Tanzania has sharply deteriorated since President John Magufuli came to power in December 2015. Although repression in the country is not quite at the level of the likes of Swaziland or Zimbabwe, it may be argued that, in relative terms, no Southern African Development Community (SADC) member state has witnessed such a marked decline in civil liberties and political freedoms in recent years.
In February 2018, over 100 Tanzanian civil society organisations co-signed an open letter deploring a wide range of abuses ranging from malicious prosecutions to targeted killings of journalists and opposition politicians. There was a palpable sense of fear at civil society gatherings around this year’s SADC Summit in Dar es Salaam. The Government of Tanzania refused to permit civil society to hold a peaceful rally and at one point even detained a group of well-respected South African and Zimbabwean activists at their hotel for several hours.
Journalists who ask difficult questions know that they may end up like Azory Gwanda or Erick Kabendera, to name just two of the many victims of the attack on press freedom. Gwanda went missing in November 2017 and the government has still not launched a credible investigation into his case. Before his disappearance, Gwanda was investigating the murders of local government officials and politicians in Rufiji district. Kabendera was arrested in July this year and subsequently charged with money laundering, tax evasion and assisting a criminal racket. Just over a week before his arrest, Kabendera, who remains in detention and is now in poor health, had co-authored a story about divisions within Tanzania’s ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party.
Opposition politicians are also having to watch their backs. Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (CHADEMA), the main opposition party, saw its rallies disrupted and its officials attacked (including two killings) in 2018. This, along with clear efforts to disqualify many opposition candidates from running, led to opposition parties boycotting last month’s local elections. As a result, the CCM won 99% of seats. As things stand, next year’s general election is highly unlikely to be free and fair. Indeed, there may well be further violence, particularly in sensitive locations such as Zanzibar, which has often seen violence during elections.
More broadly, Tanzanian girls and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people continue to face particular oppression. The nature of the oppression faced by these groups does not only silence their voices but also actually undermines their social rights, such as the rights to education and health.
In June 2017, Magufuli affirmed his commitment to a policy that bans pregnant girls from attending school – despite his CCM party’s 2015 manifesto promise to allow pregnant girls to resume their studies after giving birth. In a rare move in support of human rights, the World Bank decided, in November 2018, to withhold a US$300 million loan intended for the country’s education ministry. However, after the Tanzanian government apparently gave the World Bank assurances that pregnant girls forced to leave school would still be able to resume their studies, the World Bank decided in principle to proceed with the loan.
Under Magufuli’s watch, the LGBT community has faced growing persecution since 2017. This has occurred in multiple ways: private health centres have been closed, civil society organisations have been threatened with deregistration, and activists have been arrested. In October 2018, the regional commissioner of Dar es Salaam, Paul Makonda, announced the creation of a surveillance squad tasked with tracking down and arresting people in same-sex relationships. Eventually the Tanzanian government said that this was not official policy but by then many LGBT people had gone into hiding or fled the country. The Danish government withdrew around US$10 million in aid citing ‘unacceptable homophobic statements’.
Magufuli, known as ‘The Bulldozer’, can be seen as part of the recent global wave of socially conservative leaders with authoritarian tendencies. In the latest blow to human rights, the Government of Tanzania earlier this month officially confirmed that it no longer agrees to individuals or certain non-governmental organisation having the power to directly file complaints against it at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Magufuli’s obvious contempt for the idea of an inclusive democracy overshadows his positive initiatives to fight corruption and to ensure that extractive industry multinationals pay their taxes. Unfortunately, there are very few CCM parliamentarians willing to challenge their leader when he attacks human rights defenders and promotes hatred and division. This makes it even more important that Western governments continue to speak out in the face of abuses. However, they must listen carefully to civil society (particularly Tanzanian organisations) and promote human rights in a strategic, coordinated and adaptive manner. Pressuring Magufuli on human rights is certainly not easy – but it can mean the difference between life and death.
Sunit Bagree was ACTSA’s Senior Campaigns Officer