Western powers issued a blistering joint condemnation of Tanzania’s post-election crackdown on Thursday, accusing the government of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and the concealment of bodies in the weeks since the disputed October vote.
Seventeen diplomatic missions, led by the United Kingdom and Canada and including Norway, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the European Union delegation, said credible reports painted a picture of systematic repression.
They demanded the immediate release of corpses to grieving families, the freeing of political prisoners and full medical and legal access for all detainees.
The statement pointedly reminded Dar es Salaam of its international obligations on freedom of expression and information, while insisting that African Union and SADC recommendations on glaring electoral flaws be implemented without delay.
Any inquiry into the violence, the missions added, must be independent, transparent and involve civil society, religious leaders and opposition figures.
The unusually blunt intervention follows weeks of mounting alarm over the sharpest democratic reversal in Tanzania in decades, with opposition strongholds in Zanzibar and the mainland reporting scores of deaths and hundreds of abductions since the ruling CCM party declared victory.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan has rejected the criticism, claiming in a national address this week that foreign forces irritated by Tanzania’s long stability were orchestrating the unrest to destabilise the country. She offered condolences to bereaved families but insisted the violence was imported by outsiders who had already destroyed their own nations.
The government has not published an official death toll.
