Rights group urges action on killings

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday called on the commission of inquiry into killings that occurred during political clashes in Zanzibar over a year ago to move quickly to bring those responsible to justice. "Not until a year after these shocking events did the Tanzanian government appoint a commission of inquiry," said Peter Takirambudde, the executive director of the Africa division of HRW. "We welcome that decision, but urge the commission to move quickly to gather the evidence necessary to bring those responsible to justice." Violence erupted in the semi-autonomous Indian Ocean islands of Zanzibar and Pemba on 26 and 27 January last year when the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) organised demonstrations demanding a rerun of the October 2000 elections, which local and international observers deemed to have been flawed. At least 22 people were shot dead on Pemba island, allegedly by armed police, "in circumstances suggesting unlawful use of lethal force", according to the rights organisation Amnesty International. Over 2,000 refugees fled to Kenya as a result of the violence, but most have since returned home, according to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. According to HRW, Tanzanian security forces killed at least 35 people during the violence and wounded more than 600 others, as part of an operation to suppress opposition demonstrations. Tanzanian army and police had opened fire without due cause, attacking thousands of supporters protesting against alleged fraud in the national elections, HRW said in its report, "The bullets were raining in the January 2001 attack on peaceful demonstrators in Zanzibar." "The Tanzanian security forces were willing to shoot, beat, torture, and commit sexual abuse to silence the political opposition," Takirambudde said. "These events were among the worst in a long history of differences between the mainland government and political opposition in the semi-autonomous Zanzibar islands." Following the institution of multiparty politics in Tanzania in 1992, the CUF emerged as one of the country's largest opposition parties, and the most heavily supported party in the Zanzibar archipelago, HRW said. Both the multiparty elections of 1995 and of 2000 were won narrowly on Zanzibar by the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, but marred by complaints of voter registration irregularities and other abuses of the electoral process. As a result, CUF opposition members boycotted the CCM-led Zanzibar government after both those elections. Following an agreement between the CCM and CUF on 10 October 2001, an eight-member commission of inquiry was appointed in January 2002 to investigate the Zanzibar clashes. The commission, chaired by retired Brig Hashim Mbita, is to probe the "causes and effects" of the violence, and present its findings by 31 July 2002. The accord also provided for reforms designed to separate the government from the ruling party's structures - a state of affairs which had so far been one of the "major stumbling blocks to genuine multiparty democratisation", HRW said. If implemented, the changes would affect the Zanzibar constitution, the electoral commission and the Zanzibar judiciary. It would also lead to the establishment of a permanent voter register and the reform of electoral laws, HRW said. "The October 2001 pact represented an important step towards ending the long-standing hostility between the Tanzanian government and the political opposition," HRW said. "If enacted, it should bring to an end many of the contentious issues between the government and ruling party and the opposition."