The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Mkinga Mkinga and Salma Said, Zanzibar
15 May 2008
Dar es Salaam — Uncertainty yesterday continued to surround the whereabouts of the 12 Pemba elders arrested last weekend amid calls for the island to secede from Zanzibar.
The Citizen learnt that the detainees were to be transferred to Dar es Salaam anytime from today to face treason charges.
However, their whereabouts continued to be a closely guarded secret, with top security organs declining to disclose details on the detainees.
A senior police officer in Zanzibar, who asked not to be named, told The Citizen on the telephone that the elders were being interrogated and would charged in Dar es Salaam before the end of this week.
"They have committed a serious crime against the United Republic of Tanzania, and that is why they will be charged on the mainland," he said.
Contacted for comment yesterday, Zanzibar Commissioner of Police Khamis Mohamed Simba urged the media not to "be in haste on sensitive issues such as this one", saying investigations were still going on.
Mr Simba said the police force had a duty to protect Zanzibar and its borders, adding that any attempt to interfere with the existing unity in Zanzibar would not be tolerated.
Reliable sources said the detainees, who were arrested on Saturday night, were transferred to Dar es Salaam for interrogation by security agents on Monday before they were taken back to Madema police station in Unguja on Tuesday.
While in Dar es Salaam, the suspects were interrogated for about six hours before they were taken back to Zanzibar for further questioning.
Civic United Front deputy director for human rights and communication Salim Bimani said he saw the detainees at Madema police station in Unguja yesterday.
"I have seen them at the police station, but I didn't manage to talk to them as the police were not ready to allow anybody to do so," he told The Citizen.
But in Pemba, relatives of the detainees said they were in the dark as to their whereabouts, adding that they had not seen them since they were arrested last weekend.
"I don't know where my husband is, but I've heard that he and several other people were taken to Dar es Salaam by helicopter," Mrs Sharifa Mussa told The Citizen by telephone.
She said that they feared they would never see the detainees alive again. "This brings back memories of the period preceding the 1964 revolution when people where whisked away never to be seen again," she said.
Mr Mzee Ahmed, whose son was among those arrested, said they had a right to be told where the detainees were. "They should just tell us where they are and assure us that they are still alive. This secrecy is having a terrible effect on us," he said.
Zanzibar advocate Is-haq Ismail Shariff said detaining people without formally charging them within 48 hours was "a blatant violation of human rights as well as the country's laws".
"I am trying to establish who issued the arrest order and on what grounds before deciding what measures to take," he told The Citizen.
He said neither the police in Zanzibar nor on the mainland seemed to know the motive behind the arrest and who issued the order.
Meanwhile, there were reports of people going into hiding in Pemba to avoid arrest.
Impeccable sources said intelligence and police officers were seeking to establish if there was a political link to the clamour for Pemba to have its own government.
In another development, respected law professor and political analyst Issa Shivji said the economic and political marginalisation of Pemba was the main reason behind the Pemba secession movement.
Prof Shivji likened the current relationship between Pemba and Unguja with that between Eastern and Western Pakistan before Western Pakistan broke away to become Bangladesh.
He added that the Zanzibari government had failed to accommodate Pemba economically.
"The issue here is not the Pemba people wanting to break away, but why," Prof Shivji said.
He added that the isolation of Pemba started to take root after the 1964 revolution when some top officials in the new government viewed Pemba as a stronghold of the ousted regime.
He said that the best way to solve the simmering dispute was for the Zanzibari government to stop ignoring the social and economic disparities between Unguja and Pemba.
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