Tanzania dismisses Malawi’s protests
Tanzania on Monday dismissed Malawi’s protests against the alleged deployment of two passenger ships on Lake Malawi, saying the vessels are meant for ‘Lake Nyasa’ in Tanzanian waters.
Ironically, Lake Malawi is called Lake Nyasa on the Tanzanian side, apparently from a Yao language pronounciation of nyanja, meaning lake.
Tanzania’s Minister of Transport Harrison Mwakyembe told The Nation in an interview in Tokyo, Japan where he was attending the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (Ticad), that the plans to buy the ships have been in the Tanzanian ruling party’s manifesto for a long time.
He said the move is not targeted at frustrating the mediation.
Said Mwakyembe: “It is true that we want to buy ships for Lake Nyasa and not Lake Malawi as it has been stated by the Malawian authorities. This plan has been in our ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi general election manifesto.”
Malawi, which sits to the west of Africa’s third-largest lake, claims the entire northern half of the water body whereas Tanzania, to the north east, says it owns half of the northern area. The southern half is shared between Malawi and Mozambique.
Over the weekend, Malawi protested against plans by Tanzania to deploy two ships on Lake Malawi, saying it threatened the ongoing mediation to resolve a long-standing border dispute.
Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Ephraim Mganda Chiume said in a statement that Tanzanian officials had stated in their parliament that the East African nation was buying six new passenger ships, two of which were destined for Lake Malawi.
“The Malawi Government found these developments unfortunate, especially coming at a time when the mediation process over the boundary dispute is going smoothly,” Chiume said in a statement released on Saturday
But Mwakyembe said that the plans to deploy the vessels should be understood as replacing the operating ships with the new ones in Lake Nyasa.
“There are Tanzanians in Mbamba Bay who need to be served diligently by their government. That’s what we are doing and not otherwise,” he said.
In October last year, Malawi pulled out of the dialogue process, accusing its neighbour of intimidating fishers in Karonga, a charge Tanzania denied. But early this year, Malawi returned to the roundtable to resolve the 50-year-old territorial dispute.
A year ago, Malawi awarded oil exploration licenses to British-based Surestream Petroleum to search for oil in Lake Malawi. This is what reignited the dispute.
