Response to the National Post

Issued by the Lawyers' Environmental Action Team
DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, January 9, 2002

The Editor,
National Post
300-1450
Don Mills Road, Ontario
Canada
M3B 3R5

Dear Sir;

On December 29, 2001, a Canadian daily newspaper, The National Post carried a story written by Brian Hutchinson entitled "Barrick's African tribulations", concerning the forcible evictions of artisanal miners from the Bulyanhulu mines by the Tanzanian government and Kahama Mining Corporation Ltd., a Canadian-owned company that claimed to have been allocated the concession by the Government. The evictions took place in August 1996 and subsequently there were widespread allegations of killings of dozens of miners.

The article relied almost entirely on information provided by former Sutton Resources directors and by lawyers in the employ of Barrick Gold Corporation of Toronto Canada, current owners of the Bulyanhulu Gold Mine. Barrick Gold bought the mine from Sutton Resources, Kahama Mining's parent company, for Canadian dollars 500 million (US$280million) in 1999. In a diplomatic dispatch to her Canadian superiors on July 1, 1997, the former Canadian High Commissioner to Tanzania, Ms. Verona Edelstein had pointed out that "the Bulyanhulu mine is important to Tanzania and will be very profitable for the Canadian company/stockholders." While, has stated on numerous occasions, Barrick's stockholders expect to reap billions of dollars during the 15-year life span of the mine, Tanzanian Government will receive US$75 million. This sum is nearly four times less than it cost Barrick to acquire Bulyanhulu from Sutton Resources!

It is clear, therefore, that the sources of information relied upon by the author of the National Post article have substantial financial interests to try and ensure that the truth about allegations of the killings of the Bulyanhulu miners remains hidden from the public. Equally clear are the overriding political and personal interests of the Government of Tanzania and its high officials to hide the truth that the National Post article has been widely and generously reprinted in the Uhuru and Mzalendo newspapers (owned by CCM party, whose Chairman is President Mkapa. We will explain this in some detail).

Whereas for a long time it was known and believed that the Bulyanhulu evictions were ordered by then Minister for Water, Energy and Minerals, Dr. William Shija and executed by security forces commanded by then Shinyanga Regional Police Commander Charles Mnubi and supervised by then Regional Commissioner, Gen. Tumainieli Kiwelu, President Mkapa's actual role was less well-known. This is no longer the case. In the diplomatic dispatch referred to above, former High Commissioner Edelstein informed her superiors in Ottawa that the Bulyanhulu evictions and subsequent filling of the pits was carried out "by Sutton Resources of Vancouver under the supervision of the Shinyanga Regional Commissioner (under the direction of President Mkapa)…."

This may explain President Mkapa's directive at a public rally in Mbeya municipality in January 1997 that anyone found talking about the alleged burials of the Bulyanhulu miners should be arrested and prosecuted (See "I am ready to be arrested - Cheyo: Claims that people were buried alive at Bulyanhulu", Majira, Monday, February 3, 1997). It may also explain President Mkapa's extraordinary silence since the allegations re-emerged again last year and the draconian measures taken by the Tanzanian police force to intimidate and harass the critics of the Government's mishandling of the Bulyanhulu controversy. It is also instructive note that in the course of our nearly three years of researching the allegations of the killings at Bulyanhulu, we have not come across a single instance in which both Uhuru and Mzalendo newspapers have reported the allegations with the same enthusiasm and generosity as they showed the National Post article. With these caveats in mind, let us now deal with the substance of Mr. Hutchinson's article.

Mr. Hutchinson contends that "no one denies that many miners died at Bulyanhulu up to August, 1996." This is clearly not correct. Barrick and its subsidiaries, Sutton Resources and Kahama Mining; the Tanzanian government and security apparatus; the Canadian Government and its diplomatic mission in Tanzania; and the World Bank Group have until very recently consistently maintained - in public statements as well as in official correspondence to LEAT that their numerous investigations had proved that nobody died in the course of the 1996 evictions. Strangely, however, they had hidden from public knowledge any information relating to the forcible evictions of the hundreds of thousands of the artisanal miners in Bulyanhulu and the allegations of the killings, including the videotapes and other relevant documents and the results of their alleged investigations.

These institutions obviously thought that no one would ever be able to obtain this evidence. But when LEAT did and made the first video - taken by the police - public last August, Barrick and MIGA alleged that the video did not prove anything, even though it showed police officers viewing remains of dead bodies which, according to the Kahama district police chief present, had just been exhumed. They argued that the remains were some distance from the mineshafts and could not have been of miners buried by Kahama Mining's equipment. Then we produced the second videotape - made by Kahama Mining's former Public Relations Officer - that shows not only other dead miners but also miners being pulled from mine pits dead. Then Barrick's story shifted to "these died from poison gas" and "yes, there were deaths but it is common knowledge that many people were dying from accidents, disease and criminal acts, etc." This they never said before we came out with the evidence of numerous deaths in Bulyanhulu that they had not made public even in the face of the widespread allegations in the Tanzanian press.

Our attention had been drawn to Mr. Hutchinson's interest in the Bulyanhulu controversy last November by officials from MiningWatch Canada and the Council of Canadians who informed us that Mr. Hutchinson was interested in making the trip to Tanzania for a possible meeting eyewitnesses and families of those alleged to have been killed in Bulyanhulu. He somehow failed to do so and instead he appears to have decided that a plush corporate boardroom of Barrick Gold Corporation was preferable as a source of information rather than a meeting with the Tanzanian mothers and fathers who could have taken him to the spot where they say their children were buried.

The results of his labors are there for all to see. Mr. Hutchinson has completely failed to ask Barrick Gold the obvious questions - which LEAT raised in its letter to the Canadian Export Development Corporation (EDC) a copy of which was made available to him: "First, if … Barrick, Sutton Resources and KMCL thought the allegations of the killings were serious enough to warrant all these investigations why, then, have these companies failed to even acknowledge the existence of the allegations in the project documents they submitted to the general public and to public agencies such as MIGA and the EDC? Second, if … these companies have had these exculpatory investigations since 1996, why … have they never even acknowledged, let alone made public, the reports and the evidence that allegedly proves their innocence? Why have they had to wait for five long years to acknowledge the existence of this evidence and the investigations and then only after being forced out into the open by public disclosures of the evidence confirming the allegations of the massacre?"

To suggest that the video evidence we have was "manufactured" is laughable to say the least. About a week or so ago, representatives from MiningWatch Canada and Council of Canadians traveled to Toronto to view the videotapes and evidence in Barrick's possession. According to them, the videos they were shown are the same as that we have obtained independently.

Barrick Gold's version of the 1996 events - as faithfully told by Mr. Hutchinson - does not add up. Apart from voluminous reports - which are oddly and completely silent on anything concerning the allegations of killings or the contrary evidence Barrick now claims to have had since 1996 - the company submitted to EDC and MIGA, its other internal documents are equally completely silent on any reports of any deaths, whether accidental or otherwise, occurring in Bulyanhulu in the run up to Kahama Mining's taking control of the area in August 1996. There's, for instance, a memo dated August 12, 1996 from Jim Hylands who appears to have been in charge of the operations on Sutton Resources' side, to Roman Shklanka and Michael Kenyon, Sutton's Chairman and President respectively. This memo - which related to "progress of our pit filling exercise" makes reference to "a rumor" that the company was "burying miners with our grader" but makes no reference at all about the alleged deaths from mine shaft collapse alleged to have occurred a few days earlier. There is also no reference to the deaths of the seven alleged rapists and bandits that Barrick now acknowledges.

This silence in the face of very serious and very public allegations of human rights abuses is surprising considering the considerable lengths that the Canadian High Commission in Tanzania went to discredit them and protect Sutton Resources from public scrutiny. On the day the allegations first emerged in the media on August 12, 1996, then High Commissioner Verona Edelstein reported the following to her superiors in Ottawa: "In the influential Majira … paper today, the Chairman of the Miners (small scale) Association of Tanzania, Mr. Aloise Mushi, alleged that in bulldozing the illegal miners' shafts, Sutton/Kahama had buried 14 miners." However, she added "Sutton/Kahama says that is a blatant lie. All the illegal miners have left the site (and) no one has been killed or injured."

By November 26, with the media coverage of the allegations seemingly endless, Ms. Edelstein wrote to a Ms. Elaine Butcher, at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada's foreign ministry): "In late July the Government of Tanzania finally acted to remove the illegal miners. It was a peaceful operation whereupon the miners left willingly once the Government announced it would no longer tolerate their presence. Although since then there have been a few instances where miners returned or where the "Miners Committee" claimed damage or injury, the whole process has been remarkably calm and efficient. Sutton worked closely with the Government and representatives from the miners' community to inspect and fill in the mine shafts. It is certain that no miners were trapped in the shafts during this operation, and the Government charged those who were found mining illegally, in contravention of the removal order." This was written over two and a half months from the date Barrick and Mr. Hutchinson claim two miners were discovered "overcome by noxious fumes inside an empty shaft."

A day later, High Commissioner Edelstein wrote Ms. Butcher in dismay: "Having failed in their initial attempts to generate opposition to the Bulyanhulu Kahama operation, the illegal miner's committee has managed to draw a small but respected opposition party, the UDP, into the fray. A commission of enquiry is investigating alleged burials of miners at Bulyanhulu. My intervention with the party leader may serve to encourage truth or at least moderation in the report which will be produced." She then reported of her meeting with Mr. John Cheyo, UDP leader, "with whom I was well acquainted", in which she stated: "… (W)hile I understood the motivation of the illegal mining committee in its slanderous remarks, it was quite another thing to see irresponsible allegations embraced by a respected political leader without any verification of the facts."

Efforts to persuade Cheyo to call off his party's investigation of the allegations of killings also included Sutton Resources. According to High Commissioner Edelstein reporting to Ottawa on December 10, 1996, "Sutton VP Tony Luteijn met John Cheyo, Chairman of the UDP on 3 December in regard to the UDP commission of inquiry into alleged deaths of illegal miners at Bulyanhulu." Although much of what happened in that meeting has been blacked out as being confidential, Ms. Edelstein is on record telling Luteijn that "Sutton should not be overly concerned about the inquiry: The corrupt parties involved at Bulyanhulu had attempted to pursue this tack without success in August and September; no evidence had been adduced that anyone had been killed. The UDP was unlikely to succeed in making any dirt stick."

The efforts to influence UDP's investigation apparently failed for on January 18, 1997, the UDP's 18-member panel that included 3 members of the Tanzanian Parliament submitted their findings. The findings largely vindicated the allegations of the killings, naming names of the dead miners and narrating the manner of their deaths with eyewitness accounts, testimonies of their family members and numerous photographs that depicted the ghastly and macabre deaths in considerable detail.

John Cheyo, the UDP leader, understandably made considerable political hay out of his party's findings prompting Tanzanian President Mkapa to order the arrest and prosecution of any person found talking about the alleged deaths. And when Mr. Cheyo went on to successfully contest the Magu parliamentary by-election that February, High Commissioner Edelstein was concerned enough to send a dispatch to Ottawa on February 11, in which she broke the bad news: "With the death recently of the CCM incumbent, a byelection is being held in Mwanza region for the Magu constituency. John Cheyo, the leader of the UDP … is a candidate." Although several paragraphs have been blacked out from this message, the final paragraph is significant: "The foregoing is to put in context Cheyo's continued (and unfounded) allegations of deaths at Bulyanhulu." One has to bear in mind that by this time UDP's commission of inquiry had already submitted its findings and Cheyo's public statements were based on these.

On June 30, 1997 following Amnesty International's publication of the allegations of killings in its annual report for that, Ms. Edelstein bitterly complained to fellow foreign diplomats based in Tanzania that "some political figures have exploited the allegations in pursuing their own political agendas." She also appears to have discovered the "well-known fact that many dozens of miners were buried during the 1994-96 period in collapses of the unsafe illegal pits from which the mining committee, some local politicians and others were profiting." High Commissioner Edelstein was less restrained in her report to Ottawa the following day (July 1, 1997), conveying what Sutton Resources had told her: "The facts of the matter, as you know, is the pit filling operation was done after two years of warnings and over several weeks with painstaking care. Shafts were filled in one by one, under a team of regional, village and police supervisors with a miner "diver" first going down into each shaft, exploring each tunnel, and ensuring that the apparent prior peaceful departure circa July 31-August 6, 1996 of all illegal miners from the Bulyanhulu area was 100 per cent complete and that no foolish soul had snuck back into a pit for whatever reason."

The foregoing excerpts show that the allegations were subject of lively discussions for months within Canadian government circles and certainly within the DFAIT. Barrick Gold Corporation and their allies have also been making selected references to these documents in their correspondence for months. Given the failure by Barrick to even acknowledge the existence of the allegations, let alone to make the documents referred to above publicly available, one is left to imagine the true nature of the evidence in those documents whose portions have been blacked out to prevent them from reaching the public.

Barrick now says, according to Mr. Hutchinson, "miners continued to slip inside the property, usually at night, in order to dig for gold." We also know from statement issued by the Inspector General of Police on August 21, 1996 that "after the radio broadcast on August 3, 1996 that the High Court of Tanzania had ordered that the small-scale miners should continue with mining operations until their lawsuits (sic!) were determined, many miners returned and started mining operations again…. Nevertheless, the government, through the Shinyanga Regional Commissioner directed the miners to vacate the area as ordered earlier. The miners unwillingly left." For her part, High Commissioner Edelstein sent a dispatch key paragraphs of which have been taken off the by the censor's pen, but which nevertheless refers to "an injunction against the Government. This fact was announced on Radio Tanzania and 200 miners returned." What happened next has been withheld by the censor except for "the 200 miners, realists all, left." How these "realists" left has been withheld but we somehow learn that "there was no violence at any stage"!

If this is and true and indisputable, how can Barrick Gold, its paid agents and political supporters claim that absolutely nobody was buried alive, particularly considering the persistent claims to the contrary by eyewitnesses and families that their loved ones were buried after they sneaked back into the mines? More importantly, why are these institutions so fearful of an open and independent inquiry into these allegations that LEAT, NGOs worldwide and persons of goodwill have called for in order to lay these serious allegations to rest?

In deflecting attention away from the allegations of the killings, Mr. Hutchinson makes the preposterous claim that "it has been estimated that prior to August 1996, between 5%and 10% of independent miners working at Bulyanhulu died at the site every year, the majority in shaft collapses and due to disease." He does not cite any source for this estimate nor for the 15,000 miners and 35, 000 other people he claims were living in Bulyanhulu prior to the 1996 evictions. But if his claim were to be taken seriously, it would mean that between 750 and 1500 miners were dying every year before the Canadians moved in and improved the situation. Better still, if we go by the pre-August 1996 population figures for Bulyanhulu given by Barrick Gold and Kahama Mining of between 30,000 and 400,000 people, we would be counting, according to Mr. Hutchinson, anything between 3,000 and 40,000 deaths annually from the Bulyanhulu area! This is the kind of nonsense that can only come from the pen of someone either too lazy to think or too compromised to see through the dense fog of corporate propaganda.

There are numerous other falsehoods in the National Post report. Take the "regional politician" who is alleged to have investigated the allegations and concluded that "there isn't a grain of truth that Kahama Mining Corporation Limited is killing people." This "regional politician" is elsewhere described by Barrick's General Counsel Patrick Garver as a mere "local official of the Chama cha Mapinduzi (the "CCM", a local political party) Divisional Headquarters." In the memo to Sutton headquarters I referred to earlier, KMCL's Jim Hylands reported the following: "The Chairman of the CCM party, Bugarama Ward, came to us on Friday to object to our burying people. We took him to Reef No. 1 where he had the opportunity to talk to the RPC (Regional Police Commander Mnubi who was commanding officer of the entire operation to clear the artisanals), the Madini (Mines Department) Rep and our inspectors and to observe for himself. He returned on Saturday looking for financial assistance to travel to Kahama and report to the CCM District Secretary. This was provided when he returned on Sunday with a copy of his report, and after we confirmed that he was CCM ward Chairman." There's no indication here that this fellow investigated the claims of the burials of the miners. On the contrary there's every reason to doubt the independence and genuineness of a report he made after "financial assistance" was provided to him by KMCL. One has also to consider that he's a local (not regional) representative of the ruling party whose president happens to be the President of the country and who, according to former High Commissioner Edelstein, had directed the regional authorities in Shinyanga to carry out the evictions!

There's also a false claim that the police did excavate some of the pits "but no bodies were found inside." The police video shows clearly that the police investigators were not really interested in excavating the pits where miners were allegedly buried and they did not do so. But when miners started to organize themselves to dig the mineshafts where they believed their colleagues were buried in, the police disallowed the exercise. This is how the national police chief rationalized this action in a public statement dated August 21, 1996, some three days after the police halted investigations of the allegations: "The facts have shown that most of the pits are over 70 feet deep. If these pits are exhumed it would take not less than 24 hours for each pit to be exhumed while the costs of feeding and paying the diggers would be not less than (Tanzania) shillings five hundred thousand. There are no less than 250 pits that have thus far been sealed, so considering the difficulties of the exercise and the enormous costs that are likely to accrue perhaps with no result of finding any person or persons buried in the pits it is advised to stop this exercise. After all the allegations are not supported by facts. And if there are those who still believe their friends, relatives and family were buried inside the pits they should exhume the pits at their own cost." So, it would appear, the police were more concerned about the financial cost of the exhumation exercise rather than a more thorough investigation including digging the pits that would have satisfied all concerned that not a soul had been buried alive in those pits. We made this information available to Mr. Hutchinson but obviously he did not deem it of any importance to be included in his article.

Mr. Hutchinson is also extremely partial with his interpretation of the evidence presented to him. His take on the company videotapes is a case in point. He has obviously found fault with our assertion that the dates shown on that video are wrong. But had he taken time to carefully and critically consider all the other documents he says were made available to him, he would have come to the same conclusion. For example, he would have learnt from the statement issued by the Inspector General of Police on August 21, 1996, and quoted with approval by Barrick's General Counsel on September 20, 2001 that all "the miners have now vacated the area" and that all efforts to exhume the dead miners had been disallowed.

He would have also realized that whereas the meeting in which Regional Commissioner Gen. Kiwelu ordered the miners out is indicated in the video as having taken place on June 30, it in fact took place on July 30, 1996. He furthermore would have learnt that the events that are known from documentary and other evidence to have taken place in August are depicted in the video as having taken place in July.

Indeed, had Mr. Hutchinson been as thorough in examining Barrick's documents as he pretends to have been, he would not have missed the item in the August 12, 1996 memo to Sutton Resources in which Sutton's Jim Hylands reported that the Shinyanga Regional Commissioner Gen. Kiwelu had advised the police commander that "he had another week to finish the job i.e. the full police contingent would remain for another seven days…." That order was given on August 10, which is to say that after August 17 there should not have been any police presence in the area. The portion of the video that shows dead miners being pulled out of pits on September 12 not only shows numerous police officers on the scene but also the District Commissioner who had been in Bulyanhulu during the first two weeks of the removals. Brian Hutchinson was, therefore, either not given the entire package of documents he claims he was given or else he chose to ignore that which would not have been helpful to the company he is so obviously rooting for.

Mr. Hutchinson's suspect credentials as an impartial journalist are again revealed his incredibly libelous treatment of the Bulyanhulu Small-scale Gold Miners' Committee and, particularly, of its Chairman Maalim Kadau. The Miners' Committee and its leadership have been so maligned by Barrick, its paid spokespersons and allies such as former High Commissioner Edelstein that it might shock many that this "mafia-like" organization was formed in the early 1990s at the behest of the Government of Tanzania itself! The entire government machinery from then President Ali Hassan Mwinyi on down to cabinet ministers and regional and district officials recognized the Committee as the sole legitimate representative of the Bulyanhulu miners and dealt with the miners through the Committee. This was also true of Sutton Resources and Kahama Mining Corporation before they decided that the Miners' Committee and its leadership were standing in the way of the corporate designs to monopolize the mineral riches of Bulyanhulu. Our own examination of official documents, correspondence and internal memoranda from various government departments and agencies amply testifies to this fact.

The leadership of the Committee headed by Mr. Kadau was elected by the miners themselves in elections supervised by then Kahama District Commissioner Hawa Mchopa herself. Its Constitution - for the Committee had and still has one - was approved by the government. And, as official correspondence from the government amply testifies, there was nothing "ad hoc" or "illegal" about the Committee or its leadership, contrary to the numerous libels spread by people like Hutchinson and Edelstein. All this was before the events of July/August 1996 made Maalim Kadau, the Committee Chairman, "the Tony Soprano of Tanzanian mining", whatever that means.

That Barrick, Kahama Mining and their paid supporters and allies should feel that way towards the Miners' Committee and Mr. Kadau should, however, not surprise anyone. These companies have got a very big axe to grind against the Committee for it provided the organizational structure and voice to the miners' resistance against corporate designs on their livelihoods. As for Mr. Kadau, he not only brought the allegations of the killings of his constituents to the attention of the media and the entire world, he has also refused to bow down to despair, ridicule and, often, intimidation and threats on his personal safety. He did not give up where many would have given up and did give up, and he has grimly carried on the fight for justice for the artisanal miners even after the traumatic events of August 1996.

It is not for nothing that when Kahama Mining decided to go to the courts of law to have the miners evicted, it sued the entire leadership of the Miners' Committee with Maalim Kadau as defendant number one. In the High Court of Tanzania, this semi-literate peasant and his colleagues twice trounced the company with all its money and political influence in both Dar es Salaam and Ottawa. A decision was then made at the highest circles of the government, the company and the Canadian High Commission in Dar es Salaam that this legal setback should not prevent them from using illegal force to get the miners out of the way. According to then High Commissioner Edelstein in a confidential dispatch to Ottawa dated December 20, 1995: "Sutton's June (19)95 injunction against owners of equipment supplied to illegals (i.e. artisanal miners) on Bulyanhulu never was enforced. It was challenged by owners and appealed to High Court in Tabora. In September (19)95, in midst of election campaign, the High Court judge ruled that that the issue could involve constitutional rights and should be heard by panel of three High Court judges.... Sutton has appealed to High Court (sic!) for panel hearing. We do not believe that judicial action on injunction need impede action by the government to resolve the situation...."

KMCL and Sutton Resources never pursued their appeal in the Court of Appeal and instead - documents obtained under Canadian Access to Information Act reveal - working in tandem the High Commission, with blessings from Ottawa, they pressured the Tanzanian Government to use its repressive apparatus to evict the miners from Bulyanhulu. Threats of economic sanctions - should the Government of Tanzania fail to act against the artisanal miners - were never far from the surface as these documents reveal. A week after the Government finally acted, throwing in the wind any pretense of legality and adherence to rule of law, High Commissioner Edelstein sent a jubilant message to Ottawa: "SUTTON'S BULYANKHULU (SIC!) ON TRACK. THE NEWS ON BULYAKHULU (SIC!)IS ALL GOOD. THE 10-20,000 ILLEGAL MINERS ARE GONE FROM THE PROPERTY. THE GOVERNMENT'S MESSAGE, DELIVERED IN PARLIAMENT, WAS CLEAR; ITS APPLICATION FIRM. THE GOVERNMENT SHOWED COURAGE AND BOLDNESS AND AS A RESULT THERE WAS NO VIOLENCE. IT IS RECEIVING PLAUDITS FROM THE CANADIAN AND USA INVESTMENT HOUSES...."

Mr. Hutchinson makes the completely unsupported and preposterous allegation that the Miners' Committee was "at the centre of a large money-laundering operation involving Asian gangs." However, like a thief who carefully avoids the scene of his crime, Mr. Hutchinson has studiously avoided any mention of the damning revelations -in project documents submitted by Barrick and Kahama Mining that I referred to him - of the social and economic benefits that artisanals brought to the Bulyanhulu area; and the destruction of the local economy that Barrick's investment has occasioned since the artisanals were violently driven off. Indeed, had Mr. Hutchinson not been in such a hurry to whitewash Barrick Gold, he would have realized that the only companies to have been accused of involvement in gold smuggling in Bulyanhulu and that owned and operated aircraft and an airstrip in Bulyanhulu were Placer Dome, a Canadian mining giant, and Dar Tardine (Tanzania) Ltd, another company with headquarters in Switzerland. The two companies were kicked out of the country by the Government of Tanzania in the early 1990s even before the Miners' Committee was established and its leadership constituted. It seems highly ironic that Canadian corporate interests should treat the Miners' Committee and Mr. Kadau with such venomous hatred while the Government of Tanzania and its operatives that must have known far better about the Committee and its leadership has, for once, wisely kept its counsel to itself.

In the end, the real tragedy is not so much the NGOs and activists weakening their credibility and usefulness. Our credibility and usefulness has never depended on what corporate mining interests and their hired scribes such as Mr. Hutchinson would like us to do or say. The real tragedy lies in the fact that a very rich mining company from one of richest countries in the world has been allowed to destroy, in its own admission, a viable local economy and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in one of the poorest countries in the world. The real tragedy seems to us to be the fact that public funds and taxpayers dollars have unaccountably been used to subsidize the plunder and looting of the resources of this poor country, thereby deepening poverty and squalor among its people. The gruesome tragedy is on the lives of the poor Tanzanians that were taken through massive burials, whose culprits have not been brought to justice or justice, brought to them and which Mr. Hutchinson's and your paper, unfortunately, desperately try to acquit without trial!

Sincerely yours

Rugemeleza Nshala
President

Cc. Tanzania Media