PRESIDENT Jakaya Kikwete has cautioned Tanzanians to be
careful and shun from any political move aimed at threatening and violating peace
and tranquility which may plug the nation into political turmoil. President made the remarks in Dar es Salaam on
Thursday last week when addressing participants of a two-day National symposium
who had gathered to discuss matters pertaining to the prevailing peace situation
in the country. A two-day closed door meeting was organized by the Tanzania
Centre for Democracy (TCD) and brought together almost 60 participants who
included members of all political parties with representatives in the
Parliament. Others who attended the meeting are members of the police force and
national security agents in the country. President Kikwete said that, “things
are not well in the country in terms of peace and that if Tanzanians would not
take precautionary measures by now, the country will soon enter into civil war”.
He attributed the threatened peace situation in the country as being propagated
by some political activities coupled by seditious religious statements being
propagated by few religious leaders who intentionally preach hatred causing
religious disputes. He further clarified that, some religious clerics have been
treating religion as a political activity which is against religious ethics and
by so doing they destroy religious
respect. The two he said have been stimulating the emerging political chaos in
some parts in the country as already witnessed in Arusha, Dar es Salaam, Mtwara
and Zanzibar. However, he said
adding that, this is shame to the rest of the world for a country which has
long been proud of being an Island of peace in the world since independence
time over 50 years dawn the lane to engage in marvelous things to disrupt its
national status. In view of this, President Kikwete has asked everybody in the
country to be alert and disengage in any wrong doings and take appropriate actions
in order to avert the situation. Earlier, TCD’s Chairperson James Mbatia
introduced to the President the various political parties that had organized the
meeting and was disappointed to note that, among parties’ attendances only Chadema
did not attend the meeting and wondered for what reasons. However, President
Jakaya countered by saying that, the absence of the members of Chadema was not
a correct decision making and must have reasons behind it, bearing the fact
that it should have been in the forefront for its being the leading opposition party
with large number of representatives in Parliament. James Mbatia who is also
the National Chairman of the NCCR-Mageuzi party highlighted some of the
deliberations which members came up with and requested the government to put
them in their implementation and strategic plans for the development of a sustainable
peace cords in the country.
Some of these are work on reform programs which are
aimed at consolidating peace is one of the permanent national project, and
therefore, TCD should apply a long term sustainability program for promoting
the standards of awareness among the people for their responsible role of
maintaining peace and tranquility in the country. Under the reform programs, education about peace and other
matters must be given to the general public and other groups such as politicians,
journalists, religious leaders, human rights activists, policy makers so as to
build up a peaceful nation. Mbatia noted that, as this is a primary role to
every citizen in the country, TCD has seen its importance and has also asked
the government to consider it as it can promote patriotism and strong
commitments when it comes to the issue of maintaining peace and freedom. However,
he further noted that TCD should be empowered to have an overall control of the
educational institutions which will be aligned to enlighten youths and
political leaders to obey the constitution and laws governing the country
without having been opposed at all. Despite the outlined deliberations by TCD,
the organization has among other things asked the media being the fourth estate
in the country to streamline their media organizations so as to create a
conducive environment to journalists. He said empowering them would make them become
responsible enough while fulfilling their obligations according to their
ethical and regulations that abide their work rules, adding that, journalists
are resourceful to disseminate information including their reports. Earlier TCD
challenged the media for not being skeptical in news reporting and had criticized
some of the media organs for violating their ethical work and ended up in
purporting the real information to the general public. They noted that some
media organs in the country are playing the role of inciting provocations
instead of analyzing their news contents into a balanced manner an aspect which
they said might cause greater misunderstandings among the most prominent people
including politicians. Giving an highlight in his closing address speech,
President Kikwete reminded the participants to be careful with some media
organs and illustrated his point by giving an example of one media house in
Kigali-Rwanda was accused of inciting information in its news broadcast that fueled
acts of genocide which occurred in 1994.
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