2014-02-28    New letter (in English)
 from a Tanzanian inmate in a Hong Kong prison

(Comments welcome here)

War against Drug Trafficking – Tanzania

When we started our anti-narcotics campaign, so did the nation. The power of our activities is indeed a mystery. It is always surprising that a few prisoners (Ex-drug couriers) can produce such a reaction across the nation.

When activities are carefully organised around well-defined issues, they represent the power “The most powerful force in the world” – (“an idea whose time has come”).

Public outcry announce that time has come for a given idea. When the idea is a sound one, the cause a just one, and the activity a righteous one, change will forthcoming.

Activities must continue in the future, and they must be the kind of activities that bring about the desire result.

But activity is not a “one shot” victory producing method. One activity can serve merely to let off steam and siphon off the energy which is necessary to produce change. However when the activity is seen as a part of a program to dramatize an evil (i.e. our anti-narcotics campaign – Drug free Tanzania), to mobilise the force of goodwill, and to generate pressure and power for change, activities will continue to effective.

I have recently learned that the beloved son of our honourable President (Mr. Ridhiwani Kikwete) is among Tanzania’s high ranked leaders who have been blocked from entering the United States as a result of various allegations against them (The other three are Mwigulu Nchemba, Juma Kapuya and Emmanuel Nchimbi) I reckoned that Nchimbi and Kapuya are top brass leaders in our current leading party and the government.

The report confirmed our assertation that our government is rotten to the core and its need a massive change. It also confirmed the contents of our previous letters which revealed the names of the top drug barons in Tanzania, one of them Mr. Ridhiwani Kikwete (The beloved son of our current president). The report has also confirmed among the 130 names of the heavyweight drug traffickers supplied to the President by the Police Anti-Drugs Unit and the Tanzanian Intelligence Services were either top government personnel or relatives of the top leaders in the government, and/or high ranked businessmen and women (This’s also confirmed that our campaign’s not a witch-hunt or an attempt to mud-slinged our leaders and their relatives or associates, as their supporters and enforcers suggested.

The aim of our campaign is to dramatize the evil of our leaders and the government in such a way that pressure is brought to bear against those evils by the forces of goodwill in the community and change is produced. Achievement of these goals will be a lot more difficult and require much more discipline understanding, unity and sacrifice. Our goal is to create a drug trafficking free-Tanzania, and this will require a moral support and political will from the top, Tanzania cannot win a war against drug trafficking by only going hard with the small fish (drug couriers) while the big fish (the drug kingpins) slips on their nets. To eliminate drug trade Tanzania must start going hard with the source of the illicit trade (The drug heavyweights and their enforcers). So far, we’ve the constitution backing most of the demands for change, but the issue is not the constitution or legislation, it is the “Enforcement” of those legislations.

There is no easy way to create a world where men and women can live together, where each has his own job and house and where all children receive as much educations as their minds can absorb. But if such a world is created in our life time, it will be done in Tanzania by the men and women of goodwill. It will be accomplished by the persons who have the courage to put an end to suffering by wiling suffering themselves rather than inflict suffering upon others. It will be done by rejecting Corruption, Inequality of the law and drug trafficking and especially by working toward a world of brotherhood, justice and peace.

This faith will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride towards the nation of Drug Free. Today I write this letter on behalf of all Tanzanians men and women who is languishing in foreign jaws for drug trafficking offences. Most of us are just couriers (fooled or lured to traffick the drugs from point A to point B) our bosses are still out there (business as usual) and our government is uncooperative.

I write this letter with an abiding faith in Tanzania and audacious faith in the future of our nation. I refuse to accept the cynical notion that our nation is spiralling down a drug trafficking stairway into a hell of      drug trafficking hub in Africa. I believe our campaign, the truth and unconditional love will have the final word in realty. That’s why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

Yours for the cause of Drug Free Tanzania, justice peace and Brotherhood.

Mayunga Magesa Chacha, Tanzanian Inmate in Hong Kong Prison.

Date: 10/02/2014

Previous letters in English and Swahili from African inmates in Hong Kong prisons