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Grave Concern over Peace /
Tourism Conference in Tanzania
Open letter to ‘Coalition Murderous’
Sender:
Navaya ole Ndaskoi
Co-ordinator
Indigenous Rights for Survival International
P. O. Box 13357
Dar Es Salaam
Tanzania
ndaskoi@uccmail.co.tz
Mobile phone +255-744-453 192
Alternative phone +225-748-604 038
November 30, 2003
To:
1. Louis D’Amore, President
International Institute for Peace though Tourism
Fox Hill 13 Cottage Club
Road Stowe
Vermont, 05672
United States of America.
2. Dr. Catherine DeLeo, Chair
Recreation Resources & Ski Resort Mgmt
Lyndon State College
Lyndonville,
Vermont 05851
United States of America
Dear Louis and Catherine:
RE: 1) 2ND IIPT AFRICAN CONFERENCE ON PEACE THROUGH TOURISM
and
2) YOUTH LEADERSHIP FORUM December 7-12, 2003 Dar es Salaam.
Like many all over the world, I have spent the last days and weeks
and months in great agony, as the
current assault and massacres of Peace, Law and Justice by the
most rapacious imperial powers on
earth has unfolded. Death, destruction and human misery have
turned into celluloid images analysed
and dissected by retired majors and ‘embedded’ journalists
with utter cynicism and shameless glee
while exhorting the virtue of precision bombing. Shame itself is
ashamed as marines descend from
their tanks to throw water bottles to traumatised thirsty Iraqis
while tanks fire at Basra's water plants.
Not many months ago. In the
Palestine theatre of conflicts, innocent children, youth, women
and the
vulnerable are dying each passing day.
In this state, I am finding it impossible to intellectualise on
Peace and muse over Tourism. Peace,
Law, Justice and Liberation have all been murdered! And we all
know the murderous.
I am afraid, I cannot simply bring myself to attend these
conferences. I know you will be disappointed. I also know that you
have gone out of your way to make it possible for me to attend.
But I also know that you, like many others at these conferences,
do not necessarily share my anxiety and outrage. Perhaps the
conferences will be an occasion for you to make policies that make
the poor poorer and the rich get richer. Enough of
‘development’ tricks!
No, for once, I want to be myself. Let me read my books and hope
that my generation will place this
world back on its head. The rational and human thing that can be
said and done is to attack all forms of tourism which use money to
trample an African human being underfoot.
In all sincerity, in this context, can we really talk about peace
through tourism? In whose image? In
the image of Anglo-American ‘peace’? If this is not another
empty vessel, why the meeting should be
held in Dar es Salaam? I am told Dar es Salaam is a capital of one
of the most ‘peaceful’ countries on
earth. True Dar and Nairobi were bombed in 1998. But that does not
alter facts. The targets of those
bombings were Americans. We know that they know it.
In your retired e-mails, you said that two Global Summits on Peace
through Tourism were held in
(Amman, Jordan – Nov. 2000; and Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 2003)
and the First IIPT African
Conference, Nelspruit, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, March
2002).
Now Jordan, Switzerland and South Africa are not, and I stand to
be proved wrong, the most shambolic countries as far as insecurity
is concern. Right? If wrong, at least they do not outstrip
Kabul, Kunduz, Najaf, Gaza Strip, Tikrit and Baghdad. If the
conferences are hot potatoes for Africa, there are real
battlefields on the continent. They are Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast,
Burundi, DR Congo, Liberia, Somalia, Northern Uganda and Southern
Sudan. There is no peace in those countries.
They are thus the best venue.
But wait. Did I read in one of your e-mails something to this
effect: the ‘aims of the conference are…to mobilize travel and
tourism…as a leading force for poverty reduction in Africa.’
Did I hear somewhere too that until recently Kenya ‘was leading
in attracting the bulk of the sub-Saharan Africa tourist trade?’
Are ordinary Kenyans any better than other ordinary Africans? What
country on earth developed by depending on fickle tourist revenue?
It is a great source of sadness too that some of the participants
are the very people responsible for
the plight of indigenous communities, wildlife and the environment
(read the Loliondo controversy).
Genuinely, you have arranged for me to meet Gerald
Bigurube-Director General Tanzania National
Parks Authority (TANAPA). Unfortunately, a possible cardinal sin
to be committed by anybody, in his right senses, who knows
TANAPA’s acts of mindless vandalism in villages bordering
national parks is to meet Bigurube. TANAPA is behaving as if some
inhabitants of Venus head it. You have no idea how much this
grieves me.
Since tourism brings foreign currency, it can be understood why
the establishments value wildlife than
human beings. But why the very money magnets, wildlife, should be
subjected to an undue killing in
the name of sport-hunting, is best known to the big shots of this
country, Bigurube included. He is a
presidential appointee. Did he resign in the interest of peace and
wildlife if the Government did not
listen him concerning the outrageous hunting in Loliondo? One
cannot possibly cut off the hand that
feeds him. He head TANAPA. Pretend that things are in order. Get
the bread! The Director General
may disagree with me to this point. But if he likes the Loliondo
killings then we (you and I) must
develop other thoughts.
Secondly the venue is the Golden Tulip Hotel, Dar es Salaam. If
the aim is to fight poverty can
participants see any poverty in Golden Tulip? Above all, the
majority of people in this Republic live
far below the ‘Poverty Line.’ Are Frederick Sumaye, Prime
Minister of the United Republic of Tanzania, Zakia Hamdani Meghji,
Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism, Republic of Tanzania,
Dr. Asha Rose Migiro, Tanzania Minister for Community Development,
Gender and Children, Dawid
De Villiers, Deputy Secretary General, World Tourism Organisation
and Ian Christie, World Bank
Group themselves poor? How can an oppressor negotiate himself, and
there are also women, out of
the system that benefited him? Nelson Mandela correctly argued,
‘force is the only language an
oppressor can understand.’
Do Tanzanians, the majority, have interest in the conferences? Do
they see the validity? Can they
afford to attend even when there were no registration fees? Would
decent Tanzanians like their
country to be visited (short stay, quick and dirty) by foreigners
whose sole purpose is to commit
grossly inhuman acts that they could not do in their own countries?
Would they like to be seen hosting brutal freak shows for MONEY?
Is Tanzania so financially impoverished and so morally bankrupt
that this is actually being advertised? National pride, humanity,
common decency...quo vadis.
It always shocks me to the marrow to see our rulers performing
somersaults to attract veracious
vultures called investors and predators called tourists (consumptive
and non-consumptive) especially
from the nations of European stock. The conferences are, I like to
believe, most certainly the triumphs of the powerful, the rich,
and those expecting perks, local and expatriates!
Another major downside of one of the conferences is its very
expected outcome. ‘The outcome of
the Conference will be an “Action Agenda” – a “21st
Century Agenda for Peace through Tourism”
with a focus on implementation of strategic initiatives and pilot
projects that empower local communities to achieve jobs with
dignity and sustainable futures.’
Well. Is there any truth in this? In the face of things this looks
like a strong argument. Some who
know the facts extremely well, however, feels that despite the
fallacies the people who are already at
their lowest ebb of suffering loose much. Despite the fads,
fancies, ‘new directions’ and endless
‘policy rethinks’ that have characterised the
‘development’ business for decades, and despite the
expenditure of a lot of money there is little evidence to prove
that the poor have actually benefited from the ‘development’
agenda. Year in year out, however, there can be no doubt that
conservation, tourism and ‘development’ pay the heft salaries
and underwrite the privileged lifestyles of the international
civil servants, ‘development experts, consultants and assorted
freeloaders who staff ‘development’ agencies themselves.
How can we talk of peace while the nations of European stock are
molesting it? Perhaps one day, the
oppressed in Tanzania (by extension in Africa) will drive away
tourists with whips!
We could demonstrate against the said conferences. But this
Government, which you seem to cherish, is guaranteed to gun us
down. With live ammunition! Read January 26 and 27, 2001. So you
can just go ahead. History will prove you wrong. Unfortunately
while history will vindicate us it will
never restore our rights.
No, thank you…! I shall not utter ‘peace’ until I see the
ghosts of the Iraqis, Afghanis and Palestines
dancing on buried tanks, APCs and B52s! Until I see all
‘coalition’ murderous leaving Iraq and Afghanistan. Until I
see both Bush and Blair being dragged to face the full force of
law. Until I see the
monstrous Ngorongoro Conservation Area Ordinance (No.14´ of 1959)
as amended from time to
time being rubbished. Until I see the Maasai retaking their
ancestral land, the Greater Serengeti! Until
I see the remains of Michael Grzimek (buried in Ngorongoro),
Frederick Selous (buried in Selous
Game Reserve), Hugo van Lawick (buried in Ngorongoro) and all
murderous buried in conservation
areas including Cecil Rhodes (buried in Matopos National Park,
Zimbabwe) being flown where they
belong, Europe.
I know this letter will bitterly offend you. I make no apologies
for that.
Over our dead bodies! No exploitation of man by man.
The world is watching you.
With grave concern,
___________
Navaya ole Ndaskoi
Co-ordinator
Indigenous Rights for Survival International.
CC. The press, print and electronic.
CC. University of Dar es Salaam School of Thought.
CC. Pastoral and hunter-gather organisations (Eastern Africa and
Southern Africa).
CC. Survival-International (London).
CC. ECOTERRA Intl. African Node (Nairobi).
CC. Social justice believer across the globe, please distribute it
far and wide.
CC. Nation of Islam.
CC. Diplomatic Mission, Dar es Salaam.
CC. Religious Institutions (Tanzania).
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Additonal call by the author:
Dear Friends,
I appeal to you and all peace loving people around the globe to
pay attention to this mail.
The International Institute for Peace through Tourism and the
Youth Leadership Forum, based in the United States are organising
IIPT 2nd Conference on Peace through Tourism to be held in at the
Golden Tulip Hotel in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), 7-12 December
2003.
This conference conceals sinister objectives (Please see the
attachment).
Do two things then. Foremost, distribute this e-mail to has many
individuals and organisations as you can or possibly publish it.
Secondly, swarm the IIPT with protest letters and/or e-mails.
Their conduct is as follows:
International Institute for Peace through Tourism
Fox Hill
13 Cottage Club Road Stowe
Vermont, 05672 USA
Telephone: 802-253-2658
Fax: 802-253-2645
E-Mail: conference@iipt.org
Let us prevent the rich and powerful from trampling human beings
underfoot.
Peace.
Navaya ole Ndaskoi
Co-ordinator
Indigenous Rights for Survival International
P.O. Box 13357
Dar es Salaam
Tanzania
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