Tanzanians safer in MogadishuSat Nov 5, 2005 10:09 AM GMT
By Guled Mohamed and Mohammed Ali Bile
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Few foreigners dare to settle in gun-infested Mogadishu: Africa's most anarchic city is a haven only for Somalis fleeing rural starvation.
But a group of Tanzanians -- citizens of a country that receives $1 billion a year in foreign aid -- are happy to live in the city because they fear political repression at home.
The 200 or so are Zanzibaris who fled to Africa's mainland in 2000 and 2001 after killings of opposition protesters on the Indian ocean archipelago in the aftermath of rigged polls.
The Zanzibari opposition supporters wound up in Mogadishu and have been happy to stay ever since.
Four years on, they say the latest troubled elections in the semi-autonomous islands prove they were right to leave.
"Considering the current turmoil in Zanzibar, I believe we are safer here," said Amir Musa, a Zanzibari fitness trainer who married a local woman after arriving in Somalia in 2000.
He told Reuters he was comfortable in his new home, even though it lacks running water and proper sanitation.
Abdirashid Mohamed, a 26-year-old who runs a barber shop near Mogadishu's Kilometre Five roundabout, said he was not surprised the ruling party had won again in his native Zanzibar.
"It is their norm to rig," he told Reuters.
"An innocent man lost his life the other day. If such killings continue unabated our people will be forced to defend themselves, and soon it will end like Somalia."
Elections in Tanzania, a darling of international donors, tend to go smoothly apart from on Zanzibar, whose Arab-African heritage is viewed with suspicion by many on the mainland.
This week Zanzibar's opposition again refused to accept defeat by the governing Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM or "Party of the Revolution"), official winners of Oct 30. polls that were again marred by violence and claims of ballot fraud.
The CCM says any violence was caused by the opposition.
"RIGGED AGAIN"
The Zanzibari exiles said they doubted the CCM version.
"They have rigged again," said Ghulam Abdulrahman, 43, the leader of the refugee group in Somalia, referring to CCM.
He said Seif Sharif Hamad, the leader on Zanzibar of the opposition Civic United Front (CUF), would always win in fair polls there, "even if elections are held every month".
The European Union (EU) has called for an investigation into irregularities in the Zanzibar poll despite findings by African electoral observers that the contest was generally fair.
Sandwiched between warlords who often battle each other with heavy weaponry, life in Mogadishu has not been easy.
Conditions for the refugees became tougher in 2001 when the U.S. closed down the Al-Haramain Islamic charity that had been feeding them, over suspicions about links to terrorism.
But most say they feel better off in Somalia, despite Mogadishu's crumbling buildings.
Abdulrahman said the only way to end government oppression in Zanzibar was the Somali way -- to take up arms.
He said he neither recognised Zanzibar's election results, nor the islands' re-elected President Amani Abeid Karume.
"They intimidate us because they have guns," he said.
"But I believe when we arm ourselves they would listen and respect us ... Since there is no democracy in Zanzibar, the only way is by the use of the gun, if that's what they want. Just like Somalia."
