Free speech key to Mozambique’s development and there are now four private newspapers, many bookshops, numerous cafes, and exhibition venues. However, these are in centralised Maputo and the challenge of informing the rural electorate about the issues remains huge. Credit: Thembi Mutch/IPS

By Thembi Mutch
MAPUTO, Jun 29 2013 (IPS)

In downtown Maputo, the walls are covered with the local newspaper, Verdade, and a range of people, young and old, male and female, are reading it. Verdade, which means Truth in Portuguese, is a free weekly newspaper that is pasted on the walls of buildings in Mozambique’s capital.

It is one of the most innovative, imaginative and, its publishers claim, widely-read newspapers in Mozambique. Aside from the 32-page hard copy of the newspaper, Verdade has a website, a dedicated mobile phone news site, and a presence on social network sites Twitter and Facebook.

All its news is sourced from the community, and people verify and correct the information online. There are no official figures of how many people have access to the internet in Mozambique, but it is estimated that one percent of the population is connected. Verdade also makes use of mobile phones. Citizen reporters, including taxi drivers and shopkeepers from all over this southern African nation, send text messages of their local news to Verdade’s Maputo office.

This citizen journalism is considered key to Verdade’s success. Until four years ago, the state-owned Noticias newspaper dominated Mozambican media. News was little more than propaganda. But with the Mozambican regional elections set for November, and the national elections for 2014, a spotlight has been placed on the issue of accessing information.

“Really this is the first election that we are covering what is happening in the country. Before, in 2008, we were just getting started. We just reported the final results. But now, after five years, the media is a tool for the transformation and development of the country. This election is one of the first steps,” Verdade’s editor-in-chief Adérito Caldeira told IPS.

One of the jobs for the Verdade team will be to ensure polling stations are open, that people know how to use them, and that the election data is reliably relayed.

But also, for the elections to be effective, people must be aware of the issues and what they are voting for.

Mozambique is over 800,000 square kilometres, almost twice the size of neighbouring Zimbabwe, and this makes getting news out and spreading information a real challenge.

Added to this is the fact that 60 percent of Mozambicans are illiterate, and only 10 percent of the country’s almost 24 million people have access to electricity, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

And, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), there is a legal vacuum surrounding the right to information, “which is becoming a serious obstacle to the credibility of the state and to achieving the other fundamental rights and freedoms that are connected to the right to information.”

No Freedom to Access Information

Over 20 civil society groups, spearheaded by MISA, have been trying for the last seven years to get the Freedom of Information Bill through parliament.

According to MISA, the bill “will allow the state to bring the voice of the people into the development processes, opening the path to ensure that all vital forces in society, and particularly vulnerable groups, have a word to say.”

Anthropologist Luka Mucavele told IPS: “The bill will allow access to state files and records, which is a step towards the dismantling of the centralised socialist state. But of course its success rests completely on people knowing they have a right to information, and that they have the time and inclination to pursue this.”

Yveth Matunza, a lawyer at the Mozambican Human Rights League, is worried. “Identity and information are linked. We do have an exemplary constitution here in Mozambique, so the machinery exists. However, most people here don’t know their rights, information is presented in a biased way, and is not explained well,” she told IPS.

“We have a lot of problems when it comes to accessing information. We don’t know when the Freedom of Information Act will become law. We only know it’s on the agenda. Even if this law passes, I don’t believe it will give us access to information,” said Matunza who, in her spare time, is also one Mozambique’s two female rappers.

The bill contains public interest clauses that could override claims of national security or commercial secrecy where public health, environmental dangers, or human rights violations are involved.

Free speech key to Mozambique’s development

There are now four private newspapers in Mozambique, many bookshops, numerous cafes, and exhibition venues, including the French Cultural Institute. However, these are in centralised Maputo and the challenge of informing the rural electorate about the issues remains huge, Mucavele said.

Joaquim Chissau is the owner and editor of Zambeze, one of the other private newspapers in Maputo.

“Expressing our national identity is very important. Since the death of Carlos Cardoso (a journalist investigating government fraud who was shot outside his home in a Maputo suburb) in 2000 we have definitely seen a big improvement in debate,” he told IPS.

“Discussion and debate are a very important part of Mozambican society … there are big discussions we need to have, particularly on the role of oil and gas, and the opposition party, Renamo (Mozambican National Resistance) in Mozambique.”

Renamo has threatened to unleash violence across the country if the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front, known by its Portuguese acronym Frelimo, does not loosen its control on politics and the economy. Since April, there have been repeated skirmishes with both sides, and 11 soldiers and five civilians have been killed to date.

Ivan Levanjeira was born and raised in Mafalala, a township on the outskirts of Maputo and runs the only community tourism initiative in Mozambique. For him, freedom of speech and expression is key to Mozambique’s development. “We are a diverse community, very politicised, our grandparents were forced immigrants. We know our history, and we know our rights.”

But architecture student Walter Tembe is less enthusiastic.

“The economic boom is only for a very, very few… People are worried about getting their next meal. Most of us are blind, we don’t know what’s going on, and if we question too much there’s trouble.”

In Mikindani, a port in southern Tanzania, oil tankers are a frequent sight at the port. However, exploration has not brought economic prosperity to this area. Credit: Thembi Mutch/IPS

By Thembi Mutch
MIKINDANI, Tanzania, Jun 17 2013 (IPS)

In Kilwa District in southern Tanzania local community leader and fisherman Salim Riziki stands next to a set of turbines, newly imported from Dubai, talking about the gas finds on Songo Songo, an island 15 km off the mainland.

The whirring sounds and lights from the turbines are in stark contrast to the mud and thatch houses and the few corrugated iron shacks in the village.

It is dusk. There are no cars on the road, and only the occasional labourer walks by, carrying a hoe, as the villagers make their way home. The Songo Songo gas discovery resulted in electrification in this village – but only for the lucky, wealthy few.

“Yes, we think this exploration is vital, but as citizens we are concerned. We need the truth, to have the information laid out for us so we can explore slowly what might be best for us. The government has told us their plans for hospitals, for schools, for electricity. They’ve told us on the radio, yes, but they didn’t ask (if they could go ahead with the exploration),” Riziki tells IPS.“You can discuss ethics and philosophy when you have a full belly. Our people do not have that.” -- Tanzanian government employee

At the port of Mtwara, about 250 km south of Kilwa District, the frustration of locals reached a breaking point on May 22 when government buildings were attacked. Angry stone-throwing villagers surrounded the offices of the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, which means Party of the Revolution in Swahili.

The government’s response was extremely heavy-handed. Truckloads of soldiers from this East African nation’s capital, Dar es Salaam, descended upon the port town. Tear gas and live ammunition were used and local sources say three people were killed, including a woman who was seven months pregnant.

But those who know the region say it has been a long time coming.

Mika Minio-Paluello of international NGO Platform tells IPS: “Militarisation by government and private firms is not unusual when oil and natural gas exploration occurs. Neither is the increase in violence uncommon. This is a repeat of Nigeria, Ghana, and Angola.”

The riots were sparked after the government announced that the construction of a gas pipeline from Mtwara to Dar es Salaam would continue according to plan. That means that no facilities will be developed in Mtwara to process the gas. It also means that the 2006 exploitation of gas reserves in Mtwara’s Mnazi Bay, which borders Mozambique, has not led to the growth of manufacturing and processing industries in the region that would have ultimately brought economic prosperity to this area.

Ishmail*, a resident of Mikindani, a neighbouring port 10 km south of Mtwara, wishes he could benefit from the gas discoveries.

“We are mostly sesame and cashew farmers, or at least most of us would be, if we had work. Unemployment here in Mikindani is a massive problem. Only eight to 10 percent of us work, and we are desperate,” he tells IPS.

“What does a person need? Health, a happy family, a home, food, and work. We don’t have that, or clean water. Our problem is that the government, over 650 km away in Dar es Salaam, has abandoned us … The gas will be exported to other areas, and here we will still be left without the basics,” Ishmail says.

International oil companies are drilling from Somalia, down along the East African coast to northern Mozambique. They include the BG group, Statoil (which is a 40 percent shareholder of Exxon), Royal Dutch Shell, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Petrobras, Total, BP and Aminex.

But the theme of lack of information about the oil and gas explorations and drilling comes up repeatedly in interviews along Tanzania’s southern coast.

“The central government treats us with contempt. We are the forgotten children,” Sultan*, a tailor in Mtwara, tells IPS. He and the rest of the residents of Mtwara have not benefited from the oil and gas. And neither have the people from Kilwa and Lindi (about 100 km north of Mtwara), which also lie on Tanzania’s southern coastline.

Sultan’s own home has no electricity, and he “borrows” from the line running outside his shack in the central market so that he has enough light to see his treadle or hand-cranked sewing machine.

But despite being marginalised from the benefits of the gas discoveries, local communities are too afraid to speak out publicly.

Rob Ahearne, a lecturer at East London University in the United Kingdom and author of the study titled, “Oil and gas, citizenship, modernity and change in southern Tanzania”, tells IPS: “The communities themselves are wary of talking, they are scared of spies or informers from CCM, and are wary of being identified as troublemakers.

“These are very marginalised areas, they feel it’s a private affair, and there are very few cohesive community forums. Even from village to village there’s very little trust,” he says.

According to several consultants involved in environmental management, the foreign oil and gas companies are actually exceeding what is required of them – both in community consultations, and environmentally. But this is partly because European environmental management audits are much stricter than those followed by Tanzania.

In addition, every oil company working in Tanzania has to donate 100,000 dollars a year as a basic registration cost to the central government, according to Ahearne’s study.

Additionally, the Tanzanian government has asked for 60 percent of all revenues.

However, there is no information in the public sphere about where the money will be deposited, whom the tax will benefit, and the quotas for local employment.

And, with Tanzania’s extremely weak implementation of its Freedom of Information Act, accessing this material is impossible.

However, despite three months of trying to contact Tanzanian Minister of Energy and Minerals Professor Sospeter Muhongo, he would not talk to IPS. All efforts to get Tanzanian ministers to comment on governance issues or community consultation exercises also met with dead ends.

One government employee, who preferred to remain anonymous, tells IPS: “You can discuss ethics and philosophy when you have a full belly. Our people do not have that.”

However, Nnimmo Bassey from NGO Oilwatch Africa tells IPS that transparency is not the problem.

“The ultimate solution is not transparency in the petroleum sector – you simply will not get it. The sector will not agree to pay environmental costs that they externalise. The ultimate solution is to leave the oil in the soil. And the coal in the hole, as we say.”

Bassey is cynical: “Fossil fuel civilisation has reached its dead end.  We must accept that. Anything further just means going over the precipice.”

*Surname withheld to protect identity.

Mozambique’s capital city Maputo has street names after socialist and communist leaders, however, the country has a huge wealth disparity. Credit: Thembi Mutch/IPS

By Thembi Mutch
MAPUTO, Jun 5 2013 (IPS)

Lined up along the streets of central Maputo, Mozambique’s capital city, are expensive, European-style bars and restaurants with sophisticated names like Café Continental, Nautilus, 1908 and Mundos.

And the residential houses and flats in the capital of this southern African nation are a flabbergasting and bewildering array of 1960s modernist and Art Deco icons, mixed with new-money skyscrapers.

Further away in the new, Chinese-built airport in Maputo, which was completed in February 2013, aftershaves sell for 230 dollars, and bottles of Dom Pérignon, a vintage champagne, cost 320 dollars.

That is literally three months’ salary for the average worker, who lives on 3,000 metacals (100 dollars) a month. 

Faustus Cavelelo is a tuk tuk driver who has worked as a private bodyguard for international investors and as a bouncer. He is now saving to support his young family.

“The big investors need bodyguards because yes, they are so rich and they will get robbed. But for the rest of us, it’s completely safe. For myself it’s hard to make money – people are jealous, and selfish, and don’t help each other. I am determined to improve myself. I work 10-hour days, every day, and work out twice a day, just to deal with the stress, the uncertainty.”

No figures exist on the wealth disparity here. Mozambique is a jumble of statistical contradictions. It has one of the highest real GDP growth rates in the world, at 7.5 percent. Yet it ranks 185th out of 187 countries on the 2013 United Nations Human Development Index by the U.N. Development Programme. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, with over 55 percent of its 23.9 million people officially living below the poverty line.

In central Maputo the latest Toyota Pradas, Hiluxs and Land Rovers drive down Avenidas Julius Nyerere, Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il Sung. These former socialist leaders might be turning in their graves at the wealth disparities to be found here.

But who are these new super-rich?

A variety of answers emerge: They are government ministers; they are friends and relatives of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), the ruling party; they are people working with and for the U.N.; and a small handful are oil and gas investors and associated traders.

The international hotels in Maputo are booked to 95 percent capacity in the week with businesspeople converging here from across the globe: Australia, United States, United Arab Emirates, Norway, Brazil and China. The majority are here for the country’s oil and natural gas – in 2011 Mozambique discovered offshore gas fields.

“It certainly is boom time for the Mozambican economy,” Markus Weimer, a senior analyst at Control Risks, an independent global risk consultancy based in London and Maputo, tells IPS.

“The country is performing strongly in a gloomy global context, and GDP growth rates are predicted to be high (above seven percent) for the coming years. The question is whether strong GDP growth can satisfy the raised expectations of a large part of Mozambique’s young and growing population.”

Feling Capella, a journalist and poet, echoes these sentiments.

“There is a growing divide here: between old and young, between rich and poor. We are the new generation, born in the war. We are educated, we want jobs, but we can’t get them. We live in areas where the roads are awful and there is no public lighting, no sewage system,” he tells IPS.

The Mozambican civil war began in 1977 and ended 15 years later in 1992. But corruption has become a major issue in the country.

Sebastien Marlier, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit who tracks developments in Mozambique, was quoted in the Economist as saying: “Corruption has become a major concern in Mozambique. A small elite associated with the ruling party and with strong business interests dominates the economy.”

The director of Mozambique Human Rights League and Mozambique’s national winner of the Secretary’s International Women of Courage Award for 2010, Dr. Alice Mabota, is candid about corruption.

“People are very angry about corruption. They want the right decisions taken by the right people. Frelimo knows they have a problem. I hope the next generation is able to address these problems. Please, I implore our citizens, go ahead, don’t wait for another person to make change, be that person yourself,” she tells IPS.

But something else that is so obviously missing in Maputo are the middle classes. Dentists and doctors here do not own the newest cars and their sunglasses are not international brands such as Gucci or Prada. Analysts say Mozambique is a glaring illustration that the “trickle down” effect of development capitalism does not work.

Natalie Tenzer Silva runs Dana Tours, the biggest tour company in Mozambique. She thinks the big divide between the country’s rich and poor is “unhealthy”.

“We need to cater for the middle market, for mid-range tourists, and we do this by investing in hotels, airports and cheaper travel. At the moment the big hurdle is the cost of travelling inside Mozambique, it’s so huge, but there’s so much here. Extraordinary beaches, countryside, game parks and a thriving cultural scene.

“We can cater for the existing South and East African market that want to travel here, and stimulate growth in country, and create a new, mobile, middle class,” she tells IPS.

Weimer agrees.

“One factor for the large wealth divide is the high level of poverty on the one hand as well as a rapidly emerging business class on the other. The speed of developments is important as it means that many opportunities bypass ‘normal’ citizens. Another factor is that the business environment is particularly difficult for entrepreneurs and SMEs (small and medium enterprises),” he says.

But for democracy like Mozambique’s to be robust, it needs artists and critics. Credit: Thembi Mutch/IPS

By Thembi Mutch
MAPUTO, May 27 2013 (IPS)

Mozambique is proud home to not one, but two female rappers who are both qualified lawyers. Yveth “Vauvita” Matunza is striking. She is tall, wearing shoes with enormous stilettos. She has on full make up and a smart, tailored dress suit. She is doing her masters part time while working full time at the Mozambican Human Rights League offices – and rapping on her off time.

There is no contradiction in this for her. And she is keen to move away from the heterogeneous “plastic” sound of American hip hop and rap, and create a sound that is distinctly Mozambican.

The other of Mozambique’s female rappers is Dama Do Bling “Lady of Bling”, who recently appeared on a glossy magazine cover, holding her baby daughter.

Mozambique’s constitution, which is in the process of being revised, is exemplary in many things. It recognises that all citizens have the right to an education, that men and women are equal in all spheres of life, and that all people have the right to freedom of expression and of the press.

But for democracy to be robust, it needs artists and critics, as the late, prominent female musician Lidia Sthembile Udenga Mate, from the all-female band Likute, told IPS in an interview in March, just before her death.

“The artists, the musicians are the most important voices in society. We mock, we hold a mirror, we criticise, we are honest, we celebrate… our role is vital,” she had said.

In 2010 the vibrant Mozambican rapper Azagaia directly named corrupt politicians during the bread riots that shook the country after prices of bread soared. He was harassed and arrested for one night before being released. But his case did not go unnoticed by the international media.

There are others, for example, who in their music also name the people involved in corrupt land deals. Like Matunza, it seems they are part of a new breed of savvy young Mozambicans who are openly “globalised”, who are not afraid, and who use social media and publicity, negative or not, to get people to pay attention to the issues galvanising this southern African country.

Matunza says she was obsessed with music as a kid.“Here there’s so much opportunity to play all kinds of music, a vortex that has opened up… Creatively, anything is possible.” -- Chude Mondlane

“And later issues of justice dominated. I was never even aware that there was a conflict between working as a lawyer in the day, and an MC and rapper at weekends. I am 100 percent Mozambican and proud – critical of our failures, proud of our successes, and I know I can reach the public.

“I rap about things that affect us, men who don’t stick around to look after their kids, human rights abuses and our leaders… I am indirect, I talk in riddles, my concerts are a complete sell out, and, yes, I am famous.”

At only 28 she is focused and sure. Her father, who was a miner in South Africa, brought home the music of Madonna and South African female singers Brenda Fassie and Yvonne Chaka Chaka, which influenced her.

“There’s huge domestic violence here – our culture is one of submission for women. I speak from personal experience. I come from a violent family, a violent community.

Mozambican rapper Yveth “Vauvita” Matunza is a qualified lawyer who works full time at the Mozambican Human Rights League offices and raps about rights issues and gender violence. Credit: Solange dos Santos/IPS

“What people do and teach and show, is that women must obey their husbands … the number of domestic abuse cases are increasing since September 2009, despite a new act (being passed in) parliament,” she says. In 2009 parliament passed the act on domestic violence, which became operational in March 2010.

She says rap is important to changing attitudes and bringing understanding to the issue.

The enthusiasm in Maputo is palpable. Paulo Chibanga, a music producer and musician who performed in bands, including the South African 340 mill, and Tumi and the Volume, has returned to Mozambique after 15 years in South Africa.

He is working with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Welfare to raise money, through music performances, for nursery schools in the Mozambican province of Gaza. A war baby, born in 1979 – the country’s civil war began in 1977 and ended in 1992 – Chibanga feels his generation is relatively un-encumbered.

“We are connected to our pasts without being dragged back … we have no resentments, we know our heroes, our culture. We are free, we are positive,” he tells IPS.

But, like Matunza and Mate, Chibanga is politicised, clear and determined to work to an African agenda.

“I think the Western world affects Africa drastically, we are forced to listened to Western music. In Mozambique we don’t have our own record labels, or the option to record. I am more interested in exporting Mozambican culture and musicians, through Bushfire (Swaziland’s pan-African and international music festival) and the AZGO music festival here in Mozambique,” Chibanga says.

Chude Mondlane is the daughter of the revolutionary president of the Front for Liberation of Mozambique or FRELIMO, Eduardo Mondlane. She is a musician, a performer and a big personality. Visibly radiant, she laughs and plays her music on a laptop in the five-star Polana hotel, oblivious to the turned heads.

She has also returned to Mozambique after years of international travel and playing with music greats such as Marcus Miller, Roberta Flack and South African pianist and composer, Abdullah Ibrahim.

“Here there’s so much opportunity to play all kinds of music, a vortex that has opened up…it’s all happening – the worst of the worst, the best of the best. It’s all mixed up. Creatively, anything is possible.”

She is, however, critical of the lack of funding for arts and culture, and the growing dependency on donors and foreign aid.

“We present this face to the donors … We need to be clear about which bits of tradition we want to keep, and which to jettison. Some of our traditions, like female submission, or women being second-class, are actually awful and we need to say this. We can’t only say what donors want.”

Solange Dos Santos is a dynamic female photographer with a degree from the New York Institute of Photography who has just opened up the first photography studio space in Maputo. Dos Santos, like many Mozambicans returning from years abroad, is excited about the future.

“I left in 1996, so coming back now is amazing. So much has changed. It’s buzzing, alive, more liberal, accepting. I love this about Mozambique. It’s very tolerant, very forward looking.

“The infrastructure is way more developed, the nightlife is buzzing, there are films, art (exhibitions), concerts in the park, dancing, theatre, live music every night – it’s so friendly!  There’s something in the air that makes you want to experiment, give it your best. Here you’re allowed to – completely.”

Dos Santos’s pioneering photographic project done with the United Nations Development Programme, which shows albinos in completely new ways, has toured Africa and New York.

“I want people to see the humanity and beauty in each other … We’re so globalised. I can wear a capulana (a traditional wrap), or high heels and still be a feminist.”

Local communities bordering Lake Nyasa or Lake Malawi are no closer to understanding what the conflict between Tanzania and Malawi is about. Credit: platours_flickr/CC-BY-2.0

By Thembi Mutch
ARUSHA, Tanzania , Mar 6 2013 (IPS)

The local Tanzanian community bordering Lake Nyasa is no nearer to understanding what the conflict between their country and Malawi is about, nor why so much is at stake, as mediation efforts between Malawi and Tanzania are expected to begin soon.   

The 29,000-square-kilometre tranquil lake, known as Lake Malawi by Malawians, is a tourist spot, source of revenue and food for local populations. But since July 2012, it was discovered that the lake could potentially be a lucrative oil and gas source, and it rekindled a border dispute between the southern African neighbours over who owns the lake.

Malawi claims sovereignty over the entirety of the lake that straddles the borders of Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. Meanwhile, Tanzania says 50 percent is part of its territory.

In Mbeya Region, in southwest Tanzania, members of the community bordering the lake have been working with national NGO HakiArdhi, also known as the Land Rights Research and Resources Institute, to understand their water rights.

“We know that we have agreed to disagree with Malawi on this one, but these communities depend completely on fishing and the lake for their lives. There’s been no consultation at all with us about how we benefit if there is oil here, none at all. How do we gain from this? The land issue is new for us here: we have no experience,” Saad Ayoub, the organisation’s assistant programme officer, told IPS by phone.

Local residents echo this feeling. Richard Kilumbo, a resident from Kyela district, which borders Lake Nyasa, told IPS that he could not understand the reasons for the dispute.

“We have relatives from Mzuzu, Malawi and were going to attend a wedding (there last year). We are shocked and panicked to find we are making preparations of war against our neighbours. We do not know why this is such big thing amongst our leaders. We heard people were talking, we thought we were free to walk and enjoy life,” he said.

Arguably the trouble started in 1890, when the treaty of Heligoland divided up the lake according to colonial law. It was amended in 1982 by the United Nations. However, more recently in October 2011 Malawi’s late President Bingu wa Mutharika, awarded a contract to British Surestream Petroleum to start gas and oil exploration on the eastern part of the lake, and then a second exploration licence in December 2012 to a subsidiary of South African firm SacOil.

In July 2012, Tanzania announced that, with Denmark’s help, it planned to purchase a new nine-million-dollar ferry to cross Lake Nyasa’s waters. Malawi’s Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development claimed Tanzania had no legal right to start operating on Lake Malawi, since the ownership and border dispute was unresolved. In retort, Hilda Ngoye, the Tanzanian member of parliament for the Mbeya Region, claimed Malawian fishing and tourist boats were encroaching on Tanzania’s waters.

Things took a decisive turn for the worse when Tanzania’s then acting Prime Minister in the National Assembly, Samuel Sitta, warned that his country would not hesitate to respond to any military provocation.

To date, most tactics have been employed to resolve the dispute between the neighbours: mediation using former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, hot talk of army invasions, threats to take the case to the International Criminal Court of Justice, appeals using Southern African Development Community bishops, and diplomatic talks between the prime minsters of Tanzania and Malawi.

But there has been criticism that the dispute has been used to further political careers, rather than ensuring the best interests of the local communities.

“This lake should be used to improve the lot and livelihoods of local people, on both sides. The lake is a resource – instead it’s being used as part of a political game to further political careers,” Local environmental journalist and expert who has followed the story for many years, and writes regularly on it for Swahili newspapers and in his own blog, Felix Mwakyembe, told IPS.

“There’s no border dispute among the local community, it is a dispute among politicians, a political performance at higher levels, eying elections in Malawi in 2014 and Tanzania in 2015. Unfortunately, the local communities are pawns. They lack access to information and education to understand the implications and seriousness of this,” Mwakyembe said.

Kilumbo agreed.

“There really is no trouble on the ground, none at all. Fishermen from Tanzania are carrying on as usual, and although we know it’s in the news, we’ve no idea why,” he said.

Fishing families on Lake Malawi, Karonga District. Many fisherfolk have said they have been beaten up and detained by Tanzanian police since the dispute over the lake began late last year. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

The issues of resource extraction in Lake Nyasa echo other conflicts regionally when it comes to ownership, division of spoils, allocation of licences, and who pays for capital investments.

As with other areas in East Africa, such as the Albertine Rift and Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda, and Virunga National Park in Rwanda,  there are two main oversights in this process – disseminating the results of the Environmental Impact Assessments and comprehensively incorporating community feedback into both the planning of extractions, and the “division of the spoils”.

“I have no idea about the oil plans, none at all. And no, I’ve never even heard of an Environmental Impact Assessment, and certainly not seen one,” Kilumbo said. Laughing, he added: “It’s hard to know what the ‘wazi wazi’ (fuss) is.”

Yet so far, it does not seem local communities understand this conflict, nor their rights in the process.

Nyanda Shuli, the media and advocacy manager of local civil society organisation HakiElimu, or Your Rights, told IPS that the emphasis must be on financial accountability and transparency, and that the flows of income and investment must be directed towards the communities.

“Whatever the outcomes of this current dispute, we need daring thinking to try and tackle the bigger issues of how our communities in rural areas develop, find imaginative ways for people know their rights, and what they can expect, from the poorest marginalised fishing communities around Nyasa, to other communities inland.

“At the moment decisions are taken in the capital, Dar es Salaam, and there’s no connection or meaningful dialogue with the regions at all. It’s more complicated because the distances are so huge, and the transport, telephone networks and roads so poor,” he said.

Amidst the obscuration and disagreements, there is one thing that needs to be remembered. There is “rare earth” (a colloquial name for complex and valuable minerals mostly used for engineering) below the lake, and potentially a lot oil and natural gas.

To date, there is no documentary evidence that either of the local fishing communities, on both sides, Malawi or Tanzania, stand to gain much.

But for now, Kilumbo believes there is enough to go around.

“Yes, I can say the Malawians get the bigger fish, but that’s because we Tanzanians like the smaller, younger fish. But there’s enough to go round. I have no idea about oil plans, none at all.”