Tanzanian military staff member arrested and charged over possession of elephant tusks

TANZANIA (eTN) – The arrest of a person in possession of 1,126 elephant tusks intended for sale on the black market shows that this African country is doing little to combat poaching of elephants and trade in bloody ivory, more than politics.

Conservationists who spoke widely in the Tanzanian capital city of Dar es Salaam told eTurboNews that the government of Tanzania is doing little or nothing to combat crime on poaching.

Their comments reached eTN soon after Tanzanian and Malawian security operatives booked before the Court of Law in Dar es Salaam, a military officer, charging him in possession of 1,126 elephant tusks worth US 6 million dollars (US$ 6 million). The tusks were chopped from 563 elephants that had been gunned down.

Director of Criminal Investigations with the Tanzania Police Forc,e Mr. Robert Manumba said in Dar es Salaam this week that the person who was arrested was an employee from the National Service Unit, a military wing of the Tanzania Defense Forces, and was intercepted at the Malawian border with Tanzania, about 1,200 kilometers south of the capital of Dar es Salaam.

Mr. Manumba said the person was identified as a fisheries officer and had planned to sell the bloody ivory through black markets. He said some tusks were stored in Dar es Salaam and another haul in Malawi, an indication that poachers cross territorial borders to kill elephants from other countries.

He said out of 1,126 tusks the officer was intercepted with, 350 pieces were stored in his home on the suburbs of Dar es Salaam. Other elephant tusks were intercepted at the Malawi and Tanzania border.

The officer, Mr. Selemani Chasama, was charged at the Dar es Salaam Resident Magistrate’s Court mid-this week with a fresh case involving the export of elephant tusks worth US$6 million.

Senior conservationist with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) expressed his shock and told eTurboNews that protection of elephants and other endangered species in Tanzania could count zero when people working with military units become involved in bloody ivory trade.

She said it was totally absurd to find those paid by the government through taxpayers’ money to protect natural resources turn into poachers and traders of illegal ivory trade.

Efforts to protect elephants and other endangered species in Tanzania have been an uphill task with reports from independent conservationists and members of parliament from liberal opposition parties pointing red fingers to the Tanzanian government over escalating poaching cases.

But corruption has been sourced to catalyze poaching of Tanzanian elephants and made conservation of the African jumbo gone out of control in the country, a situation that is causing the biggest stumbling block.

In what Tanzanians see as “politics versus conservation” when discussing poaching problems during parliamentary sessions, politics led by the government whips from the ruling communist-manifestoed CCM party to defend the government with promises, strategies, and the like to please Tanzanians, while natural resources are squandered day and night.

The liberal opposition politicians have been accusing the government of Tanzania over laxity, corruption within its security units, and poor facilitation of conservation programs, but officers from the Wildlife Division in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism have always been provided doctored data to the parliament.

Cries from the liberal politicians have landed on the deaf ears of government when the opposition camp raises pertinent issues through the parliament – Tanzania’s top and democratic policy-making institution.

The Tanzanian parliament, which most people trust to defend their causes, had now turned into Hollywood and a table where the government rubber-stamps its documents.

The Shadow Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Peter Msigwa, from the liberal opposition Chadema party, has been vocal on poaching in general and has disciplined officials over illegal exportation of live animals.

He once provided data showing the gravity of poaching of elephants, trade in bloody ivory, and export of live animals from this country to the Middle East, China, Vietnam, Singapore and other Asian states.

Mr. Msigwa claimed that all indications point to the fact that poaching is now beyond the control of the government.

“Not only the Minister responsible for protection of wildlife has remained mum over the recent seizure of jumbo tusks originating from the Dar es Salaam Port, he has also failed to act on a list of ‘well-placed’ individuals who are involved in the illicit trade,” he said.

International conservation organizations contend that there must be in Tanzania well-coordinated syndicates that have demonstrated great capacity of repeatedly shipping out large quantities of ivory and which should be regarded as a national security issue.

Between 2009 and 2011, seven large-scale ivory seizures involving ivory traceable to Tanzania were made, according to the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) that tracks illicit trade in ivory.

“These seizures collectively represent nearly 20 tons of elephant tusks. It is worth noting that only a single case involves a seizure made in Tanzania, whilst all other cases went undetected until they were seized in Asian transit countries,” Tom Milliken, an ivory trade expert working with TRAFFIC was quoted as saying.

Tanzania currently faces a major illegal ivory trade challenge, said Mr. Milliken, adding that no successful investigations, arrests, or convictions have been made, a situation which suggests that law enforcement machinery in Tanzania is not meeting with much success in disrupting the organized crime syndicates behind this trade.

“The movement of one ton of ivory or more at a single time represents the work of organized criminal syndicates in the trade,” Mr. Milliken said. Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar are exit points for ivory from elephants killed in other parts of Tanzania.

Dr. Richard Thomas, TRAFFIC International Communications Coordinator, said it is a real fact that Tanzania is “consistently as well being used as a departure point, a situation which indicates that smugglers consider Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, and other Indian Ocean ports on the coast of Tanzania as relatively ‘safe.’”

The value of elephant ivory has been on a sharp rise in recent years, fuelling an increase in poaching. A kilogram sells for more than US$2,000.

Wildlife protection campaigners in Tanzania said the visit of US President Mr. Barack Obama to Africa should broach the crisis of illegal trade on elephant tusks and take time to address such a problem to the governments he had met, some of which are hiding corrupt officials behind bloody ivory trade.

Tanzania, whose corruption index is higher than most other African countries, has been listed number four on elephant poaching and trade on bloody ivory in Africa, a trend likely to affect sustainable tourism development in this African nation.

The latest report by the global corruption tracker, Transparency International, ranks Tanzania among the world’s 14 most corrupt nations, mostly petty kickbacks.

“We would like to hear Mr. Obama speaking something about [the] escalating crisis on wildlife poaching during his official tour to Africa. He has the power to push African governments to take action, other than politics,” said wildlife campaigner, John Pienes, from New Zealand, days before Obama landed on African soil.

Hearing cries from wildlife conservationists, Obama signed on July 2 in Dar es Salaam, an Executive Order aimed at creating and spearheading the Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking.

Within six months, the Task Force will develop a national strategy to fight wildlife trafficking “and to consider how the US transnational organized crime strategy can be used to combat the issue, as it does other serious crimes like human trafficking and arms trafficking.”

To this effect, the order will provide advice and assistance, and within six months, the Task Force will create an eight-member Advisory Council on Wildlife Trafficking made up of people from the private sector, former US government officials, and representatives of non-governmental organizations.

Announcing the US position on poaching crime before ending his official visit to Tanzania earlier this month, Obama said his administration will put new energy and funds into fighting wildlife trafficking, which he cited “an international crisis that continues to escalate.”

Speaking to journalists with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, Obama said, “Poaching and trafficking is threatening Africa’s wildlife, so today I issued a new executive order to better organize US government efforts in this fight so that we can cooperate further with the Tanzanian government and others.”

“Poaching operations have expanded beyond small-scale, opportunistic actions to coordinated slaughter commissioned by armed and organized criminal syndicates,” the Executive Order states.

Obama directs the task force to focus on anti-poaching, regional law enforcement, law enforcement mechanisms, and reducing illicit trade, and demand both in the United States and abroad, “while allowing legal and legitimate commerce involving wildlife.”

The new initiative “includes additional millions of dollars to help countries across the region build their capacity to meet this challenge,” Obama told reporters in Dar es Salaam, “because the entire world has a stake in making sure that we preserve Africa’s beauty for future generations.”

The White House announced that up to US$10 million in new financial support has been set aside to help tackle poaching for ivory and rhino horn.

This funding includes approximately US$3 million in bilateral assistance to South Africa, US$3 million in bilateral assistance to Kenya, and US$4 million in regional assistance throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

The survival of protected wildlife species such as elephants, rhinos, great apes, tigers, sharks, tuna, and turtles has beneficial economic, social, and environmental impacts that are important to all nations,”
Obama states in the Executive Order.

“Wildlife trafficking reduces those benefits while generating billions of dollars in illicit revenues each year, contributing to the illegal economy, fueling instability, and undermining security,” Obama writes.

Worst among African nations with an alarming rate of elephant and rhino poaching crimes, Tanzania had failed to control mass killings of elephants, scattered in protected and unprotected areas.

It is estimated that the total continental population estimate is in the range of 420,000 to 650,000 African elephants living in just 3 countries – Botswana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe – accounting for well over half of these elephants.