Tanzania's main opposition party CHADEMA's chairman Freeman Mbowe is detained by Tanzania police during the protests to condemn a series of kidnappings and murders in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Sept. 23.Emmanuel Herman/Reuters
At first it looked like a pile of trash on the side of the quiet back road. But when Kulwa Mtopela took a closer look, he realized it was a dead body, covered in deep cuts, bruises and dried blood.
The body was that of Ali Mohamed Kibao, a senior member of Tanzania’s main opposition party, Chadema, who had been abducted from a bus a day earlier. An autopsy later found clear signs of torture: He had been severely beaten and his face was doused with acid.
“He must have suffered a terrible death,” said Mr. Mtopela, a bricklayer who was walking to work at a construction site when he saw the corpse. “His entire body was swollen.”
The brutal killing of Mr. Kibao was the most horrific in a surge of slayings, disappearances, abductions and arrests that have targeted Tanzania’s opposition parties as the country moves closer to local elections in November and national elections next year. Hundreds of opposition supporters have been arrested and dozens have disappeared, raising fears that Tanzania is sliding back into authoritarian rule.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan, the country’s first female leader, had introduced reforms to loosen controls on the media and opposition parties after she took office in 2021. Opposition rallies were permitted, and banned newspapers were allowed to reopen. But the hopes for a new era have been dashed in recent weeks.
Opposition rallies have been prohibited or broken up. More than 500 opposition supporters were arrested in early August, and three opposition leaders were arrested in September after police banned their planned rally. The Tanganyika Law Society compiled a list of 83 people who have vanished under suspicious circumstances in recent years, and the wave of disappearances, detentions and deaths has continued since the list was compiled in August.
The killing of Mr. Kibao shocked the country. Ms. Hassan said she learned of the death “with great sadness” and promised an investigation. “The government I lead does not tolerate such brutal acts,” she said in a statement.
But despite her denials, there are strong indications that Mr. Kibao was abducted by government security agents or undercover police officers.
An eyewitness, Hamisi Maftaa, told The Globe and Mail that he saw six men, armed with automatic rifles, jump out of two Land Cruiser vehicles in what appeared to be a highly professional operation at a bus stop on the afternoon of Sept. 6. Two of them stormed onto the bus, grabbed the opposition politician and dragged him out, he said.
“They weren’t ordinary criminals,” said Mr. Maftaa, a 61-year-old newspaper vendor who was folding his unsold papers at a bus stop when he witnessed the daylight abduction in the Tegeta neighbourhood on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, the country’s commercial capital.
“They moved so fast,” he said. “Within seconds, they had him handcuffed. There was no shouting or struggle – just a swift, calculated operation. The way they moved, it was like they knew exactly what they were doing.”
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Mr. Kibao’s body was found the next morning in a coastal suburb of Dar es Salaam, about 15 kilometres from the site of the abduction.
His death galvanized Tanzania’s opposition leaders, who demanded justice for the victims of political violence. But when they tried to organize a rally to protest the killings and disappearances, the police banned the gathering and arrested three of the opposition leaders.
“This is a dangerous time for Tanzania,” said political analyst Michael Bante. “Kibao’s murder is just one of many incidents that show tensions building up ahead of elections. If these incidents aren’t addressed, the country’s democratic atmosphere could further change to the worse.”
Anna Henga, executive director of the Tanzania Legal and Human Rights Centre, said the disappearances are “part of a well-orchestrated campaign to intimidate and silence political opponents.”
The growing wave of violence is “fuelling fear and panic among citizens, leaving them deeply anxious about their personal safety,” she said.
The disappearances have sparked international concern, including from Canada, which has been one of Tanzania’s biggest foreign supporters for decades, providing about $3.4-billion in development assistance to Tanzania since its independence.
The Canadian government, along with several other Western governments, responded to Mr. Kibao’s death by warning that the disappearances and deaths “threaten democratic values and the rights of Tanzanian citizens.” They urged the government to ensure that the opposition is protected.
The U.S. embassy in Tanzania, in a separate statement, called for an independent investigation of Mr. Kibao’s killing. The arrests and disappearances of opposition leaders are an attempt to “disenfranchise citizens ahead of elections,” it said.
The president, Ms. Hassan, reacted to the Western government statements by complaining of foreign meddling in Tanzanian affairs. The Institute for Security Studies, an Africa-based think tank, said Ms. Hassan seems to be sliding back to the repressive tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli, whom she replaced after his death in 2021.
Ms. Hassan is “is responding to a re-energized political opposition, and in doing so, she has backtracked on the progressive reforms she instituted after taking office,” the institute said in a recent analysis. “As the elections draw closer, state repression will continue.”
With a report from Geoffrey York in Johannesburg