Tanzanian politicians are in shock over the massacre of hundreds of young protesters during its recent election, insiders told AFP, but are too afraid to speak out as a tiny cabal of hardliners around the president takes control.
Gruesome images of dead Tanzanians have flooded the internet in the wake of the October 29 elections that triggered widespread protests over government repression.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan officially won with 98 per cent of the vote, but key opposition leaders were jailed or disqualified.
The opposition says more than 1,000 were killed as security forces crushed the protests under the cover of a five-day internet blackout.
Two weeks on, the government has yet to give any casualty numbers.
“There are… disturbing reports that security forces have been seen removing bodies from streets and hospitals and taking them to undisclosed locations in an apparent attempt to conceal evidence,” UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday.
A senior official in the Tanzanian government, who said they were horrified by the events of the past fortnight, agreed to talk to AFP.
The official said they would end up dead if their name was published, but provided AFP with coordinates for two suspected sites of mass graves near Dar es Salaam — at Kondo and Mabwepande. But these could not be independently verified.
AFP was not in a position to independently verify the sites at Kondo and Mabwepande.
A tiny cabal
A tiny cabal around President Hassan now has total control over the levers of power and repression in the East African country, said both the official and a former presidential advisor, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
“People in the government are in shock… there’s disbelief,” said the official.
“Nobody has the guts to talk… that’s the sad part of it. But people do whisper,” they said.
AFP has spoken to multiple eyewitnesses who describe seeing people shot at point-blank range by police and unidentified armed men.
One described a bystander shot in the head by a soldier in Dar es Salaam on election day. The next day he saw three people lined up and shot “five or six times” in the legs by police.
The opposition has called fresh protests for Independence Day on December 9.
“We really don’t know what to do,” said the government official. “Do we want more demos? No, because the youth are going to be executed again.”
The ‘cabal’
The group around the president includes her son Abdul Halim Hafidh Ameir; her private secretary Waziri Salum; head of the intelligence service Suleiman Abubakar Mombo; and a little-known member of the East African parliament, Angela Kizigha, according to the two government sources.
