Not as nice as it looksTHE young woman’s voice is flat, as she describes a group of masked men breaking down the door while she slept in March this year. She says she was then forced into a car, beaten and gang-raped. Afterwards a passer-by found her abandoned on the roadside, unable to walk unsupported. “It was so painful,” she says, staring into the middle distance. “When I remember it, it’s a trial.” The woman is one of dozens of people on the archipelago of Zanzibar who claim to have been attacked by plain-clothes militiamen, known as “zombies”, since March 2015. Their crime: supporting the main opposition party.
In the West, Zanzibar conjures up images of sugary white sands, warm breezes and turquoise waters. But Tanzania’s islands have a darker side. From the 18th century an Arab elite grew rich there trading ivory, spices and slaves. The mainly Muslim archipelago gained independence from Britain in December 1963, though only very briefly: the sultan was overthrown a month later and the island was merged with Tanganyika on the mainland in April 1964.
The country has been ruled since 1977 by the Chama cha Mapinduzi...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2dOIyPF
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