VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDR #0294/01 1261343
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 061343Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY DAR ES SALAAM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8484
INFO RUEWMFC/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/CJTF HOA//J3

UNCLAS DAR ES SALAAM 000294 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT AF/E FOR JLIDDLE 
AFRICOM FOR POLAD 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON EAID MARR TZ
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR VISIT OF GENERAL WARD TO TANZANIA 
 
¶1. (SBU) Your visit to Tanzania comes at a time of expanding 
military relations between our countries, in particular through 
increased ACOTA equipment and training for Tanzanian battalions 
deploying to Darfur.  President Kikwete's positive attitude towards 
the U.S. is increasingly reflected in public opinion, as Tanzanians 
see the benefits of our development assistance.  However, the legacy 
of socialism and non-alignment has not faded altogether.  Many 
Tanzanians, including in the government, remain skeptical of U.S. 
military motives.  Our efforts to demonstrate the value of AFRICOM 
to Tanzania and the continent are bearing fruit, but gradually. 
President Kikwete plans to visit Washington, D.C. in late May; he 
has expressed an interest in visiting Walter Reed Army Hospital 
during his stay. 
 
Political and Economic Background 
--------------------------------- 
¶2. (SBU) Tanzania's long record of peace and stability make it an 
example for the region.  Multi-party democracy was restored in the 
early 1990s, and with President Kikwete's landslide election in 
2005, Tanzania has seen three peaceful presidential transitions. 
Macroeconomic reforms since the 1980s, marking a transition from 
socialism towards a free-market system, have provided a basis for 
sustained moderately high economic growth.  President Kikwete, a 
Muslim, governs a population approximately 65 percent Christian; 
relations between religious communities have generally been 
harmonious.  The site of a 1998 terrorist attack on the U.S. 
Embassy, Tanzania has porous borders with its eight neighbors and an 
800 mile coastline. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Tanzania remains among the worlds' poorest countries, with 
per capita GDP of approximately USD 415 and 80 percent of the 
population engaged in mostly small-scale agriculture.  Despite 
overall economic growth, recently released data shows over one 
million more people living in poverty as compared to 2001. 
Infrastructure remains rudimentary; red tape and corruption impede 
private sector development.  The recent worldwide economic shocks 
have contributed to increased inflation, over ten percent for the 
first time in several years, as well as concerns about sustaining 
economic growth.  The tourism industry, one of Tanzania's main 
foreign exchange earners, expects a significant decrease in demand; 
Americans account for half of all high-end tourists.  There are 
positive signs that HIV/AIDS prevalence is not increasing and may be 
on a downward trend, as the HIV prevalence rate for 15-49 year-olds 
has decreased from seven percent (2003) to 5.7 percent (2007). 
 
¶4. (SBU) Politically, Tanzania is still dominated by the ruling 
Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party.  While elections on the mainland 
have generally been free and fair, serious irregularities and 
sporadic violence have marred elections in the autonomous islands of 
Zanzibar.  President Kikwete is expected to stand for election again 
in 2010, while Zanzibar's President is term-limited and will step 
down.  Parliament, long dormant, is increasingly exercising its 
oversight function on an executive branch accustomed to governing 
unchecked. 
 
¶5. (SBU) While a substantial majority of mainland Tanzanians support 
the ruling CCM over opposition parties, on Zanzibar support for CCM 
and the main opposition, the Civic United Front (CUF) is evenly 
divided.  Bitter conflict between the two parties, and between 
Zanzibar's two islands of Unguja and Pemba, persist, with CUF 
refusing to recognize the outcome of the flawed 2005 elections. 
President Kikwete announced reconciliation on Zanzibar as a priority 
for his government in 2005, but talks between the parties started 
slowly and stalled in 2008.  CUF leaders' insistence on a 
power-sharing government prior to the 2010 elections was rebuffed by 
the islands' CCM rulers.  While President Kikwete personally 
monitored progress of the talks, he has not wielded his position as 
CCM party chairman or his offices as Head of State to successfully 
broker an agreement that would be fair and equitable to both sides. 
CUF leaders have warned that the party membership is increasingly 
disillusioned with the democratic process. 
 
U.S.-Tanzanian Bilateral Relationship 
------------------------------------- 
¶6. (SBU) Since the election of President Kikwete in December 2005, 
U.S.-Tanzanian bilateral relations have significantly deepened. 
President Kikwete's pro-Western stance, coupled with an increasing 
level of U.S. assistance, has been the catalyst for this change, 
enhancing cooperation in sectors from health and education, to 
counterterrorism and military affairs.  President Kikwete has 
visited the U.S. several times since taking office, including an 
official visit with President Bush in Washington, D.C., in August 
¶2008.  The public signing of the MCC compact during President Bush's 
February 2008 visit to Tanzania, and the favorable public reaction 
to the visit, further cemented the relationship.  A 2008 Pew Global 
Attitudes Poll showed a 19 percent increase, to 65 percent, of 
Tanzanians who have a favorable attitude towards the U.S. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Under the leadership of President Kikwete, a former Foreign 
Minister, Tanzania has played an increasingly prominent role in 
regional issues.  Kikwete finished a one-year term as Chairman of 
the African Union (AU) in January 2009.  In that role, he overcame 
South African reticence to proceed with an AU mission to Comoros 
that restored national rule on the island of Anjouan.  He has also 
spoken out against military coups in Mauritania and Guinea and the 
unconstitutional change in power in Madagascar.  Within the Southern 
Africa Development Community (SADC), Tanzania has played a 
relatively quiet but positive role with respect to Zimbabwe. 
Tanzania is also a member of the East African Community, whose 
hesitant steps towards economic integration have been limited by 
Tanzanian concerns about competition from Kenya.  Tanzania has long 
played a constructive role in the Burundi peace process.  Tanzania 
has expressed interest in participating in efforts to control Somali 
piracy. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Tanzania has long hosted refugees from the region's 
conflict areas.  The number has declined from more than a million in 
the late 1990s to about 100,000 currently (the U.S. has provided 
significant support for UN operations in the refugee camps and is 
one of the main resettlement destinations), mainly from Burundi and 
the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Over ninety thousand Burundian 
refugees returned home in 2008.  Tanzania is also host to the 
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. 
 
Military-to-Military Relations 
------------------------------ 
¶9. (SBU) After a long period in which Tanzania's avowed 
non-alignment meant minimal interaction with the U.S. military, in 
the past several years U.S.-Tanzanian military-to-military relations 
have improved significantly.  In 2006, the Tanzanian People's 
Defense Force (TPDF) gave permission to CJTF-HOA to establish a 
Civil Affairs presence in the Tanga region of Tanzania.  U.S. naval 
ship visits to Dar es Salaam in September 2007 and February 2009 
were the first since Tanzanian independence.  Just last month the 
Tanzanian Chief of Defense Forces, Gen. Mwamunyange, made the first 
ever official visit by a sitting Tanzanian Chief of Defense Forces 
to the U.S.  During his visit, General Mwamunyange stressed the 
value of high level engagement (visits and training) as the best way 
to continue building trust in the bilateral military relationship. 
In 1999 the GOT permitted DOD (through the Walter Reed Army 
Institute for Research - WRAIR) to conduct research and build 
laboratory capacity with a focus on HIV vaccine development.  Since 
2005, DOD's PEPFAR program - the largest in Africa - has renovated 
and refurbished military hospitals and laboratories for provision of 
comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care services. 
This partnership, which is now expanding into malaria and influenza 
control activities, is the reason President Kikwete may visit Walter 
Reed hospital during his upcoming visit to the U.S.  As a result of 
our increased military-to-military cooperation, President Kikwete 
has expressed interest in signing a Status of Forces Agreement 
between the U.S. and Tanzania. 
 
¶10. (SBU) The USG is also supporting Tanzania as the TPDF 
increasingly participates in international peacekeeping operations. 
Tanzania deployed 75 military police to Lebanon in 2007 in support 
of the UNIFIL mission.  The USG provided training to this company 
under the African Contingency Training and Assistance (ACOTA) 
program, and this fall will train 75 TPDF military police in 
preparation for a third successive UNIFIL mission. Through ACOTA, 
the USG is also supporting Tanzania as it prepares to deploy an 
initial battalion to Darfur as part of the UN peacekeeping mission. 
Training for an additional two battalions, which will also 
constitute part of an AU regional standby brigade, will follow later 
in 2009. 
 
U.S. Strategic Priorities 
-------------------- 
¶11. (SBU) The USG's strategic priorities in Tanzania are: 
(i) building the GOT's counterterrorism (CT) capacity and promoting 
security; 
(ii) strengthening Tanzania's democratic institutions and 
accountability, through parliamentary capacity building and 
anti-corruption efforts; 
(iii) improving education by ensuring equal access and improved 
opportunities to remote and underserved communities, especially 
focused on girls in Muslim and pastoralist areas; 
(iv) improving health by preventing the spread and mitigating the 
impact of HIV/AIDS, combating malaria, enhancing reproductive, 
maternal and child health services, ensuring access to clean water 
and sanitation, and strengthening health systems; 
(v) spurring sustainable economic growth through significant 
investments in transport, energy and water infrastructure, policy 
reform, agriculture, natural resources and biodiversity; and 
(vi) influencing public opinion, especially among Tanzania's 
Muslims, who tend to view U.S. policy as anti-Islam. 
 
¶12. (SBU) The USG supports these strategic priorities with active 
diplomatic engagement and a generous foreign assistance program. 
Although Tanzania enjoys the support of numerous donor countries, 
the U.S. is one of the top donors in Tanzania in dollar amounts.  In 
FY08, total USG bilateral assistance ran to nearly USD 400 million, 
including initiatives such as PEPFAR and PMI.  Taking into account 
the U.S. share of contributions from multilateral donors such as the 
World Bank and African Development Bank, U.S. assistance totaled USD 
662 million in 2008.  This does not include major private U.S. 
benefactors such as the Gates Foundation.  Other major donors 
include the U.K., Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and the 
European Commission. 
 
¶13. (SBU) To ensure that corruption does not undermine development 
efforts, we are sharply focused on supporting President Kikwete's 
anti-corruption campaign.  The Kikwete administration has taken 
steps to combat corruption, including appointing a new Director of 
the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) and passing 
two pieces of legislation: the Anti-Money Laundering Bill and the 
Anti-Corruption Bill.  Recently, the drive against corruption has 
picked up again.  The first major court cases on grand corruption 
began in November 2008, with the arrests of individuals whose 
companies were alleged to have fraudulently received funds from the 
Bank of Tanzania (BOT), along with several BOT employees.  Shortly 
thereafter, two long-serving former ministers were jailed on 
corruption-related charges. 
 
¶14. (SBU) In the wake of the 1998 Embassy bombing, we are actively 
engaged in furthering counterterrorism (CT) cooperation with the 
Tanzanian government.  The Mission has an integrated strategy 
involving modernization of Tanzania's law enforcement as well as 
winning the hearts and minds of the Tanzanian people.  Our work in 
Pemba--a majority Muslim island--exemplifies this strategy.  We have 
knit together cultural preservation projects to repair historic 
mosques, self-help projects to improve rural livelihoods, and 
significant USAID malaria control and education programs.  MCC will 
rehabilitate and improve up to 36 kilometers of rural roads in Pemba 
under the Compact.  In addition, CDC is providing HIV prevention and 
treatment services at the central hospital in Pemba.  DOD/WRAIR is 
currently renovating a military clinic and providing HIV/AIDS 
services to TPDF officers on the island.  USAID and AFRICOM are 
partnering to build and furnish a primary school.  The Mission 
recently inaugurated an American Corner in Pemba to advance Islamic 
outreach efforts.  Another key component of the Mission's strategy 
is helping the government establish its own national, interagency CT 
Center to collect, share and analyze CT data. 
 
Health Challenges: HIV/AIDS and Malaria 
--------------------------------------- 
¶15. (SBU) Tanzania faces a mature generalized HIV epidemic, with a 
prevalence rate of approximately 5.7 percent and 1.4 million people 
living with HIV/AIDS.  An estimated 440,000 individuals are 
clinically eligible for antiretroviral treatment; however, available 
services can support less than half of those in need.  In FY 2008, 
PEPFAR provided Tanzania with over USD 313 million to support 
treatment, care, and prevention programs.  In FY 2009, the PEPFAR 
planning budget is $308 million.  The PEPFAR program is on track to 
exceed its original PEPFAR targets: 150,000 individuals on 
anti-retroviral drugs; care for 750,000 individuals, including 
orphans and vulnerable children; and prevention of 490,000 new HIV 
infections.  Although the U.S. has fostered positive relationships 
with the Tanzanian government in the health sector, significant 
challenges remain including: the need for stronger leadership in 
line ministries; poor health infrastructure; a shortage of health 
care workers; a weak government procurement system; and allegations 
of corruption in the public and private sectors.  We recently 
entered into very productive negotiations with the GOT on a PEPFAR 
Partnership Framework Agreement, which would deepen our relationship 
over the coming five years. 
 
¶16. (SBU) Malaria is the number one killer of children in Tanzania 
and continues to be a major cause of maternal mortality.  As a focus 
country under the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), Tanzania 
received USD 34 million in FY 2008 to support the delivery of 
long-lasting, insecticide treated bed-nets, the care and treatment 
of malaria, the malaria in pregnancy program, and indoor residual 
insecticide spraying.  Malaria has been eliminated as a public 
health problem on Zanzibar: the recent 2007-2008 Malaria Indicator 
Survey (MIS) suggests that malaria prevalence is less than 1% on the 
islands. 
 
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) 
-------------------------------------- 
¶17. (SBU) In February 2008, Presidents Kikwete and Bush signed the 
largest MCC Compact to date, USD 698 million.  The Compact will 
strengthen Tanzania's infrastructure network in three key areas: 
transportation (roads and the Mafia Island airport), water, and 
energy.  It entered into full force and effect in September 2008. 
Our message continues to be that a Compact is an agreement of 
reciprocal responsibilities; to sustain it over five years, Tanzania 
must pay heed to its corruption index and be vigilant at all levels 
to ensure transparency and accountability in governance. 
 
¶18. (SBU) Tanzania also received MCC Threshold funds - USD 11.2 
million - from FY2005 to 2007.  The Threshold program, which closed 
in September 2008, focused on, among other things, enhancing civil 
society's capacity to demand anti-corruption reform and fighting 
corruption in public procurement. The program trained more than 250 
journalists in investigative reporting skills; some of these 
journalists were involved in breaking grand corruption stories.  The 
program also enhanced local-level accountability by helping 
establish a network of 77 public expenditure tracking committees. 
Finally, and most importantly, the Threshold program helped the 
country's procurement regulator carry out several audits of the 
procurement practices of key GOT entities; in February 2008, one of 
these audits sparked and informed a Parliamentary investigation 
which resulted in the resignation of the Prime Minister.