Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05DARESSALAAM1015
2005-05-26 05:03:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Dar Es Salaam
Cable title:  

Zanzibar's Imams Declare a Truce

Tags:  PGOV PHUM SCUL TZ 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 DAR ES SALAAM 001015 

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR AF/E AND INR/AA

E.O. 12958: 5/25/15
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SCUL TZ
SUBJECT: Zanzibar's Imams Declare a Truce

Classified by Pol-Econ Chief Judy Buelow for reason
1.4(b)

REF: A) Dar es Salaam 1001, B) Dar es Salaam 658,
C) 04 Dar es Salaam 1036, D) 04 Dar es Salaam 691

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 DAR ES SALAAM 001015

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR AF/E AND INR/AA

E.O. 12958: 5/25/15
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SCUL TZ
SUBJECT: Zanzibar's Imams Declare a Truce

Classified by Pol-Econ Chief Judy Buelow for reason
1.4(b)

REF: A) Dar es Salaam 1001, B) Dar es Salaam 658,
C) 04 Dar es Salaam 1036, D) 04 Dar es Salaam 691


1. (C) Summary: Religious tension on Zanzibar has
declined in recent months, even as political tension
has increased. Only fourteen months ago, a series
of small explosions rocked Stonetown. Back then,
government officials publicly blamed Uamsho, a
fundamentalist Muslim NGO that had a history of
staging confrontational demonstrations against
Zanzibar's Office of the Mufti. The Uamsho
activists who were arrested were quickly released
without charge, however, and the bombing episode
opened a new era of understanding among Zanzibar's
religious factions. In the following year, Uamsho
was invited into a dialogue with the Office of the
Mufti about amending Zanzibar's Mufti Law. Although
no change to the law seems imminent, the Imams from
the civil service are now friendly with their
fundamentalist NGO counterparts; both sides seem to
be making an effort to avoid provoking each other.
Meanwhile, both the Office of the Mufti and Uamsho
are focusing on Zanzibar's upcoming elections: the
Mufti's office, by planning a civic education
campaign; Uamsho, by publicizing allegations of
human rights abuses occurring during the voter
registration. End Summary.

--------------
A Vocal Fringe Group Draws Attention
--------------


2. (U) Uamsho, or "Islamic Awakening," is among the
most vocal of Zanzibar's small fundamentalist
organizations. Registered as an NGO in 1999, Uamsho
is active almost exclusively in Unguja Island's
Stonetown, and consists of a few dozen relatively
young clerics with a Saudi Wahabist orientation.
Uamsho's membership overlaps with that of Answar
Sunni, a sect that accepts religious authority only
from the Saudi Mufti. It is also worth mentioning
that most Uamsho activists claim Arab ancestry and
hail from Zanzibar's Pemba Island, since both
characteristics are strongly associated with support
for the opposition CUF party. Uamsho is nonetheless
careful to disassociate itself from any political
party. Uamsho's tiny membership is not typical of
the vast majority of Zanzibari Muslims, who practice
a tolerant, moderate form of Islam incorporating

many local traditions. It's likely that many
Zanzibaris view Uamsho's youthful clerics as
sanctimonious, foreign-influenced upstarts.


3. (SBU) Uamsho vociferously rejects Zanzibar's
Mufti, and objects to the 2001 Mufti Law. This law
established the Office of the Mufti as a branch of
the Zanzibari government, and gave the Mufti
considerable legal authority over Muslim religious
affairs on Zanzibar. Uamsho, and its members from
the Answar Sunni sect, typically observe the major
Muslim holidays on the day announced by Saudi Mufti,
rather than the Zanzibari Mufti. Uamsho typically
refuses to obtain permits for its public
demonstrations, because it objects to the law
requiring Muslim NGOs to request the permit from the
Mufti's office rather than from the Ministry of Home
Affairs. In years past, police have violently
dispersed Uamsho's demonstrations and public
religious observations; Uamsho tends to relish the
confrontation and the resulting publicity.

--------------
Bizarre Attacks Put Spotlight on Uamsho
--------------


4. (U) Everything is politicized on Zanzibar and the
Government, dominated by the ruling CCM party, views
Uamsho as a stalking horse for the opposition CUF
party. Just over a year ago, when a series of small
explosions rocked Zanzibar's Stonetown, several
Zanzibari government officials publicly linked
Uamsho and the CUF party, and blamed both for the
attacks. Dozens of activists from both the NGO and
the political party were arrested, but all were
eventually released without charge. (For the
record, during a three-week period in March, 2004,
small charges of dynamite damaged a bus belonging to
a Christian school, some electrical installations,
and the houses of the Mufti and of other government
officials; a dud grenade was also tossed into a
crowded restaurant frequented by tourists. There
were no injuries and damages were minimal.)


5. (C) The government's accusations against Uamsho
are part of a longstanding pattern, in which the CCM
attempts to portray CUF as the party of Islamic
extremism and violence. (Reftel B) Uamsho itself
might have provided the Zanzibari government with a
convenient fundamentalist target: just days before
the bombings started in March 2004, Uamsho had held
one of its trademark illegal demonstrations. There
was considerable publicity when police broke up
Uamsho's demonstration and arrested some
participants. Having just raised their profile as
Islamic rabble-rousers, Uamsho's activists became
the obvious suspects when the bombings began. The
real perpetuators of the attacks have never been
identified, much less convicted. (Please see
Reftels C and D for background on the 2004 attacks
and their aftermath.)

-------------- --------------
Uamsho Uses its Visibility for Political Leverage
-------------- --------------


6. (C) Last year's bombings and the accusations
catapulted Uamsho into national prominence, and
briefly, into the international spotlight.
Suddenly, the international press came calling on
Uamsho's cramped offices in a quiet back alley of
Stonetown. So did foreign diplomats, including
Embassy poloff and the DCM from the British High
Commission. The diplomats urged Uamsho's leaders
and their rivals in the Mufti's office to open a
dialogue about the issues they disputed. For a few
weeks in 2004, the foreign press carried reports
about the Zanzibar explosions, and Uamsho's
suspected role in them. Since then, Uamsho's
clerics have has found a place in the rolodexes of
foreign journalists, becoming reliable, accessible
spokesmen for Muslim fundamentalists on Zanzibar.
In a May 17 visit to Uamsho's offices, poloff noted
that the only other visitors who had signed the
guest book in the previous month were journalists,
including reporters from Reuters and the BBC.


7. (C) Uamsho also values its contact with the US
and British diplomatic missions. Although Uamsho's
clerics do not agree with many of our international
policies, particularly the Iraq war, they do see
foreign diplomatic missions as valuable allies that
can provide recognition to the NGO and leverage in
its dealings with the Zanzibari Government. Recent
Uamsho press releases highlighted the NGO's contact
with foreign diplomatic missions. Uamsho also
publicly called on the US Embassy to press the
Zanzibari government to halt alleged abuses against
Zanzibaris of Pemban origin.


8. (C) In the last year, Zanzibar's religious
disputes have cooled, even as the political campaign
began to heat up. Most of the usual flashpoints for
conflict have simply failed to ignite. The Answar
Sunni sect publicly observed Idd al Fitr during the
"wrong" days in November, and did so without any
interference from the authorities. Uamsho still
refuses to request permits for its demonstrations
from the Office of the Mufti, but it has refrained
from street-level confrontations.

--------------
The Clerics Open a Dialogue on the Mufti Law
--------------


9. (C) Officials in the Zanzibar government and
leaders in Uamsho quietly confirmed that they were
discussing amendment of the controversial Mufti Law.
In a February meeting at the Ministry of Good
Governance, which supervises the Office of the
Mufti, an official told poloff that the Ministry had
established a Review Committee on the Mufti Law.
The official said that the Government had approved
the Law in 2001 because it was concerned about the
threat of Islamic terrorism in East Africa and
wanted to control fundamentalism. He said that
Zanzibar's fundamentalist groups, which were tiny
and not typical of the Muslim majority, had
vigorously objected to the law. It was important to
"listen to the NGOs," the official said, so the
Review Committee was seeking input from Uamsho and
other religiously-oriented NGOs. In the May 17
meeting, Uamsho Executive Committees member Samahi
confirmed the meetings at the Ministry of Good
Governance. Uamsho representatives first met with
Adam Mwakanjuki, when he was the Minister, and then
with his replacement, Ahmed Hassan Diria. Samahi
said the process stalled after Diria's death early
in 2005, but he thought that Uamsho might eventually
resume discussion with Acting Minister Shamhuna.


10. (C) Clerics in the Office of the Mufti have also
reached out to the dissenting Imams of Uamsho.
Sheikh Soraga, who directs most of the Offices'
programs, told poloff that he had met upwards of
four leaders of Uamsho on five different occasions.
He made the rather extraordinary statement that "We
(in the Mufti's Office) are no longer enemies with
Uamsho." Soraga is still trying to convince
Uamsho's leaders that the Mufti Law is
constitutional; Uamsho still refuses to ask the
Mufti for permits to hold its demonstrations. These
disagreements notwithstanding, Sheikh Soraga said
that Uamsho's Imams were now on friendly terms with
those in the Mufti's Office: he noted that they all
greet each other in public, although they had never
done so before.

--------------
The Imams Focus on Election-Year Politics
--------------


11. (U) For now, all of the Imams have put their
disputes over religious policies on the back burner,
the better to focus on election-year political
issues. Uamsho has turned to human rights advocacy;
specifically, calling the attention of the press and
foreign embassies to abuses committed against
presumed opposition supporters during Zanzibar's
voter registration period. (Please see reftel A for
a summary of the meeting Uamsho arranged with poloff
and three individuals arrested under Operation
Dondola.) The civil servants in the Mufti's office
are attempting to use their network of clerics to
disseminate civic education throughout the islands
in advance of the elections. Sheik Soraga said that
the Office of the Mufti was in contact with leaders
of Zanzibar's miniscule Christian population and
with the World Conference on Religion and Peace. He
said that he would soon submit a proposal to USAID
for an ecumenical group of clergy to conduct
seminars on civic education and civic peace for
Zanzibar's fractious political leaders.


12. (C) Comment: The Zanzibari Government moves at
a glacial pace even in the best of times. Although
elements of the Mufti Law pose real concerns for
religious freedom, the law is not likely to be
amended any time soon. The new truce between
Zanzibar's religious establishment and its most
vocal group of religious dissidents is nonetheless a
positive development: for now, dialogue has
replaced confrontation on the streets. Uamsho's new
status is another positive development. Probably,
we will never know if Uamsho had any involvement in
last year's fire-bombings. But if Uamsho was ever
inclined to violence, it is much less so now that it
has secured a place in Zanzibar's policy debates and
ready access to the media. The focus on electoral
politics by Muslim clerics across the spectrum is
another intriguing development, especially since the
civil servants in the Office of the Mufti presumably
support the CCM, and Uamsho is still perceived as a
stand-in for the opposition CUF. If the 2005
elections are again disputed, it's not inconceivable
that the Imams would offer to mediate a solution to
the resulting chaos and political deadlock. It's
doubtful, however, if either the Mufti's Office or
Uamsho has the administrative capacity or political
clout to effectively fill that role. End comment.

OWEN