THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXTRACT OF A LETTER WRITTEN TO A BRITISH M.P. AS A RESULT OF AN EXPEREINCE IN TANZANIA ON SILVERDALE FARM
MENGI ATTEMPTING TO GAIN ENTRY TO SILVERDALE FARM
In November 2005 I went to Tanzania to visit Stewart Middleton and Sarah Hermitage who live in Moshi. It was my dream holiday for which I had saved for years. Nothing could have prepared me for the horrors of my stay.
On the third day of my visit to the farm I was terrified by Benjamin Mengi arriving at the gates to my friends farm stating that he was the owner of it. Eight persons four of whom were in police uniforms and armed with sub machine guns accompanied the Regional Police Commander for Moshi, Kighondo. The arms were clearly in view and clearly for the purpose of inflicting terror on us all. The Regional Crime Officer stated he was there to secure Mr. Mengi's entry onto the farm despite the fact that there were no criminal issues with which to concern the police. Kighondo stated that Mengi owned the farm, despite the fact that he had sight of a court order restraining Mr. Mengi from entering the farm and a valid assignment Deed stating that Mengi did not, own the farm.
On being refused entry onto the farm Mr Mengi launched into a vicious, frenzied and racist attack against my friends stating that he was going to take the farm from them by any means and that they should go back to South Africa (an openly racist statement given my friends are British) where they belonged. He finished his tirade by stating that assignment or no assignment he was going to drive my friends out of Tanzania by any means whatsoever and would bring the villagers onto the farm with Pangas (Machetes) to drive them out of Tanzania by any means whatsoever. Mengi stated that my friends would never prove any criminal charges brought against him as, the police, were in his hands as he was black and they were white and he would spend his last chicken, driving them out of Tanzania.
I am concerned, that the Tanzanian government has preferential debt status vis-à-vis the UK and receives large amounts of aid from the country. The UK is a major investor in Tanzania and its largest bilateral development partner. I am aware of the efforts of the Tanzanian government to encourage legitimate investment in Tanzania. I am extremely concerned that being bona fide investors in all respects and being the source of considerable investment in Tanzania my friends are being treated in a manner, which is clearly inconsistent with the commitments required to secure such status and which clearly, is unable to secure any effective rule of law in the country.
As a tourist to Tanzania the impression that I formed during my visit was that Tanzania was a lawless country where investors and their investments were far from secure.........I do not intend to visit Tanzania again. My visit was horrific and I would ask all tourists to bear in mind the overt abuses of law and human rights so easily engaged in without sanction. My visit was a horrific insight into corruption and abuse of the rule of law and an experience I do not wish to repeat. I have had enough of Africa; one visit to Tanzania was enough.
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