Lake Malawi/Nyasa row: Time to show strong leadership
- Thread starter kijesh
- Start date
Nyenyere
JF-Expert Member
- Sep 9, 2010
- 14,769
- 10,649
hebu kamilisha thread yako. Wao wako kamili gado ki vipi? Fafanua wamejipanga vipi kijeshi ili kutwangana na TZ.
blackwizard
Senior Member
- Feb 8, 2012
- 163
- 24
hivi unaogopa vitisho vya mkeo?
Michael Paul
JF-Expert Member
- Nov 2, 2010
- 403
- 319
Echolima
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 28, 2007
- 3,826
- 2,057
PIA WAWEZA SOMA HAPA .ALAWI WANAVYOSEMA KUHUSU TANZANIA
Malawi says lake row with Tanzania to be resolved amicably » Comment Page 4 | Malawi news, Malawi - NyasaTimes breaking online news source from Malawi
Malawi says lake row with Tanzania to be resolved amicably » Comment Page 4 | Malawi news, Malawi - NyasaTimes breaking online news source from Malawi
Shine
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 5, 2011
- 11,481
- 1,364
Ni rais wao kalithibitisha hilo? ama source ya hii habari ni wapi?
congobe
JF-Expert Member
- May 31, 2012
- 561
- 129
sasa wewe unafaidika na nini hata kama wa malawi waki ipa tanzania ziwa lote achana na kipande mnachogombea ,hata kama kuna almas utapata hata mia acha ushabiki usio na hoja ya msingi
Fortune Samuel
Member
- Jul 31, 2012
- 14
- 3
Kama kunaukweli ndani ya kitabu hiki, basi kazi ipo. Ni dhahiri tumelilea tatizo na Wamalawi wanahaki kuliko sisi kwani imekuwa hivyo tangu mwanzo na sasa wanahisi wananyang'anywa sehemu na nchi yao na Watanzania. Kikitumkia kitabu hiki katika mahakama za kimataifa basi tutaweza kupoteza kama Wamalawi watashikiria msimamo wao kuwa ziwa lote ni lao kwani kwa mujibu wa kitabu hiki, ni kweli. Ni bora tukazungumza nao mapema kabla hatujafika kwenye mahakama
Papa Diana
JF-Expert Member
- Dec 21, 2010
- 304
- 22
| Source: Lake Malawi/Nyasa row: Time to show strong leadership | Malawi news, Malawi - NyasaTimes breaking online news source from Malawi comments from Malawi BigMan Says: | August 6th, 2012 at 8:40 pm |
| We can take these Taifa's with the right strategy, their military is too old fashioned in its structure. 5 × infantry brigade 1 × tank brigade 3 × artillery battalion 2 × air defence artillery battalion 1 × mortar battalion 2 × anti-tank battalion 121st Engineer Regiment 1 × central logistic/support group Yes they have an air force but its in very bad shape. Mostly made up of second hand crafts bought from Iraq, Iran or stolen from Idi Amin's Uganda. They have 27,000 active troops altogether, we have around 26,000. Our troops are professionally trained and we are known worldwide for the skills and discipline of our soldiers, let these Swahili's not dare to make the mistake of underestimating the might of the Malawian army or the pride of its people, lest they pay a bloody price. Like 
|
Biohazard
JF-Expert Member
- Aug 21, 2011
- 2,197
- 1,459
The Malawi-Tanzania Boundary Dispute
Author(s): James MayallReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), pp. 611-628Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie .Accessed: 02/08/2012 10:42Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie .JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. .Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheJournal of Modern African Studies.JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
The Journal of Modern African Studies, I I, 4 (1973), pp. 6i I-628
The Mala wi-Tanzania
Boundary Dispute
by JAMES MAYALL*
SINCE Malawi became independent on 6July i964 diplomatic relations
with her eastern neighbour, Tanzania, have been almost permanently
strained. Differences between the two states have focused on three
sets of issues: contrasting attitudes and policies towards the white
minority regimes to the South, President Banda's suspicion that
Tanzania was aiding and abetting the attempts by certain prominent
Malawi exiles to subvert his regime,' and a dispute over the de-limitation
of the boundary between the two states along Lake Malawi (Nyasa).
These issues are not easily separable: for if it had not been for
Banda's outspoken policy towards the white South (which led him
alone amongst African statesmen to establish diplomatic relations
with South Africa), there would have been no compelling grounds for
Tanzania, which opposed this policy, to offer asylum and support to
his political opponents; and if it had not been for Tanzania's confrontation,
not only with South Africa but also with the Portuguese
authorities in Mozambique (with whom Malawi also maintained close
relations), it is doubtful whether President Nyerere would have been
provoked during May i967 into bringing the Lake dispute into the
open. There is no doubt also that Malawi exiles in Dar es Salaam were
actively campaigning against Banda's regime, at this time, over the
whole range of his policies, including the question of the Lake.2
But while some attention to the wider political context is necessary
for any analysis of this dispute, the physical location of the boundary
between the two states will remain at issue whatever the political
climate. This article, therefore, is concerned with the boundary itself.
My aim is first to establish the immediate circumstances of the
Tanzanian claim, and the way it was handled by the two Governments,
and then to focus on some of the major issues raised by the dispute.
* Lecturer in International Relations, The London School of Economics and Political
Science, University of London.
1 In September i964 Dr Banda dismissed three of his cabinet colleagues, and three
others resigned in sympathy. Following this crisis the dismissed ministers, and a number
of their supporters, crossed as political refugees into Tanzania and Zambia.
2 See James Mayall, 'Malawi's Foreign Policy'. in The World Today (London), October
1970, pp. 435-45.
6i2 JAMES MAYALL
THE CLAIM BY TANZANIA
The Lake boundary was publicly disputed between Tanzania and
Malawi from May I967 to September I968; since then, while remaining
unresolved, it has not been the subject of major policy statements by
either side. It is important to note at the outset that the claimant
was, and is, the Tanzanian Government. From I922, when Britain
was awarded the mandate for German East Africa, until i96i, when
Tanganyika became independent, the boundary with Nyasaland has
been a matter of administrative convenience rather than political
importance. But it is evident, from the inconsistency of the maps used
in both territories during the mandate, that there was, from the start,
some confusion as to exactly where it lay. The point is that the
Government in Dar es Salaam accepted, both before and immediately
after independence, that no part of the Lake fell within its jurisdiction.
In May I959, in the Tanganyika Legislative Council, the Minister for
Lands and Mineral Resources replied to a question about the boundary
in the following terms:
In the Treaty of Peace made with Germany after the i9i4-i9i8 War, the
boundaries of Tanganyika followed those described in Article II of the
Anglo-German agreement of I 890. The description of the southern boundaries
of Tanganyika, which include the boundaries of Nyasaland, are as follows:
'from the point of confluence of the Rovuma River with the Msinje River,
the boundary runs westward along the parallel of that point until it reaches
Lake Nyasa, thence striking northward it follows the Eastern, Northern and
Western shores of Lake Nyasa to the northern bank of the mouth of the
River Songwe; it ascends that river to the point of its intersection by the
33rd degree of east longitude'.'
This did not satisfy members of the Council who evidently felt that
Tanganyika had as much of an interest in the Lake as Nyasaland, and
the Attorney-General undertook to examine the problem. After consultation
with the British Colonial Office, the Council was again told
in December I959:
that it was the opinion of the legal advisers to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies that the southern boundary of Tanganyika lies along the
Eastern, Northern and Western shores of Lake Tanganyika [sic] and that
therefore not a part of the Lake lies within the boundaries of Tanganyika.2
The doubts which persisted were not so much about the delimitation
of the boundary as its equity. Thus in October i960 Chief Mhaiki, a
Tanganyika Legislative Council. Official Report (Dar es Salaam,) 26 May 1959.
2 Ibid. 15 December I959.
THE MALAWI -TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 6I3
33-EI 35-EI
0 miles 100
Nankungulu Hi/I
0 km 100
TANZANIA
ZAMBIA i Mbamba Bay
MALAWI
ITS * C~~~~~~hi~c~un~a ~ 1~
t~~oS v :" 1%~~~~~~~~~~~~~;~ ~~~~~~~~4MDZ AMBIQUE
~* Fort
\Johnston
-*- Agreed international boundary
O*.. ** Limit of German sphere of influence under ' /
the Anglo-German agreement of 1 July 1890
Boundary claimed by Tanzania
Figure I
Lake Malawi
614 JAMES MAYALL
member of the Legislative Council from the Songea district of Tanganyika
which adjoins the Lake, requested the Government 'to approach
the Nyasaland Government through her Majesty's Government in the
United Kingdom with a view to securing a more equitable boundary
between Tanganyika and Nyasaland'. The ensuing debate is of interest
both because it reveals the widespread impression in Tanganyika that
the British had illegally altered the boundary during the time of the
Central African Federation (a view subsequently adopted in i967 to
justify a change of policy), and because it was the occasion of a categorical
repudiation of any claim by the Chief Minister, Julius Nyerere.
Chief Mhaiki argued for the revision of the boundary on functional
grounds: he claimed that with approximately 6oo,ooo people living
along the Tanganyikan shore, and dependent on the Lake for cooking
and drinking water and for food, it was anomalous that the Government
should have no rights over the Lake. He also alleged that as a result
of flooding in I956, following the construction of the Kariba Dam,
Tanganyikan houses and plantations were inundated and the owners
had been unable to claim compensation; and that any future modernisation
of lake fishing - for example, through the use of motor boats
or by the formation of co-operative societies - was dependent on the
permission of the Nyasaland authorities. Although several other
members of the Council spoke in support of the motion, the majority
opposed it on the general grounds of pan-African solidarity. They
recognised that any claim would be likely to provoke a counter claim
and that, in any case, it would seem inconsistent to provoke a boundary
dispute with Nyasaland while pursuing a policy of Federation in East
Africa. One member, for example, suggested that:
the spirit now prevailing among our leaders is not dispute of boundaries
but it is actually trying to do away with these boundaries in order that we
can correct the mistakes of those people whom we now call sometimes,
'imperialists'.
For the colonial administration, the Minister of Information Services
and the Attorney-General, both ex-officio members of the Council,
repeated the official interpretation of the boundary and urged caution.
The Minister for Lands, Surveys and Water, however, conceded that
his Department was responsible for the publication of maps showing
a 'median' line, the result, he said, of a mistaken impression that this
was the correct and natural boundary in all inland waters. Finally
Nyerere spoke against the motion. While conceding that there was
justice in what had been claimed as the usual practice of dividing
shared waters between neighbours, he continued:
THE MALAWI-TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 6I5
I must emphasise again ... there is now no doubt at all about this boundary.
We know that not a drop of the water of Lake Nyasa belongs to Tanganyika
under the terms of the agreement, so that in actual fact we would be asking
a neighbouring Government. . . to change the boundary in favour of
Tanganyika. Some people think this is easier in the case of water and it
might be much more difficult in the case of land. I don't know the logic
about this.
The motion was then put to the vote and failed to carry.1
There the matter rested until 30 November I96I when Nyerere, then
Prime Minister, set out the policies which Tanganyika would adopt,
once independent, towards international treaties concluded by Britain
in her capacity first as mandatory power, and then as trustee, during
the colonial period. The central point of this statement was the
announcement of a two-year time-limit during which Tanganyika
would continue to honour bilateral treaties, 'unless abrogated or
modified by mutual consent'. The new policy was communicated to
the Secretary-General of the United Nations in a letter, the relevant
paragraph of which reads as follows:
As regards bilateral treaties validly concluded by the United Kingdom on
behalf of the territory of Tanganyika, or validly applied or extended by the
former to the territory of the latter, the Government of Tanganyika is
willing to continue to apply within its territory, on a basis of reciprocity,
the terms of all such treaties for a period of 2 years from the date of
independence [i.e. until 8 December I963] unless abrogated or modified
by mutual consent. At the expiry of that period, the Government of
Tanganyika will regard such of these treaties which could not by the
application of the rules of customary international law be regarded as
otherwise surviving, as having terminated.2
Not surprisingly, Chief Mhaiki was prompted to take up the issue
of the Lake boundary again in the National Assembly. In June i962
he acknowledged that under the existing treaty the entire Lake area
fell within Nyasaland, but asked what steps the Government was
intending 'to remove the disadvantages the people of Tanganyika
living along the shores of Lake Nyasa incur'. In his reply the Prime
Minister, currently Rashidi Kawawa, made three points: (i) that no
part of Lake Nyasa fell within German East Africa; (ii) that since the
boundary had not been altered by Britain after the assumption of the
mandate, the Prime Minister's statement of 30 November i96i did
not apply; and (iii) that whatever the disadvantages to Tanganyika,
1 For the full debate, see ibid. I2 October i960.
2 Cf. also E. E. Seaton and S. T. M. Maliti, 'Treaties and Succession of States and
Governments in Tanzania', African Conference on International Law and African Problems,
Lagos, March i967, pp. 76-98.
4I
6i6 JAMES MAYALL
the Government could not contemplate negotiations with either the
Central African Federal Authorities in Salisbury or with Britain. 'If
there are to be negotiations on this question', he concluded, 'they
must be with the Government of Nyasaland itself and must wait the
attainment by Nyasaland of full independence'.' Thus while holding
to the pre-independence interpretation of the boundary, the Government
held out the prospect of future negotiations.
There is no record that Tanzania approached the Government of
Malawi in the immediate aftermath of that country's independence.
In any case, in view of his cabinet crisis in September i964 it seems
unlikely that Banda would have responded. Once the ex-ministers had
gone into exile in Tanzania and Zambia, moreover, Banda's fears
that his neighbours were actively supporting attempts by the exiles
to mount an 'invasion' against him, led to a rapid deterioration of
Malawi's relations with both states. His fears also undermined any
hope there might have been of quiet diplomacy aimed at a fraternal
adjustment of the boundary, such as the Tanzanians had evidently
contemplated.2 So long as the Lake might conceivably be used as an
infiltration route into Malawi, Banda was unlikely to modify his
attitude that the Lake constituted an integral part of Malawi's national
territory. Indeed, it was at this time that the steamer service which
had previously plied from Monkey Bay in Malawi to ports in Tanganyika
was suspended.3
It is not clear from the public evidence whether the immediate
cause of the Tanzanian claim in i967 was renewed pressure for compensation
from the representatives of the population along the Lake
shore, whose lands had been flooded or, as seems more likely, the
Government's fears that Malawi, as a result of her growing entente
with South Africa and Mozambique, would allow the Portuguese to
use the northern part of the Lake to pursue Frelimo 'freedom fighters'
to their sanctuaries across the Ruvuma River which forms the international
boundary between Tanzania and Mozambique.
Two pieces of evidence support this view. First, a series of bilateral
talks at ministerial level, aimed at reducing the area of misunderstanding
1 Tanganyika National Assembly. Official Report (Dar es Salaam), I I June 5962. Kawawa
had earlier succeeded Nyerere as Prime Minister on the latter's resignation to devote himself
to the reorganization of the ruling party, T.A.N.U.
2 Cf. Mayall, 1oc. cit. pp. 438-9.
3 It is uncertain, however, whether this decision was solely dictated by the requirements
of Malawi's security policy. Earlier the Geographer in the U.S. State Department had
noted that 'the recent rise in the water level of Lake Nyasa has tended to disrupt services
between the two states'. InternationaBl oundaryS tudy, No. 37. Malawi-Tanganyikaa nd Zanzibar
Boundary (Washington, i964), p. 4.
THE MALAWI -TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 6I7
between the two Governments, were called off in August I 966 after
Banda had publicly claimed that Tanzania was 'fed up with Malawi
refugees and wanted to get rid of them. That is why there is discussion
between Malawi and Tanzania'. In riposte the Tanzanians insisted
that the talks were intended to cover the whole spectrum of their
relations, including the problem of Malawi's dealings with Portugal,
to which Tanzania took exception.1
Secondly, on 3 July i967, in a debate on foreign affairs in the
National Assembly in which he was later to explain the Tanzanian
position, the Minister for Information and Tourism spoke about the
Government's attitude towards those countries which inherited geographical
or economic links with South Africa and Portugal: 'What
we cannot understand or forgive', Hasnu Makame explained, 'are
actions which have the effect of strengthening and furthering such
links when gradual weakening of them would be both possible and
in keeping with purposes expressed during the independence movement.'
He added that while it might not be possible for every country in Africa
to take an active part in the struggle for total African liberation, it was
certainly possible for them to refrain from giving assistance to the enemy.2
Earlier, the first public announcement of the reversal in the Tanzanian
position had been made by President Nyerere in an address to high
school pupils at Iringa on 3I May i967. Having stated that Tanzania
did not accept the shore boundary and had informed Malawi that it
recognised instead the median line, he added: 'I am told that the
boundary was changed by the British during the declaration of the
Rhodesian Federation, but they had no right whatsoever to do this
because Tanzania was a Trust Territory.'3
Subsequently it emerged that the Tanzanian Government had
pointed out to Malawi, in a note dated 3 January i967, 'that maps
produced in recent years give the impression that the international
boundary between the two countries follows the Eastern and Northern
shores of Lake Nyasa'. Certain actions of Malawi, it suggested, appeared
to give support to this impression. While Tanzania did not want an
international issue to arise between countries sharing the waters of
Lake Nyasa, she wished 'to inform the Government of Malawi that
Tanzania has no claim over the waters of Lake Nyasa beyond the line
running through the median of the Lake', and that this line alone was
recognised by Tanzania as the legal and just delineation between the
' The Standard (Dar es Salaam), 3 August I966.
2 B.B.C. Summary of World Broadcasts (London), ME/25o8, 5 July i967, B/i.
3 The Nationalist (Dar es Salaam), i June I967.
4I-2
6i8 JAMES MAYALL
two countries. On 24 January i967 Tanzania was informed that the
matter would receive the consideration of the Malawi Government,
and that a further reply would follow.'
THE RESPONSE BY MALAWI
The Tanzanian case was now complete, and the dispute might have
remained quiescent if it had been ignored by President Banda. But
on his return from the United States he made a full statement when
the Malawi Parliament reassembled on 27 June I967. After noting
that if the reported claim were true (as he must have known it to be
from the exchange of notes), the Government and country were
bound to take it seriously, Banda continued:
I consider such a claim and such a statement as rubbing salt in the wounds
inflicted on the body of Malawi by imperialism and colonialism. I say
this ... because the present boundaries between Malawi and her neighbours,
whether to the North or to the South, to the East or to the West, are not
natural boundaries. These wounds were inflicted on Malawi by imperialism
and colonialism first at the Congress of Berlin in I 885; then by an Agreement
between the British and the Germans in i890, again by an Agreement
between the British and South Africa Company, controlled by Cecil Rhodes,
and the African Lakes Corporation; and finally by an Agreement between
the British and Portuguese in i89i. As a result of these wounds ... we have
now such districts as Mbeya, Njombe, and Songea to the north of us, such
provinces as Tete, north of the Zambesi, and Zambesia or Quelimane to
the south, such provinces as Vila Cabral or Nyasa to the east of us, and
such districts as Isoka in part, Lundazi, Fort Jameson and Mpetanke to
the west of us. . . which geographically, linguistically, and culturally belonged
to Malawi and which in our forefathers' time, in our ancestors' time, were
definitely Malawi but which are now outside ... our present borders. . .
As to the claim that the Lake should be divided between Malawi and
another neighbouring country, I should like to say here and now that we
will never recognize or accept this claim; we will never agree to the
suggestion or proposal. The Lake has always belonged to Malawi.
... it is of course true that in the area of Vila Cabral, part of the Lake
now belongs to the Portuguese, to Mozambique. But the Portuguese did
not claim that part of the Lake as of right. They gave up a piece of their
land in Mozambique in exchange for a piece of our Lake in I949 or I950.
In saying this I am not laying any claim to any part of land in any of the
neighbouring countries. I am simply stating the facts of geography, history,
ethnology, language or linguistics in that part of Africa. If between Malawi
and her neighbours to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west,
any country has any just cause for territorial claim on any other country,
that country is Malawi.2
1 B.B.C. Summaryo f WorldB roadcasts,M E/23og, 6 July I 967, B/I .
2 Malawi News (Blantyre), 30 June i967.
THE MALAWI -TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 6i9
In the light of subsequent events (and in the absence of published
evidence to the contrary), it may be inferred that Malawi held to this
line and refused further negotiations. By July the Tanzanian Government,
in support of its claim, had announced its intention of putting
a ship on the Lake, 'to help trade'.' Banda's 'opening to the South'
had aroused deep hostility and suspicion in Dar es Salaam, and his
speech was interpreted in both Tanzania and Zambia as evidence of
Malawi's own irredentist claims. If Tanzania drew a sharp distinction
between those countries which were unable, for historical and economic
reasons, to break their dependence on the white South, and those
which showed no desire to reduce this dependence at all, Malawi
clearly belonged in the second category. Since, in the Tanzanian view,
Banda had deliberately betrayed the liberation movements by negotiating
trade and labour agreements with South Africa and Portugal,
there was no obvious ground on which a rapprochemencto uld be based.
Still, more than a year elapsed before the war of words between the
two Governments flared up again. This time it was Banda who took
the initiative in September I968. At a Malawi Congress Party rally
at Chitipa near the northern boundary with Tanzania, the President
drew the attention of his audience to Malawi's 'natural frontiers' in
an impromptu and dramatic aside. Pointing towards Tanzania, from
which many people had apparently crossed to be present at the
meeting, he was reported as saying, 'that is my land over there,
Tukya, Njombe and Songea, all of them must be given back'.2
This speech produced a predictably vigorous response. The T.A.N.U.
newspaper, The Nationalist, published an interview with Nyerere in
which he dismissed Banda's claim, adding the ominous warning that
he 'must not be ignored simply because he is insane. The powers
behind him are not insane.' About the Lake, Nyerere said that the
insanity of the claim was proved by the fact that the eastern shore
was constantly mobile.3 Here, then, were two new elements to the
dispute: the insinuation that the South African and Portuguese
authorities were behind Banda's alleged irredentism, and the view
that a shoreline boundary is not feasible in a situation where the
water level itself fluctuates.
The quarrel now deteriorated into an exchange of more-or-less
personal accusations and counter-accusations which were only indirectly
linked to the subject at issue. If he was 'insane', Banda told
1 The Times (London), I July I967.
2 The Standard, Io September I968.
3 The Nationalist, I3 September i968.
620 JAMES MAYALL
the annual convention of the Malawi Congress Party, everyone knew
Nyerere 'as a coward and a communist inspired jellyfish':
We know that while pretending to be a staunch supporter of the Organization
of African Unity, Nyerere is the worst agitator and betrayer of the cause
for which the Organization was formulated...
History, geography or even ethnical knowledge will convince Nyerere
that four districts to the South of Tanganyika belong to us by nature.
It is only because we respect the feasible unification of our Mother Africa
that we do not claim these districts. All we are doing is setting [sic] historical
and geographical truth.'
Banda went on to announce that he was putting a gunboat on
Lake Malawi to answer Nyerere's claim, and that two more were on
order from Britain. For a time it appeared that the two countries
were preparing for a military show-down. In Tanzania, Vice-President
Kawawa, who had returned early from the O.A.U. summit in Algiers
after the report of Banda's claims,2 told a rally in the capital organised
by the National Union of Tanzanian Workers that since they had no
claim to any part of Malawi it was a clear colonialist tactic, designed
to bring hatred between the two states, that had led to the alteration
of the boundary from the centre to the shore line.3 The Tanzanian
Government then embarked upon a programme of military and
political education amongst the villagers along the Lake shore, allegedly
diverting some of the African Liberation Committee's small arms (the
distribution of which they controlled) for this purpose; they also began
to spend an estimated /I.5 million on improving road and other
communications in the area.
There the matter rested, and by December i968 relations between
the two states had somewhat improved, although it was clear that
Tanzania saw little hope of reaching an understanding with Banda.
In a speech delivered at Manda on the Lake shore, F. V. Mponji,
Parliamentary Secretary in Kawawa's Office, reasserted that while
Tanzanians had no wish to fight Malawians they were prepared to
defend their country against any threat. Meanwhile, he said, they
would wait for the emergence in Malawi of a sensible leader.4
AN EVALUATION
The status of the Tanzanian claim calls for further analysis. As
a preliminary, it is relevant to refer briefly to the attitude of African
states towards the doctrine of uti possidetis. At the meeting of the
I Malawi News, 24 September i968. 2 The Nationalist, 2o September I968.
3 The Standard, 27 September I968. 4 Ibid. 2o December i968.
THE MALAWI-TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 62I
Organisation of African Unity in Cairo, July i964, it was a Tanzanian
proposal which led to the adoption of a resolution under which the
Assembly of Heads of State and Government:
i. Solemnlyr eaffirmtsh e strict respect of all Member States of the Organization
for the principles laid down in Article iII, paragraph 3 of the Charter
of the Organization of African Unity [Respect for the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of each state and for its inalienable right to independent
existence];
2. Solemnly declares that all Member States pledge themselves to respect
the frontiers existing on their achievement of national independence.'
For the Tanzanian claim to be consistent with this resolution it is
clearly necessary to show that, notwithstanding the Government's
pronouncements in both the Legislative Council before independence
and in the National Assembly afterwards, the boundary was in fact
uncertain. Given the manner in which colonial settlements were
reached between the European powers in Africa, and particularly
Britain's administration of the two territories concerned, this possibility
cannot be ruled out. Uncertainty, moreover, might have arisen either
as a result of confusion in the original delimitation of the boundary,
or because of a British decision to move it. Such a unilateral action
would presumably have been illegal, unless endorsed by the League
of Nations - or, later, by the United Nations - at any time from I922
onwards. The Tanzanian view that the change was instigated by the
Federal Authorities in Salisbury with the connivance of the British
in the mid-1950s is therefore of no legal significance.
Ian Brownlie has concluded that the boundary could have been
changed prior to I9I4 by British acquiescence in a de facto German
interest in, and presence on, the Lake, since - until the outbreak of
World War I - the British raised no objection to, and even co-operated
with, 'a continuing pattern of public and official German authority
on the waters of the Lake '.2 Moreover, some contemporary British
and German maps show a shore boundary, others a median line, and
some no boundary at all.
While there is ample scope for disagreement about the history of
the Lake boundary during the colonial period, the original agreement
between Britain and Germany does not appear to be in doubt. The
basic document is the Heligoland Agreement of I July i890 which
See Ian Brownhie (ed.), Basic Documentso n African Affairs (Oxford, 197 ), p. 36I.
2 Ian Brownlie, 'A Provisional View of the Dispute Concerning Sovereignty on Lake
Malawi/Nyasa', in The Eastern Africa Law Review (Dar es Salaam), I, 3, December x968,
pp. 258-73. For the legal background to the dispute, see also A. C. McEwan, International
Boundariesi n East Africa (Oxford, I971), pp. 178-206.
622 JAMES MAYALL
defined spheres of interest in East Africa: Article I (2) described the
German sphere to the south as bounded by the northern limit of
Mozambique to the point where that limit touched Lake Nyasa,
'thence striking northward it follows the Eastern, Northern and
Western shores of the Lake to the Northern bank of the mouth of the
River Songwe'.1 Although the frontier between Lakes Tanganyika and
Nyasa was subject to later delimitation by a further agreement of
23 February I 89I,2 no further action was taken on the shore-line
section of the boundary.
The significance of this lack of clarification seems to be in dispute
amongst lawyers. Brownlie, for example, considers that the failure to
delimit 'may have very little significance since a shore line may not
have been considered susceptible to further delimitation'A On the
other hand, E. E. Seaton, writing in i967 as an official of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs in Dar es Salaam, adopts a more equivocable attitude.
Having observed that Tanzania had continued to respect the i890
Agreement on the Tanganyika-Kenya border, on the grounds that
'since German and British spheres marched together in the North
and each power occupied up to the limit, the delimiting of their
respective spheres produced a territorial boundary on the line of
delimitation', he continued:
With regard to the southern boundaries of mainland Tanzania the position
is less clear. Some consider that under the i890 Agreement, the territory's
southern boundary ran along the eastern, northern and western shores
of Lake Nyasa, in any event the boundaries between Tanganyika and
Malawi were settled by two Orders-in-Council made by the British Government,
namely the 1902 British Central African Order-in-Council and the
1920 Tanganyika Order-in-Council. Others contend that no sphere of
influence corresponding to the spheres in the north was reserved to Britain
in the south of Tanganyika by the i890 Agreement hence it is to the extent
of occupation, not of the limits in that Agreement, that one must look for
the southern border.
In such circumstances, there has been no recognition by the Tanzanian
Government of the i890 Agreement as constituting authority for the line
of the Tanzania/Malawi border. (If the provisions of that Treaty were
incorporated in pre-existing legislation, i.e. the two Orders-in-Council,
the validity of the boundary might depend upon the extent to which such
legislation continued to be applied in Tanganyika after independence.)
In the absence of legislative or treaty provisions the principles of customary
international law would provide for the boundary between Tanzania and
Malawi to run along the shore line of Lake Nyasa.4
1 E. Hertzlet, Map of Africa by Treaty (London, i909 edn.), p. 899.
2 Ibid. p. 295- Brownie, 1C. Cit. p. 259.
4 Seaton and Maliti, op. cit. pp. 81-2.
THE MALAWI -TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 623
This account ignores the fact that in I 962 the Tanganyika Government
accepted the Orders-in-Council of I 902 and I920 as an accurate
description of the boundary limits. It can be argued that the Orders
are themselves unclear on the Lake Nyasa sector,1 and that closer
inspection of the text after i962 may have revealed this obscurity and
justified the Tanzanian reversal. But this was not how the Government
chose to present its case.
What, then, was the basis of the assertion that there had been a
unilateral and unlawful alteration of the boundary by the British?
The evidence for this view, which has never been fully set out, appears
to come from two sources. First, as early as I959 it was claimed, for
example by Chief Mhaiki, that maps of the Lake, produced by the
Tanganyikan Department of Surveys, had changed from showing a
median to a shore boundary without explanation. In his review of the
legal evidence, Brownlie notices earlier discrepancies in the cartography
of the Lake, both before the I 9 I 4- I 8 war, and perhaps more significantly
in the description and depiction of the boundary under the Mandate.
Thus between I924 and I932 the British Annual Report on Tanganyika
refers, although not always explicitly, to a centre line as the Lake
boundary. In I933 and I934 a discrepancy appears between the text,
which refers to a centre line, and the map which shows the eastern
shore boundary. Then from I935 until I938, as in the post-World War
II reports to the Trusteeship Council, both text and map refer to the
eastern shore line. Official reports and maps produced in the Nyasaland
Protectorate during the I920s and I930s also show a middle line.2
Was this change the result of a deliberate political decision or, as
suggested in i960 by the Minister for Lands, Surveys and Water,
merely the result of a mistaken impression about the law relating to
inland waterways? Although this question cannot be answered with
certainty at present, the evidence is sufficiently contradictory to make
the Tanzanian charge of 'creeping cartographical aggression' plausible,
at least within the context of a much wider political conflict.
The attempt to relate the change to the Central African Federation,
as Nyerere did in i967, is more dubious, although there were political
advantages in making the connection. The Federation was viewed by
African nationalists throughout East and Central Africa as a ruthless
attempt to consolidate settler control. Prior to Nyasaland's seccession
from the Federation, moreover, non-recognition of Federal legitimacy
had been cited as one of the reasons for not raising the boundary
issue; in the new context, Banda would thus be discredited if he was
1 Cf. Brownlie, loc. cit. pp. 260 and 263. 2 Ibid. pp. 263-6.
624 JAMES MAYALL
shown to be resting his case on a legacy of the Federation which he
had helped to destroy.
This view of events was propagated in Dar es Salaam by those
former Malawi ministers who sought refuge there after the cabinet
crisis in i964. It seems very probable, therefore, that they exercised
some influence in the Tanzanian Government's re-formulation of its
views on the Lake boundary. In a newspaper article based on an
interview with one of Malawi's exiles, it was alleged that changes had
been made in I956 after the report of a Federal Boundary Commission
on which Africans were not represented, and which they subsequently
denounced. The Commission was said to have recommended two
apparently contradictory changes: first, to move the Tanganyika-
Malawi boundary from the centre to the eastern shore line; secondly,
to 'cut the Lake in half to give Mozambique a share', thus incurring
the anomalous situation under which the Malawi islands of Chisamulo
and Lokoma are technically within Portuguese territory.1
The relevance of this view of events to the Tanzanian claim clearly
rests on the assumption that prior to I956 the acknowledged boundary
lay through the centre of the Lake. But although such a Commission
did sit between I950 and I956, and despite the conflicting evidence
of the maps during the earlier period, the Annual Colonial Reports on
Nyasaland for the period I948-53 -i.e. before the establishment in
I953 of the Central African Federation - all show a shore-line boundary.
There is, then, no evidence to suggest that a political decision was
taken during the period of the Federation to reduce the extent of
Tanganyika's territory.
SOME FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS
It is possible, however, that there is some connection between
Tanganyikan dissatisfaction with their lack of status on the Lake, and
local knowledge around the shores of the work of the Federal Boundary
Commission during the I950S. The Commission was established by
the Nyasaland Government in connection with a plan to control the
water level of the Lake and the outflow of the Shire River.2 While
1 This article, probably written by Henry Chipenbere or Kenyame Chiume, entitled
'Background to the Lake Squabble', appeared in The Standard, 9 November i968. The
same interpretation of the dispute was given to the author by Chiume in an interview in
Dar es Salaam in August i969.
2 In I950 the Nyasaland Department of Surveys commissioned Messrs. Sir William
Halcrow & Partners to undertake the preliminary survey work at an estimated cost of
J300,000.
THE MALAWI -TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 625
such developments might affect the shore population in Tanganyika,
there is no record of any official approach to the authorities in Dar es
Salaam. But a British initiative in July I9501 led to an Agreement
being signed with Portugal in November I954:
the frontier on Lake Nyasa shall run due West from the point where the
frontier of Mozambique and Tanganyika meets the shore of the lake to the
median line of the waters of the same lake and shall then follow the median
line to its point of intersection with the geographical parallel of Beacon
I 7 as described in the exchange of notes of 6 May I 920 which shall
constitute the southern frontier.2
The quid pro quo for this adjustment was Portuguese acceptance of
liability for one third of the cost of the Shire valley scheme.
One further provision of this Agreement may help to throw light
on the origins of the claim by Tanzania. When he raised the issue of
the boundary in the Legislative Council in October 1960, Chief
Mhaiki claimed that the local people had been told that they could
use the Lake for fishing 'only as far as primitive methods are concerned
... when we think of beginning to use new kinds of nets, boats with
engines or we start fishing in co-operative societies, we cannot do so
until permission has been sought from the Nyasaland Government'.3
Article 11 (3) of the British-Portuguese Agreement which established
the arrangement under which the United Kingdom retained sovereignty
over the islands of Chisamulo and Likoma, despite their falling within
Mozambique waters, used a similar wording to describe the fishing
rights of the inhabitants of Nyasaland and Mozambique.4 A reasonable
hypothesis, therefore, might be that this provision was taken over as
an administrative rule-of-thumb by the local authorities in Tanganyika
as applying there also.
The Shire valley scheme, which had formed the background to the
Anglo-Portuguese boundary Agreement, failed to win the support of
the Federal Authorities in Salisbury who gave priority instead to the
1 Exchangeo f Notes betweenH er Majesty's Governmenitn the United Kingdomo f Great Britain
and NorthernI reland and the PortugueseG overnmenptr ovidingf or participationi n the Shire Valley
Projec(tL ondon, I953), Cmd. 8855.
2 Agreemenbt etweent he Governmenotf the United Kingdoma nd NorthernI reland (acting on their
own behalf and on behalf of the Governmenotf the Federationo f Rhodesiaa nd Nyasaland) and the
Governmenotf Portugalr egardingt heN yasalandM ozambiqueF rontier( London, I 962), Cmd. I 866.
For the exchange of notes of 6 May I920, see Treaty Series, No. i6 (London, I920), Cmd. i000.
3 Tanganyika Legislative Council. Official Report, i2 October i960.
4 'The inhabitants of Nyasaland and the inhabitants of Mozambique shall have the
right to use all the waters of Lake Nyasa for fishing and other legitimate purposes, provided
that the methods of fishing which may be employed shall be only those which are agreed
upon by the Government of Nyasaland and the Government of Mozambique'. Cmd.
i 866.
626 JAMES MAYALL
Kariba Dam project in Southern Rhodesia.' Despite Chief Mhaiki's
reference to this as the cause of the inundation of the Lake shore in
I956, it is difficult to see the connection. It is more probable that the
flooding was due to natural causes: the wide meteorological variations
of Lake Nyasa (which has fluctuated through 24 feet since i896), have
long been notorious with adverse consequences for agriculture and
navigation alike.2 Moreover, it seems possible that the floods in I956
was at least partly due to cyclone 'Edith' which appeared off the
East African coast at the beginning of April, causing extensive flooding
in Mozambique and Nyasaland.3 While these observations suggest
the economic absurdity of attempting a planned development of the
resources of the Lake for agriculture, fishing, or transport without
the co-operation of all the littoral states, they none the less hardly
strengthen Tanzania's formal case in her conflict with Malawi over
sovereignty on the Lake.
Finally, therefore, it is necessary to consider the question of motive.
Unlike some other African boundary conflicts, popular passions were
hardly involved in this dispute.4 True the inconsistency in the maps
prompted members of the Legislative Council to raise the matter in
the first place before independence. But, as their speeches indicate,
they were probably motivated more by a desire to express frustration
at what they considered cavalier treatment of the southern region
by the centre, than by hostility to the inhabitants on the opposite side
of the Lake. Some of the peoples of Northern Malawi and Southern
Tanganyika - the Nyakusa, for example - are related, but their
presence in both states has probably acted as a pressure for the
improvement of relations, rather than for any escalation of the conflict.
Why then did Tanzania reverse her position? Although the evidence
is mostly circumstantial, it supports the view that the decision was
essentially a function of the wider conflict between the two states,
arising out of their differing policies towards the 'white South'. In this
context, Tanzania's decision to publicise the Lake dispute may be
understandable, but it was hardly prudent. For it provoked Banda
into an equally categorical repudiation of this claim, and provided
evidence for his suspicions that the T.A.N.U. Government was supporting
efforts to subvert his regime. The Tanzanian case, which rests
on the assertion of an illegal change of the boundary during the period
1 Cf. Patrick Keatley, The Politics of Partnership (Harmondsworth, i963), pp. 136-8.
2 Cf. John G. Pike, Malawi: a political and economich istory( London, i969), pp. i I-I4.
3 NyasalandP rotectorateR. eportfor the rear, 1956 (London, I957), p. I3.
4 Cf. Saadia Touval, The BoundaryP olitics of IndependenAt frica (Cambridge, Mass., 1972),
especially ch. 5, 'The Use of Force'.
THE MALAWI- TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 627
of the mandate and trusteeship, may not be without legal foundation,
but is, none the less, weak; in any case, the manner of its presentation
made it virtually certain that Malawi would not accept international
adjudication.
Again, the suggestion that there was a military threat from the
Portuguese and South Africans through Malawi was imprudent. Like
most African states, Tanzania has a small army, most of which is
deployed in the general vicinity of the Ruvuma River to cover the
escape routes for Frelimo freedom fighters from Mozambique. Under
the pressure of confrontation with the Southern African regimes, the
armed forces of Tanzania have been expanded in recent years, but it
is still very doubtful whether she has the capacity to open a second
front, even a defensive one, along the shores of the Lake, or that
President Nyerere would wish to do so.
These considerations may lie behind the fact that there has been
no public reference by either side to the dispute since i968. Not that
the Lake itself has always been quiet. In I97I there were reports
that Malawi had handed over the control of some control boats to
Portuguese officers, who were apparently to keep watch on possible
insurgence against the regime of President Banda, as well as on Frelimo
infiltration into the Nyassa Province of Mozambique.' More recently
there has been a clash between Tanzanian forces and a Portuguese
gunboat operating off-shore, although perhaps significantly there was
no mention of Malawi in this latest incident.2 The fact that the I955
Nyasaland-Mozambique Frontier Agreement gave the Portuguese the
right to operate over 'all the waters' of Lake Nyasa was, from the
Tanzanian point of view, its most objectionable feature.3 But since
it is clear that President Banda will not recognise their case - the
strength of which in law is at best uncertain - there is little to be
gained by pressing the formal boundary dispute any further. It is
arguable, indeed, that if the Tanzanian claim was recognised this
might precipitate a further direct and costly confrontation with the
Portuguese on the Lake.
Meanwhile, although Malawi's relations with Tanzania have remained
strained, those with her western neighbour, Zambia, have
improved, notably by Banda's willingness to help re-route export
traffic, following the closure of the Zambian border with Rhodesia.
1 Colin Legum (ed.), Africa ContemporarRy ecord: annual survey and documents, 1971-72
(London, 1972), B452.
2 The East African Standard (Nairobi), 24 January I973.
3 Cf. McEwan, op. cit. p. 194.
628 JAMES MAYALL
On the other hand, relations with the Portuguese in Mozambique
have deteriorated following their incursions into Malawi in pursuit of
insurgents, and a diplomatic incident which culminated in the withdrawal
of the Portuguese ambassador from Zomba in November I972.1
When the Lake dispute was at its height five years earlier, Zambia
strongly supported Tanzania's claim, which was wrongly interpreted
in Lusaka as a response to Banda's irridentist claims, not only to the
Lake but to parts of Tanzania and eastern Zambia. In the present
circumstances Zambia would seem more likely to restrain her ally
from any tendency to force the issue.
For her part, Malawi has no alternative, in practice, but to acquiesce
in a Tanzanian presence on the Lake, rather as Britain reacted to
the presence of the Germans there before 1914. In the absence of
a major effort by Malawi to control the water level, and to exploit
the resources of the Lake in a more thoroughgoing manner than at
present, it seems likely that the status quo will persist. A substantive
settlement - possibly through the creation of a common Lake Development
Authority2- will have to wait on a more general political detente
between the two states.
1 Africa (London), 14, October I972, and i6, December 5972.
2 Alternatively, Tanzania might purchase a share of the Lake, as Portugal was to have
purchased her share in 1954, by paying Malawi a proportion of the cost of the Shire valley
project. See McEwan, op. cit. p. 205.
Author(s): James MayallReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), pp. 611-628Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie .Accessed: 02/08/2012 10:42Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie .JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. .Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheJournal of Modern African Studies.JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
The Journal of Modern African Studies, I I, 4 (1973), pp. 6i I-628
The Mala wi-Tanzania
Boundary Dispute
by JAMES MAYALL*
SINCE Malawi became independent on 6July i964 diplomatic relations
with her eastern neighbour, Tanzania, have been almost permanently
strained. Differences between the two states have focused on three
sets of issues: contrasting attitudes and policies towards the white
minority regimes to the South, President Banda's suspicion that
Tanzania was aiding and abetting the attempts by certain prominent
Malawi exiles to subvert his regime,' and a dispute over the de-limitation
of the boundary between the two states along Lake Malawi (Nyasa).
These issues are not easily separable: for if it had not been for
Banda's outspoken policy towards the white South (which led him
alone amongst African statesmen to establish diplomatic relations
with South Africa), there would have been no compelling grounds for
Tanzania, which opposed this policy, to offer asylum and support to
his political opponents; and if it had not been for Tanzania's confrontation,
not only with South Africa but also with the Portuguese
authorities in Mozambique (with whom Malawi also maintained close
relations), it is doubtful whether President Nyerere would have been
provoked during May i967 into bringing the Lake dispute into the
open. There is no doubt also that Malawi exiles in Dar es Salaam were
actively campaigning against Banda's regime, at this time, over the
whole range of his policies, including the question of the Lake.2
But while some attention to the wider political context is necessary
for any analysis of this dispute, the physical location of the boundary
between the two states will remain at issue whatever the political
climate. This article, therefore, is concerned with the boundary itself.
My aim is first to establish the immediate circumstances of the
Tanzanian claim, and the way it was handled by the two Governments,
and then to focus on some of the major issues raised by the dispute.
* Lecturer in International Relations, The London School of Economics and Political
Science, University of London.
1 In September i964 Dr Banda dismissed three of his cabinet colleagues, and three
others resigned in sympathy. Following this crisis the dismissed ministers, and a number
of their supporters, crossed as political refugees into Tanzania and Zambia.
2 See James Mayall, 'Malawi's Foreign Policy'. in The World Today (London), October
1970, pp. 435-45.
6i2 JAMES MAYALL
THE CLAIM BY TANZANIA
The Lake boundary was publicly disputed between Tanzania and
Malawi from May I967 to September I968; since then, while remaining
unresolved, it has not been the subject of major policy statements by
either side. It is important to note at the outset that the claimant
was, and is, the Tanzanian Government. From I922, when Britain
was awarded the mandate for German East Africa, until i96i, when
Tanganyika became independent, the boundary with Nyasaland has
been a matter of administrative convenience rather than political
importance. But it is evident, from the inconsistency of the maps used
in both territories during the mandate, that there was, from the start,
some confusion as to exactly where it lay. The point is that the
Government in Dar es Salaam accepted, both before and immediately
after independence, that no part of the Lake fell within its jurisdiction.
In May I959, in the Tanganyika Legislative Council, the Minister for
Lands and Mineral Resources replied to a question about the boundary
in the following terms:
In the Treaty of Peace made with Germany after the i9i4-i9i8 War, the
boundaries of Tanganyika followed those described in Article II of the
Anglo-German agreement of I 890. The description of the southern boundaries
of Tanganyika, which include the boundaries of Nyasaland, are as follows:
'from the point of confluence of the Rovuma River with the Msinje River,
the boundary runs westward along the parallel of that point until it reaches
Lake Nyasa, thence striking northward it follows the Eastern, Northern and
Western shores of Lake Nyasa to the northern bank of the mouth of the
River Songwe; it ascends that river to the point of its intersection by the
33rd degree of east longitude'.'
This did not satisfy members of the Council who evidently felt that
Tanganyika had as much of an interest in the Lake as Nyasaland, and
the Attorney-General undertook to examine the problem. After consultation
with the British Colonial Office, the Council was again told
in December I959:
that it was the opinion of the legal advisers to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies that the southern boundary of Tanganyika lies along the
Eastern, Northern and Western shores of Lake Tanganyika [sic] and that
therefore not a part of the Lake lies within the boundaries of Tanganyika.2
The doubts which persisted were not so much about the delimitation
of the boundary as its equity. Thus in October i960 Chief Mhaiki, a
Tanganyika Legislative Council. Official Report (Dar es Salaam,) 26 May 1959.
2 Ibid. 15 December I959.
THE MALAWI -TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 6I3
33-EI 35-EI
0 miles 100
Nankungulu Hi/I
0 km 100
TANZANIA
ZAMBIA i Mbamba Bay
MALAWI
ITS * C~~~~~~hi~c~un~a ~ 1~
t~~oS v :" 1%~~~~~~~~~~~~~;~ ~~~~~~~~4MDZ AMBIQUE
~* Fort
\Johnston
-*- Agreed international boundary
O*.. ** Limit of German sphere of influence under ' /
the Anglo-German agreement of 1 July 1890
Boundary claimed by Tanzania
Figure I
Lake Malawi
614 JAMES MAYALL
member of the Legislative Council from the Songea district of Tanganyika
which adjoins the Lake, requested the Government 'to approach
the Nyasaland Government through her Majesty's Government in the
United Kingdom with a view to securing a more equitable boundary
between Tanganyika and Nyasaland'. The ensuing debate is of interest
both because it reveals the widespread impression in Tanganyika that
the British had illegally altered the boundary during the time of the
Central African Federation (a view subsequently adopted in i967 to
justify a change of policy), and because it was the occasion of a categorical
repudiation of any claim by the Chief Minister, Julius Nyerere.
Chief Mhaiki argued for the revision of the boundary on functional
grounds: he claimed that with approximately 6oo,ooo people living
along the Tanganyikan shore, and dependent on the Lake for cooking
and drinking water and for food, it was anomalous that the Government
should have no rights over the Lake. He also alleged that as a result
of flooding in I956, following the construction of the Kariba Dam,
Tanganyikan houses and plantations were inundated and the owners
had been unable to claim compensation; and that any future modernisation
of lake fishing - for example, through the use of motor boats
or by the formation of co-operative societies - was dependent on the
permission of the Nyasaland authorities. Although several other
members of the Council spoke in support of the motion, the majority
opposed it on the general grounds of pan-African solidarity. They
recognised that any claim would be likely to provoke a counter claim
and that, in any case, it would seem inconsistent to provoke a boundary
dispute with Nyasaland while pursuing a policy of Federation in East
Africa. One member, for example, suggested that:
the spirit now prevailing among our leaders is not dispute of boundaries
but it is actually trying to do away with these boundaries in order that we
can correct the mistakes of those people whom we now call sometimes,
'imperialists'.
For the colonial administration, the Minister of Information Services
and the Attorney-General, both ex-officio members of the Council,
repeated the official interpretation of the boundary and urged caution.
The Minister for Lands, Surveys and Water, however, conceded that
his Department was responsible for the publication of maps showing
a 'median' line, the result, he said, of a mistaken impression that this
was the correct and natural boundary in all inland waters. Finally
Nyerere spoke against the motion. While conceding that there was
justice in what had been claimed as the usual practice of dividing
shared waters between neighbours, he continued:
THE MALAWI-TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 6I5
I must emphasise again ... there is now no doubt at all about this boundary.
We know that not a drop of the water of Lake Nyasa belongs to Tanganyika
under the terms of the agreement, so that in actual fact we would be asking
a neighbouring Government. . . to change the boundary in favour of
Tanganyika. Some people think this is easier in the case of water and it
might be much more difficult in the case of land. I don't know the logic
about this.
The motion was then put to the vote and failed to carry.1
There the matter rested until 30 November I96I when Nyerere, then
Prime Minister, set out the policies which Tanganyika would adopt,
once independent, towards international treaties concluded by Britain
in her capacity first as mandatory power, and then as trustee, during
the colonial period. The central point of this statement was the
announcement of a two-year time-limit during which Tanganyika
would continue to honour bilateral treaties, 'unless abrogated or
modified by mutual consent'. The new policy was communicated to
the Secretary-General of the United Nations in a letter, the relevant
paragraph of which reads as follows:
As regards bilateral treaties validly concluded by the United Kingdom on
behalf of the territory of Tanganyika, or validly applied or extended by the
former to the territory of the latter, the Government of Tanganyika is
willing to continue to apply within its territory, on a basis of reciprocity,
the terms of all such treaties for a period of 2 years from the date of
independence [i.e. until 8 December I963] unless abrogated or modified
by mutual consent. At the expiry of that period, the Government of
Tanganyika will regard such of these treaties which could not by the
application of the rules of customary international law be regarded as
otherwise surviving, as having terminated.2
Not surprisingly, Chief Mhaiki was prompted to take up the issue
of the Lake boundary again in the National Assembly. In June i962
he acknowledged that under the existing treaty the entire Lake area
fell within Nyasaland, but asked what steps the Government was
intending 'to remove the disadvantages the people of Tanganyika
living along the shores of Lake Nyasa incur'. In his reply the Prime
Minister, currently Rashidi Kawawa, made three points: (i) that no
part of Lake Nyasa fell within German East Africa; (ii) that since the
boundary had not been altered by Britain after the assumption of the
mandate, the Prime Minister's statement of 30 November i96i did
not apply; and (iii) that whatever the disadvantages to Tanganyika,
1 For the full debate, see ibid. I2 October i960.
2 Cf. also E. E. Seaton and S. T. M. Maliti, 'Treaties and Succession of States and
Governments in Tanzania', African Conference on International Law and African Problems,
Lagos, March i967, pp. 76-98.
4I
6i6 JAMES MAYALL
the Government could not contemplate negotiations with either the
Central African Federal Authorities in Salisbury or with Britain. 'If
there are to be negotiations on this question', he concluded, 'they
must be with the Government of Nyasaland itself and must wait the
attainment by Nyasaland of full independence'.' Thus while holding
to the pre-independence interpretation of the boundary, the Government
held out the prospect of future negotiations.
There is no record that Tanzania approached the Government of
Malawi in the immediate aftermath of that country's independence.
In any case, in view of his cabinet crisis in September i964 it seems
unlikely that Banda would have responded. Once the ex-ministers had
gone into exile in Tanzania and Zambia, moreover, Banda's fears
that his neighbours were actively supporting attempts by the exiles
to mount an 'invasion' against him, led to a rapid deterioration of
Malawi's relations with both states. His fears also undermined any
hope there might have been of quiet diplomacy aimed at a fraternal
adjustment of the boundary, such as the Tanzanians had evidently
contemplated.2 So long as the Lake might conceivably be used as an
infiltration route into Malawi, Banda was unlikely to modify his
attitude that the Lake constituted an integral part of Malawi's national
territory. Indeed, it was at this time that the steamer service which
had previously plied from Monkey Bay in Malawi to ports in Tanganyika
was suspended.3
It is not clear from the public evidence whether the immediate
cause of the Tanzanian claim in i967 was renewed pressure for compensation
from the representatives of the population along the Lake
shore, whose lands had been flooded or, as seems more likely, the
Government's fears that Malawi, as a result of her growing entente
with South Africa and Mozambique, would allow the Portuguese to
use the northern part of the Lake to pursue Frelimo 'freedom fighters'
to their sanctuaries across the Ruvuma River which forms the international
boundary between Tanzania and Mozambique.
Two pieces of evidence support this view. First, a series of bilateral
talks at ministerial level, aimed at reducing the area of misunderstanding
1 Tanganyika National Assembly. Official Report (Dar es Salaam), I I June 5962. Kawawa
had earlier succeeded Nyerere as Prime Minister on the latter's resignation to devote himself
to the reorganization of the ruling party, T.A.N.U.
2 Cf. Mayall, 1oc. cit. pp. 438-9.
3 It is uncertain, however, whether this decision was solely dictated by the requirements
of Malawi's security policy. Earlier the Geographer in the U.S. State Department had
noted that 'the recent rise in the water level of Lake Nyasa has tended to disrupt services
between the two states'. InternationaBl oundaryS tudy, No. 37. Malawi-Tanganyikaa nd Zanzibar
Boundary (Washington, i964), p. 4.
THE MALAWI -TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 6I7
between the two Governments, were called off in August I 966 after
Banda had publicly claimed that Tanzania was 'fed up with Malawi
refugees and wanted to get rid of them. That is why there is discussion
between Malawi and Tanzania'. In riposte the Tanzanians insisted
that the talks were intended to cover the whole spectrum of their
relations, including the problem of Malawi's dealings with Portugal,
to which Tanzania took exception.1
Secondly, on 3 July i967, in a debate on foreign affairs in the
National Assembly in which he was later to explain the Tanzanian
position, the Minister for Information and Tourism spoke about the
Government's attitude towards those countries which inherited geographical
or economic links with South Africa and Portugal: 'What
we cannot understand or forgive', Hasnu Makame explained, 'are
actions which have the effect of strengthening and furthering such
links when gradual weakening of them would be both possible and
in keeping with purposes expressed during the independence movement.'
He added that while it might not be possible for every country in Africa
to take an active part in the struggle for total African liberation, it was
certainly possible for them to refrain from giving assistance to the enemy.2
Earlier, the first public announcement of the reversal in the Tanzanian
position had been made by President Nyerere in an address to high
school pupils at Iringa on 3I May i967. Having stated that Tanzania
did not accept the shore boundary and had informed Malawi that it
recognised instead the median line, he added: 'I am told that the
boundary was changed by the British during the declaration of the
Rhodesian Federation, but they had no right whatsoever to do this
because Tanzania was a Trust Territory.'3
Subsequently it emerged that the Tanzanian Government had
pointed out to Malawi, in a note dated 3 January i967, 'that maps
produced in recent years give the impression that the international
boundary between the two countries follows the Eastern and Northern
shores of Lake Nyasa'. Certain actions of Malawi, it suggested, appeared
to give support to this impression. While Tanzania did not want an
international issue to arise between countries sharing the waters of
Lake Nyasa, she wished 'to inform the Government of Malawi that
Tanzania has no claim over the waters of Lake Nyasa beyond the line
running through the median of the Lake', and that this line alone was
recognised by Tanzania as the legal and just delineation between the
' The Standard (Dar es Salaam), 3 August I966.
2 B.B.C. Summary of World Broadcasts (London), ME/25o8, 5 July i967, B/i.
3 The Nationalist (Dar es Salaam), i June I967.
4I-2
6i8 JAMES MAYALL
two countries. On 24 January i967 Tanzania was informed that the
matter would receive the consideration of the Malawi Government,
and that a further reply would follow.'
THE RESPONSE BY MALAWI
The Tanzanian case was now complete, and the dispute might have
remained quiescent if it had been ignored by President Banda. But
on his return from the United States he made a full statement when
the Malawi Parliament reassembled on 27 June I967. After noting
that if the reported claim were true (as he must have known it to be
from the exchange of notes), the Government and country were
bound to take it seriously, Banda continued:
I consider such a claim and such a statement as rubbing salt in the wounds
inflicted on the body of Malawi by imperialism and colonialism. I say
this ... because the present boundaries between Malawi and her neighbours,
whether to the North or to the South, to the East or to the West, are not
natural boundaries. These wounds were inflicted on Malawi by imperialism
and colonialism first at the Congress of Berlin in I 885; then by an Agreement
between the British and the Germans in i890, again by an Agreement
between the British and South Africa Company, controlled by Cecil Rhodes,
and the African Lakes Corporation; and finally by an Agreement between
the British and Portuguese in i89i. As a result of these wounds ... we have
now such districts as Mbeya, Njombe, and Songea to the north of us, such
provinces as Tete, north of the Zambesi, and Zambesia or Quelimane to
the south, such provinces as Vila Cabral or Nyasa to the east of us, and
such districts as Isoka in part, Lundazi, Fort Jameson and Mpetanke to
the west of us. . . which geographically, linguistically, and culturally belonged
to Malawi and which in our forefathers' time, in our ancestors' time, were
definitely Malawi but which are now outside ... our present borders. . .
As to the claim that the Lake should be divided between Malawi and
another neighbouring country, I should like to say here and now that we
will never recognize or accept this claim; we will never agree to the
suggestion or proposal. The Lake has always belonged to Malawi.
... it is of course true that in the area of Vila Cabral, part of the Lake
now belongs to the Portuguese, to Mozambique. But the Portuguese did
not claim that part of the Lake as of right. They gave up a piece of their
land in Mozambique in exchange for a piece of our Lake in I949 or I950.
In saying this I am not laying any claim to any part of land in any of the
neighbouring countries. I am simply stating the facts of geography, history,
ethnology, language or linguistics in that part of Africa. If between Malawi
and her neighbours to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west,
any country has any just cause for territorial claim on any other country,
that country is Malawi.2
1 B.B.C. Summaryo f WorldB roadcasts,M E/23og, 6 July I 967, B/I .
2 Malawi News (Blantyre), 30 June i967.
THE MALAWI -TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 6i9
In the light of subsequent events (and in the absence of published
evidence to the contrary), it may be inferred that Malawi held to this
line and refused further negotiations. By July the Tanzanian Government,
in support of its claim, had announced its intention of putting
a ship on the Lake, 'to help trade'.' Banda's 'opening to the South'
had aroused deep hostility and suspicion in Dar es Salaam, and his
speech was interpreted in both Tanzania and Zambia as evidence of
Malawi's own irredentist claims. If Tanzania drew a sharp distinction
between those countries which were unable, for historical and economic
reasons, to break their dependence on the white South, and those
which showed no desire to reduce this dependence at all, Malawi
clearly belonged in the second category. Since, in the Tanzanian view,
Banda had deliberately betrayed the liberation movements by negotiating
trade and labour agreements with South Africa and Portugal,
there was no obvious ground on which a rapprochemencto uld be based.
Still, more than a year elapsed before the war of words between the
two Governments flared up again. This time it was Banda who took
the initiative in September I968. At a Malawi Congress Party rally
at Chitipa near the northern boundary with Tanzania, the President
drew the attention of his audience to Malawi's 'natural frontiers' in
an impromptu and dramatic aside. Pointing towards Tanzania, from
which many people had apparently crossed to be present at the
meeting, he was reported as saying, 'that is my land over there,
Tukya, Njombe and Songea, all of them must be given back'.2
This speech produced a predictably vigorous response. The T.A.N.U.
newspaper, The Nationalist, published an interview with Nyerere in
which he dismissed Banda's claim, adding the ominous warning that
he 'must not be ignored simply because he is insane. The powers
behind him are not insane.' About the Lake, Nyerere said that the
insanity of the claim was proved by the fact that the eastern shore
was constantly mobile.3 Here, then, were two new elements to the
dispute: the insinuation that the South African and Portuguese
authorities were behind Banda's alleged irredentism, and the view
that a shoreline boundary is not feasible in a situation where the
water level itself fluctuates.
The quarrel now deteriorated into an exchange of more-or-less
personal accusations and counter-accusations which were only indirectly
linked to the subject at issue. If he was 'insane', Banda told
1 The Times (London), I July I967.
2 The Standard, Io September I968.
3 The Nationalist, I3 September i968.
620 JAMES MAYALL
the annual convention of the Malawi Congress Party, everyone knew
Nyerere 'as a coward and a communist inspired jellyfish':
We know that while pretending to be a staunch supporter of the Organization
of African Unity, Nyerere is the worst agitator and betrayer of the cause
for which the Organization was formulated...
History, geography or even ethnical knowledge will convince Nyerere
that four districts to the South of Tanganyika belong to us by nature.
It is only because we respect the feasible unification of our Mother Africa
that we do not claim these districts. All we are doing is setting [sic] historical
and geographical truth.'
Banda went on to announce that he was putting a gunboat on
Lake Malawi to answer Nyerere's claim, and that two more were on
order from Britain. For a time it appeared that the two countries
were preparing for a military show-down. In Tanzania, Vice-President
Kawawa, who had returned early from the O.A.U. summit in Algiers
after the report of Banda's claims,2 told a rally in the capital organised
by the National Union of Tanzanian Workers that since they had no
claim to any part of Malawi it was a clear colonialist tactic, designed
to bring hatred between the two states, that had led to the alteration
of the boundary from the centre to the shore line.3 The Tanzanian
Government then embarked upon a programme of military and
political education amongst the villagers along the Lake shore, allegedly
diverting some of the African Liberation Committee's small arms (the
distribution of which they controlled) for this purpose; they also began
to spend an estimated /I.5 million on improving road and other
communications in the area.
There the matter rested, and by December i968 relations between
the two states had somewhat improved, although it was clear that
Tanzania saw little hope of reaching an understanding with Banda.
In a speech delivered at Manda on the Lake shore, F. V. Mponji,
Parliamentary Secretary in Kawawa's Office, reasserted that while
Tanzanians had no wish to fight Malawians they were prepared to
defend their country against any threat. Meanwhile, he said, they
would wait for the emergence in Malawi of a sensible leader.4
AN EVALUATION
The status of the Tanzanian claim calls for further analysis. As
a preliminary, it is relevant to refer briefly to the attitude of African
states towards the doctrine of uti possidetis. At the meeting of the
I Malawi News, 24 September i968. 2 The Nationalist, 2o September I968.
3 The Standard, 27 September I968. 4 Ibid. 2o December i968.
THE MALAWI-TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 62I
Organisation of African Unity in Cairo, July i964, it was a Tanzanian
proposal which led to the adoption of a resolution under which the
Assembly of Heads of State and Government:
i. Solemnlyr eaffirmtsh e strict respect of all Member States of the Organization
for the principles laid down in Article iII, paragraph 3 of the Charter
of the Organization of African Unity [Respect for the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of each state and for its inalienable right to independent
existence];
2. Solemnly declares that all Member States pledge themselves to respect
the frontiers existing on their achievement of national independence.'
For the Tanzanian claim to be consistent with this resolution it is
clearly necessary to show that, notwithstanding the Government's
pronouncements in both the Legislative Council before independence
and in the National Assembly afterwards, the boundary was in fact
uncertain. Given the manner in which colonial settlements were
reached between the European powers in Africa, and particularly
Britain's administration of the two territories concerned, this possibility
cannot be ruled out. Uncertainty, moreover, might have arisen either
as a result of confusion in the original delimitation of the boundary,
or because of a British decision to move it. Such a unilateral action
would presumably have been illegal, unless endorsed by the League
of Nations - or, later, by the United Nations - at any time from I922
onwards. The Tanzanian view that the change was instigated by the
Federal Authorities in Salisbury with the connivance of the British
in the mid-1950s is therefore of no legal significance.
Ian Brownlie has concluded that the boundary could have been
changed prior to I9I4 by British acquiescence in a de facto German
interest in, and presence on, the Lake, since - until the outbreak of
World War I - the British raised no objection to, and even co-operated
with, 'a continuing pattern of public and official German authority
on the waters of the Lake '.2 Moreover, some contemporary British
and German maps show a shore boundary, others a median line, and
some no boundary at all.
While there is ample scope for disagreement about the history of
the Lake boundary during the colonial period, the original agreement
between Britain and Germany does not appear to be in doubt. The
basic document is the Heligoland Agreement of I July i890 which
See Ian Brownhie (ed.), Basic Documentso n African Affairs (Oxford, 197 ), p. 36I.
2 Ian Brownlie, 'A Provisional View of the Dispute Concerning Sovereignty on Lake
Malawi/Nyasa', in The Eastern Africa Law Review (Dar es Salaam), I, 3, December x968,
pp. 258-73. For the legal background to the dispute, see also A. C. McEwan, International
Boundariesi n East Africa (Oxford, I971), pp. 178-206.
622 JAMES MAYALL
defined spheres of interest in East Africa: Article I (2) described the
German sphere to the south as bounded by the northern limit of
Mozambique to the point where that limit touched Lake Nyasa,
'thence striking northward it follows the Eastern, Northern and
Western shores of the Lake to the Northern bank of the mouth of the
River Songwe'.1 Although the frontier between Lakes Tanganyika and
Nyasa was subject to later delimitation by a further agreement of
23 February I 89I,2 no further action was taken on the shore-line
section of the boundary.
The significance of this lack of clarification seems to be in dispute
amongst lawyers. Brownlie, for example, considers that the failure to
delimit 'may have very little significance since a shore line may not
have been considered susceptible to further delimitation'A On the
other hand, E. E. Seaton, writing in i967 as an official of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs in Dar es Salaam, adopts a more equivocable attitude.
Having observed that Tanzania had continued to respect the i890
Agreement on the Tanganyika-Kenya border, on the grounds that
'since German and British spheres marched together in the North
and each power occupied up to the limit, the delimiting of their
respective spheres produced a territorial boundary on the line of
delimitation', he continued:
With regard to the southern boundaries of mainland Tanzania the position
is less clear. Some consider that under the i890 Agreement, the territory's
southern boundary ran along the eastern, northern and western shores
of Lake Nyasa, in any event the boundaries between Tanganyika and
Malawi were settled by two Orders-in-Council made by the British Government,
namely the 1902 British Central African Order-in-Council and the
1920 Tanganyika Order-in-Council. Others contend that no sphere of
influence corresponding to the spheres in the north was reserved to Britain
in the south of Tanganyika by the i890 Agreement hence it is to the extent
of occupation, not of the limits in that Agreement, that one must look for
the southern border.
In such circumstances, there has been no recognition by the Tanzanian
Government of the i890 Agreement as constituting authority for the line
of the Tanzania/Malawi border. (If the provisions of that Treaty were
incorporated in pre-existing legislation, i.e. the two Orders-in-Council,
the validity of the boundary might depend upon the extent to which such
legislation continued to be applied in Tanganyika after independence.)
In the absence of legislative or treaty provisions the principles of customary
international law would provide for the boundary between Tanzania and
Malawi to run along the shore line of Lake Nyasa.4
1 E. Hertzlet, Map of Africa by Treaty (London, i909 edn.), p. 899.
2 Ibid. p. 295- Brownie, 1C. Cit. p. 259.
4 Seaton and Maliti, op. cit. pp. 81-2.
THE MALAWI -TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 623
This account ignores the fact that in I 962 the Tanganyika Government
accepted the Orders-in-Council of I 902 and I920 as an accurate
description of the boundary limits. It can be argued that the Orders
are themselves unclear on the Lake Nyasa sector,1 and that closer
inspection of the text after i962 may have revealed this obscurity and
justified the Tanzanian reversal. But this was not how the Government
chose to present its case.
What, then, was the basis of the assertion that there had been a
unilateral and unlawful alteration of the boundary by the British?
The evidence for this view, which has never been fully set out, appears
to come from two sources. First, as early as I959 it was claimed, for
example by Chief Mhaiki, that maps of the Lake, produced by the
Tanganyikan Department of Surveys, had changed from showing a
median to a shore boundary without explanation. In his review of the
legal evidence, Brownlie notices earlier discrepancies in the cartography
of the Lake, both before the I 9 I 4- I 8 war, and perhaps more significantly
in the description and depiction of the boundary under the Mandate.
Thus between I924 and I932 the British Annual Report on Tanganyika
refers, although not always explicitly, to a centre line as the Lake
boundary. In I933 and I934 a discrepancy appears between the text,
which refers to a centre line, and the map which shows the eastern
shore boundary. Then from I935 until I938, as in the post-World War
II reports to the Trusteeship Council, both text and map refer to the
eastern shore line. Official reports and maps produced in the Nyasaland
Protectorate during the I920s and I930s also show a middle line.2
Was this change the result of a deliberate political decision or, as
suggested in i960 by the Minister for Lands, Surveys and Water,
merely the result of a mistaken impression about the law relating to
inland waterways? Although this question cannot be answered with
certainty at present, the evidence is sufficiently contradictory to make
the Tanzanian charge of 'creeping cartographical aggression' plausible,
at least within the context of a much wider political conflict.
The attempt to relate the change to the Central African Federation,
as Nyerere did in i967, is more dubious, although there were political
advantages in making the connection. The Federation was viewed by
African nationalists throughout East and Central Africa as a ruthless
attempt to consolidate settler control. Prior to Nyasaland's seccession
from the Federation, moreover, non-recognition of Federal legitimacy
had been cited as one of the reasons for not raising the boundary
issue; in the new context, Banda would thus be discredited if he was
1 Cf. Brownlie, loc. cit. pp. 260 and 263. 2 Ibid. pp. 263-6.
624 JAMES MAYALL
shown to be resting his case on a legacy of the Federation which he
had helped to destroy.
This view of events was propagated in Dar es Salaam by those
former Malawi ministers who sought refuge there after the cabinet
crisis in i964. It seems very probable, therefore, that they exercised
some influence in the Tanzanian Government's re-formulation of its
views on the Lake boundary. In a newspaper article based on an
interview with one of Malawi's exiles, it was alleged that changes had
been made in I956 after the report of a Federal Boundary Commission
on which Africans were not represented, and which they subsequently
denounced. The Commission was said to have recommended two
apparently contradictory changes: first, to move the Tanganyika-
Malawi boundary from the centre to the eastern shore line; secondly,
to 'cut the Lake in half to give Mozambique a share', thus incurring
the anomalous situation under which the Malawi islands of Chisamulo
and Lokoma are technically within Portuguese territory.1
The relevance of this view of events to the Tanzanian claim clearly
rests on the assumption that prior to I956 the acknowledged boundary
lay through the centre of the Lake. But although such a Commission
did sit between I950 and I956, and despite the conflicting evidence
of the maps during the earlier period, the Annual Colonial Reports on
Nyasaland for the period I948-53 -i.e. before the establishment in
I953 of the Central African Federation - all show a shore-line boundary.
There is, then, no evidence to suggest that a political decision was
taken during the period of the Federation to reduce the extent of
Tanganyika's territory.
SOME FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS
It is possible, however, that there is some connection between
Tanganyikan dissatisfaction with their lack of status on the Lake, and
local knowledge around the shores of the work of the Federal Boundary
Commission during the I950S. The Commission was established by
the Nyasaland Government in connection with a plan to control the
water level of the Lake and the outflow of the Shire River.2 While
1 This article, probably written by Henry Chipenbere or Kenyame Chiume, entitled
'Background to the Lake Squabble', appeared in The Standard, 9 November i968. The
same interpretation of the dispute was given to the author by Chiume in an interview in
Dar es Salaam in August i969.
2 In I950 the Nyasaland Department of Surveys commissioned Messrs. Sir William
Halcrow & Partners to undertake the preliminary survey work at an estimated cost of
J300,000.
THE MALAWI -TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 625
such developments might affect the shore population in Tanganyika,
there is no record of any official approach to the authorities in Dar es
Salaam. But a British initiative in July I9501 led to an Agreement
being signed with Portugal in November I954:
the frontier on Lake Nyasa shall run due West from the point where the
frontier of Mozambique and Tanganyika meets the shore of the lake to the
median line of the waters of the same lake and shall then follow the median
line to its point of intersection with the geographical parallel of Beacon
I 7 as described in the exchange of notes of 6 May I 920 which shall
constitute the southern frontier.2
The quid pro quo for this adjustment was Portuguese acceptance of
liability for one third of the cost of the Shire valley scheme.
One further provision of this Agreement may help to throw light
on the origins of the claim by Tanzania. When he raised the issue of
the boundary in the Legislative Council in October 1960, Chief
Mhaiki claimed that the local people had been told that they could
use the Lake for fishing 'only as far as primitive methods are concerned
... when we think of beginning to use new kinds of nets, boats with
engines or we start fishing in co-operative societies, we cannot do so
until permission has been sought from the Nyasaland Government'.3
Article 11 (3) of the British-Portuguese Agreement which established
the arrangement under which the United Kingdom retained sovereignty
over the islands of Chisamulo and Likoma, despite their falling within
Mozambique waters, used a similar wording to describe the fishing
rights of the inhabitants of Nyasaland and Mozambique.4 A reasonable
hypothesis, therefore, might be that this provision was taken over as
an administrative rule-of-thumb by the local authorities in Tanganyika
as applying there also.
The Shire valley scheme, which had formed the background to the
Anglo-Portuguese boundary Agreement, failed to win the support of
the Federal Authorities in Salisbury who gave priority instead to the
1 Exchangeo f Notes betweenH er Majesty's Governmenitn the United Kingdomo f Great Britain
and NorthernI reland and the PortugueseG overnmenptr ovidingf or participationi n the Shire Valley
Projec(tL ondon, I953), Cmd. 8855.
2 Agreemenbt etweent he Governmenotf the United Kingdoma nd NorthernI reland (acting on their
own behalf and on behalf of the Governmenotf the Federationo f Rhodesiaa nd Nyasaland) and the
Governmenotf Portugalr egardingt heN yasalandM ozambiqueF rontier( London, I 962), Cmd. I 866.
For the exchange of notes of 6 May I920, see Treaty Series, No. i6 (London, I920), Cmd. i000.
3 Tanganyika Legislative Council. Official Report, i2 October i960.
4 'The inhabitants of Nyasaland and the inhabitants of Mozambique shall have the
right to use all the waters of Lake Nyasa for fishing and other legitimate purposes, provided
that the methods of fishing which may be employed shall be only those which are agreed
upon by the Government of Nyasaland and the Government of Mozambique'. Cmd.
i 866.
626 JAMES MAYALL
Kariba Dam project in Southern Rhodesia.' Despite Chief Mhaiki's
reference to this as the cause of the inundation of the Lake shore in
I956, it is difficult to see the connection. It is more probable that the
flooding was due to natural causes: the wide meteorological variations
of Lake Nyasa (which has fluctuated through 24 feet since i896), have
long been notorious with adverse consequences for agriculture and
navigation alike.2 Moreover, it seems possible that the floods in I956
was at least partly due to cyclone 'Edith' which appeared off the
East African coast at the beginning of April, causing extensive flooding
in Mozambique and Nyasaland.3 While these observations suggest
the economic absurdity of attempting a planned development of the
resources of the Lake for agriculture, fishing, or transport without
the co-operation of all the littoral states, they none the less hardly
strengthen Tanzania's formal case in her conflict with Malawi over
sovereignty on the Lake.
Finally, therefore, it is necessary to consider the question of motive.
Unlike some other African boundary conflicts, popular passions were
hardly involved in this dispute.4 True the inconsistency in the maps
prompted members of the Legislative Council to raise the matter in
the first place before independence. But, as their speeches indicate,
they were probably motivated more by a desire to express frustration
at what they considered cavalier treatment of the southern region
by the centre, than by hostility to the inhabitants on the opposite side
of the Lake. Some of the peoples of Northern Malawi and Southern
Tanganyika - the Nyakusa, for example - are related, but their
presence in both states has probably acted as a pressure for the
improvement of relations, rather than for any escalation of the conflict.
Why then did Tanzania reverse her position? Although the evidence
is mostly circumstantial, it supports the view that the decision was
essentially a function of the wider conflict between the two states,
arising out of their differing policies towards the 'white South'. In this
context, Tanzania's decision to publicise the Lake dispute may be
understandable, but it was hardly prudent. For it provoked Banda
into an equally categorical repudiation of this claim, and provided
evidence for his suspicions that the T.A.N.U. Government was supporting
efforts to subvert his regime. The Tanzanian case, which rests
on the assertion of an illegal change of the boundary during the period
1 Cf. Patrick Keatley, The Politics of Partnership (Harmondsworth, i963), pp. 136-8.
2 Cf. John G. Pike, Malawi: a political and economich istory( London, i969), pp. i I-I4.
3 NyasalandP rotectorateR. eportfor the rear, 1956 (London, I957), p. I3.
4 Cf. Saadia Touval, The BoundaryP olitics of IndependenAt frica (Cambridge, Mass., 1972),
especially ch. 5, 'The Use of Force'.
THE MALAWI- TANZANIA BOUNDARY DISPUTE 627
of the mandate and trusteeship, may not be without legal foundation,
but is, none the less, weak; in any case, the manner of its presentation
made it virtually certain that Malawi would not accept international
adjudication.
Again, the suggestion that there was a military threat from the
Portuguese and South Africans through Malawi was imprudent. Like
most African states, Tanzania has a small army, most of which is
deployed in the general vicinity of the Ruvuma River to cover the
escape routes for Frelimo freedom fighters from Mozambique. Under
the pressure of confrontation with the Southern African regimes, the
armed forces of Tanzania have been expanded in recent years, but it
is still very doubtful whether she has the capacity to open a second
front, even a defensive one, along the shores of the Lake, or that
President Nyerere would wish to do so.
These considerations may lie behind the fact that there has been
no public reference by either side to the dispute since i968. Not that
the Lake itself has always been quiet. In I97I there were reports
that Malawi had handed over the control of some control boats to
Portuguese officers, who were apparently to keep watch on possible
insurgence against the regime of President Banda, as well as on Frelimo
infiltration into the Nyassa Province of Mozambique.' More recently
there has been a clash between Tanzanian forces and a Portuguese
gunboat operating off-shore, although perhaps significantly there was
no mention of Malawi in this latest incident.2 The fact that the I955
Nyasaland-Mozambique Frontier Agreement gave the Portuguese the
right to operate over 'all the waters' of Lake Nyasa was, from the
Tanzanian point of view, its most objectionable feature.3 But since
it is clear that President Banda will not recognise their case - the
strength of which in law is at best uncertain - there is little to be
gained by pressing the formal boundary dispute any further. It is
arguable, indeed, that if the Tanzanian claim was recognised this
might precipitate a further direct and costly confrontation with the
Portuguese on the Lake.
Meanwhile, although Malawi's relations with Tanzania have remained
strained, those with her western neighbour, Zambia, have
improved, notably by Banda's willingness to help re-route export
traffic, following the closure of the Zambian border with Rhodesia.
1 Colin Legum (ed.), Africa ContemporarRy ecord: annual survey and documents, 1971-72
(London, 1972), B452.
2 The East African Standard (Nairobi), 24 January I973.
3 Cf. McEwan, op. cit. p. 194.
628 JAMES MAYALL
On the other hand, relations with the Portuguese in Mozambique
have deteriorated following their incursions into Malawi in pursuit of
insurgents, and a diplomatic incident which culminated in the withdrawal
of the Portuguese ambassador from Zomba in November I972.1
When the Lake dispute was at its height five years earlier, Zambia
strongly supported Tanzania's claim, which was wrongly interpreted
in Lusaka as a response to Banda's irridentist claims, not only to the
Lake but to parts of Tanzania and eastern Zambia. In the present
circumstances Zambia would seem more likely to restrain her ally
from any tendency to force the issue.
For her part, Malawi has no alternative, in practice, but to acquiesce
in a Tanzanian presence on the Lake, rather as Britain reacted to
the presence of the Germans there before 1914. In the absence of
a major effort by Malawi to control the water level, and to exploit
the resources of the Lake in a more thoroughgoing manner than at
present, it seems likely that the status quo will persist. A substantive
settlement - possibly through the creation of a common Lake Development
Authority2- will have to wait on a more general political detente
between the two states.
1 Africa (London), 14, October I972, and i6, December 5972.
2 Alternatively, Tanzania might purchase a share of the Lake, as Portugal was to have
purchased her share in 1954, by paying Malawi a proportion of the cost of the Shire valley
project. See McEwan, op. cit. p. 205.
Similar Discussions
-
-
Waraka wa wanafunzi wa elimu juu kwa serikali kuhusu migomo na maandamanoya mara kwa mara vyuo vikuu
- Started by MASTAWILY
- Replies: 12
-
Waraka wa wanafunzi wa elimu juu kwa serikali kuhusu migomo
- Started by MASTAWILY
- Replies: 6
-
Waraka wa Wanafunzi wa Elimu ya Juu kwa Serikali
- Started by Magobe T
- Replies: 9