BORDER CONFLICT: Malawi now turns to British lawyers

By The Citizen Reporters, Lilongwe/Dar es Salaam.

Malawi is now banking on British legal expertise to ensure it wins the border row with Tanzania over the ownership of Lake Nyasa.Government officials in Lilongwe have said they will hire British lawyers to help make their case both in negotiations with the government of Tanzania and in a possible international arbitration. The Solicitor General and Principal Secretary for Justice, Mr Anthony Kamanga, confirmed this development to a section of the Malawian press but did not name the British lawyers. 

They will reportedly work with their Malawian counterparts on a legal paper to back that country’s claims that it owns the entire lake, officially known in Malawi as Lake Malawi, based on the 1890 treaty between the two colonial masters, Britain and Germany.

The Malawi legal team will also comprise the Attorney General and Justice Minister, the Solicitor General, a senior lawyer from the Justice Department and a law expert from academia.

Malawi hopes the legal paper will give it the upper hand in the talks with Tanzania that are expected to resume soon.

Negotiations screeched to a stop early this month after Malawi accused Tanzania of provocation by publishing a new map that showed the boundary bang in the middle of the lake. Tanzania was also accused of harassing Malawian fishermen.

Tanzania then frantically tried to woo Malawi back to the talks with a new round scheduled for October 27.

The Permanent Secretary of the Tanzanian ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr John Haule, told The Citizen last week that Malawi was invited for the talks but had yet to respond.

On Wednesday, Malawian minister for Foreign Affairs Ephraim Chiume told The Citizen there had been no official communication between the two countries on the October 27 meeting. “We have not received any communication from Tanzania,” he said, “and we cannot go to talks based on media reports.” 

Once protocol matters were resolved, he said, they would prepare a formal response. When pressed to confirm whether Tanzania actually sent the invitation for the talks, Mr Haule referred The Citizen to the country’s representative in Lilongwe.

He added:  “The High Commission should be in a better position to confirm the issue because it is the official channel we use to reach the Malawian government.”  

The Tanzanian High Commissioner to Malawi, Mr Patrick Tsere, referred The Citizen to the minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr Bernard Membe. Efforts to reach Mr Membe bore no fruit.

In another development, the British government has said it favours the Organisation for African Unity’s decision that colonial era borders should be respected. The OAU is the predecessor organisation of the African Union (AU).

Responding to queries on where the British government stood on the matter, Mr Philip Gilbert, the officer in charge of the Tanzania docket at the Africa Directorate of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said the UK could not get entangled in the dispute between two sovereign states. 

“Although the UK has historical links with the region,” he said, “we believe that the OAU’s decision that colonial era borders should be respected marked a definitive end to any vestigial UK responsibility for such matters.” 

The two countries should resolve the dispute bilaterally or through a regional or international body, he added.  

Malawi claims it owns all of Lake Nyasa on the basis of the 1890 treaty which, it says, was later reaffirmed by the OAU when the country gained its independence in the early 1960s. 

But Tanzania says the Anglo-Germany Treaty that gave Malawi sole ownership of the lake was flawed and it has every reason to demand a review.

Reported by Rex Chikoko in Lilongwe, Damas Kanyabwoya and Songa wa Songa in Dar es Salaam.

Source: The Citizen (27/10/2012): http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/component/content/article/37-tanzania-top-news-story/26817-malawi-now-turns-to-british-lawyers.html