"RELEASE OUR AIRBUS" - TANZANIA DEMONSTRATORS TOLD SOUTH AFRICA

By Correspondent, Dar es Salaam TANZANIA

A group of demonstrators today marched to the offices of South African High Commission to Tanzania in Dar es Salaam city chanting slogans demanding the release of an Air Tanzania Corporation Ltd., plane that was impounded at Oliver Tambo international airport on Friday August 23.

The demonstrators carried placards demanding South African government intervene and release the impounded plane immediately, other were written ‘We risked, we sacrificed, for your independence – today you feel proud to hold our airbus.’

Details on who exactly called for the demonstrations are still very scanty but police who arrested three people in connection with the demonstration were at hand to maintain law and order.

The Dar es Salaam Special Zone Police Commander, Lazaro Mambosasa, told reporters that the demonstration had no blessings of the police force and the organizer did not gave prior report.

Field Force Unit of Tanzania police warning the demonstrators

He said, “What these the demonstrators are demanding is a matter being resolved legally. We, the police have ordered them to stop what they are doing.”

The aircraft with registration number 5H-TCH was operating on the regularly scheduled TC208 flight to Johannesburg, but did not operate the return leg flight number TC209 to Dar es Salaam.  It was impounded through a Gauteng high court order in Johannesburg.

Lawyer Roger Wakefield who represents a retired farmer, Hermanus Phillipus Steyn, has said the aircraft was impounded because Tanzania's government had not paid his client $33m (£28.8m) it owes in compensation.

He said the money was awarded after Tanzania's government seized lands belonging to the South African farmer.

The lawyer said the only way Tanzania could secure the release of the plane was if it put up security or paid the debt.

Adding that “The plane was impounded in line with South African and international laws allowing for an asset owned by a foreign entity to be attached to a case related to a foreign arbitration award”.

The plane was chosen because there is evidence it is owned directly by the Tanzanian government and its value is commensurate with the amount owed to the farmer, who was born in Namibia, he said. - Africa