JK: We'll pursue the culprits far and near

Arusha/Dar es Salaam. The people responsible for last Sunday’s deadly attack at a church in Arusha will be tracked down wherever they are, President Kikwete vowed yesterday.

“We will pursue them both inside and outside the country and bring them to justice,” he said in Arusha after visiting the Vatican’s ambassador to Tanzania, Archbishop Francisco Montecillo Padilla. The envoy escaped unhurt during the attack, which took place as he was presiding over the consecration of a new church in the city’s Olasiti area.

President Kikwete earlier visited the relatives of three people killed in the blast and was later scheduled to visit the injured at Mount Meru and St Elizabeth hospitals. President Kikwete arrived in Arusha after cutting short his three-day state visit to Kuwait.

Earlier, Arusha Regional Commissioner Magesa Mulongo told President Kikwete that nine people, including three Tanzanians, had been arrested in connection with the attack.
The other suspects are three Saudis, one United Arab Emirates national and their two hosts, whose nationalities were not revealed.

In Dar es Salaam, Defence and National Service minister Shamsi Vuai Nahodha said Tanzania was experiencing the most trying times since independence due to persistent attacks on churches and clerics and threats to peace and security nationwide.

To avert a total breakdown of peace, religious leaders and politicians must avoid making statements that might incite the people into widespread violence, he said at a religious symposium yesterday.

The two-day event brought together more than 200 Dar es Salaam religious leaders to brainstorm on how to end attacks that have lately left five Christian clerics and believers dead. Scores others have been wounded in the past six months.

The symposium comes on the heels of President Jakaya Kikwete’s directive to regional commissioners to meet clerics and work out conclusive solutions to the religious tensions.

Mr Nahodha told the religious leaders that it was in their power to stop the attacks. He added: “Religious leaders have more powers than politicians in society. These attacks could stop in just an hour if those perpetrating them wished to.’’ The minister warned that the government would leave no stone unturned in investigating the attacks.

The symposium comes two days after a bomb exploded outside St Joseph Parish in Olasiti, Arusha. One person was killed at the scene and 66 others were injured. Two more people died in hospital, including nine-year-old Patricia Joachim.

The attack took place as the Holy See’s envoy to Tanzania, Archbishop Francisco Padilla, was about to open a new church building.

Twenty four people had been treated and discharged as of yesterday. The majority of those injured were being treated at Mt Meru hospital. One was referred to Muhimbili National Hospital and some are at Selian hospital in Arusha.

When he visited the scene of the attack earlier yesterday, Mr Pinda said Christianity would not come to an end because of violence targeting clerics and churches. “People will not stop being Christians simply because some thugs are killing clerics and vandalising churches,” said Mr Pinda, himself a Christian. “So what is the point?”

When he visited the injured at Mount Meru hospital, he directed doctors to keep the shrapnel removed from the bodies of the victims and hand it to investigators.

“We want the investigators to work with the pieces so as to establish the kind of the bomb which was used,” he added.

“We want to know if it was made locally or if it originated in our armies.”

Reported by Katare Mbashiru and Frank Kimboy in Dar es Salaam and Mussa Juma and Daniel Sabuni in Arusha