EDITORIAL : Let’s get to the bottom of these cowardly acts

Just before down on Saturday, a yet to be identified gang of four lobbed two petrol bombs into a church at Segerea in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.

All Tanzanians of good will are relieved there were no human casualties, but they must be horrified that there are people among us who can execute such terrorism.

There had been such senseless, cowardly attacks in Zanzibar, like when a pastor was shot dead in February; or when two worshippers died after a bomb was thrown into a church compound in Arusha in May.

It is painful to recount these incidents, for they are happening in our country that has a history of being viewed as an island of peace in a continent known for civil strife.

What kind of Tanzanians are these who attack the innocent with bombs; or with acid like it happened in Zanzibar earlier this month, when two British teenage girls were thus assaulted?

Attacks of this nature cannot be the work of common criminals; they must be acts of individuals with an agenda to ruin our country.

What Internet surfers across the world are now likely to be bombarded with won’t be attributes of say, the Kilimanjaro, Serengeti and Manyara wonders or our sandy beaches.

Or, the fact that presidents of the world’s two largest economies, China and the United States, have recently toured Tanzania, making ours the envy of some 50 other African nations they skipped.

The focus is likely to be on the plight of “Christians worried of where to go for worship”, or “foreign visitors scared of venturing out of their hotel rooms!”

These attacks cannot be just about some crazy religious zealots. They must be calculated attacks on our national integrity and our economy. 

Our security systems must pull all the stops and get to the root of it all, for the very survival of the nation is at stake.