A commission appointed by Tanzania’s government on Thursday said that the deadly violence that followed last year’s presidential election was fomented by well-trained agitators with outside help and the authorities were not to blame.
The commission was set up by President Samia Suluhu Hassan as the first consolidated attempt by the state to explain the worst violence of its kind since Tanzania gained independence in the 1960s. In a speech on receiving the report, Ms. Hassan said that what had happened “shook the nation.”
Yet the findings outlined by commission chairman Mohamed Chande Othman, a former chief justice of Tanzania, presented a picture at odds with human rights groups, which estimated that hundreds and possibly thousands of people were killed during the crackdown.
Without providing evidence, Mr. Chande said that the violence was carefully planned and financed by outside forces and others that wanted to destabilize the country. The commission completed extensive research, but was unable to substantiate earlier reports of a mass grave, he said. It also provided a provisional death toll of 518 people.
Mr. Chande said that it was not the commission’s place to investigate crimes, but concluded that the security forces had exercised restraint and used force proportionately.
In her speech on national television, Ms. Hassan appealed to Tanzania’s history of social harmony and said she sympathized with the victims and with parents who had lost children.
She called for reconciliation and placed the blame on the government’s opponents. “The objective of those involved was to disrupt the election and create a leadership vacuum so that the country would become ungovernable,” she said. Outside agitators seeking to plunder resources are usually responsible for conflicts in Africa, she said.
Human Rights Watch said last month that Tanzanian security forces had acted with impunity after the election, shooting and killing protesters as well as bystanders in many parts of the country. “At least hundreds” of people died, the report said.
Other groups have suggested higher numbers may have been killed.
The release of the report on Thursday came against the backdrop of what political analysts see as a retreat from democracy in Tanzania, an East African country of around 70 million people.
The main opposition leader, Tundu Lissu, was detained a year ago and is on trial for treason. His party, Chadema, was barred from contesting the vote last October. The ruling party, Chama Cha Mapenduzi, has been in power for decades, and was the only major party on the ballot. Chadema called for an election boycott.
Ms. Hassan was declared the winner with 98 percent of the vote, and a turnout of 87 percent. The African Union criticized the election. Senator Jim Risch, the Foreign Relations Committee’s chairman, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the committee’s ranking member, called for the United States to reassess its relations with the country.
It was not immediately clear whether the commission’s statement on Thursday would mollify concern from some of the country’s international partners. John Heche, the deputy leader of Chadema, called the report a “total lie.”
“It is shifting the blame from the killers and the people who ordered people to be killed to innocent civilians,” he said in an interview.
