A BOMBARDIER PLANE HAS BEEN SEIZED IN A BATTLE FOR PAYMENT BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF TANZANIA, WHICH BOUGHT THE TURBOPROP, AND A U.K. CONSTRUCTION COMPANY THAT SAYS IT’S OWED MILLIONS.
Issue highlights concern over human rights
A marooned Bombardier airliner is at the centre of a strange international dispute that has prompted a direct appeal to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from Tanzania’s president, and highlighted growing human rights issues in the east African nation.
The Q400 turboprop, bought by Tanzania but not delivered, was recently ordered impounded by a Quebec Superior Court judge at the request of a British construction company that claims the country owes it millions.
Meanwhile, the opposition politician who first exposed the airplane’s seizure — and was briefly arrested for embarrassing the government over the affair — is recovering from an assassination attempt, fuelling fears of creeping authoritarianism in Tanzania.
President John Magufuli defiantly promised last week to get the plane back, saying he had written a letter about it to Trudeau, and dispatched a senior cabinet minister to Canada to press Tanzania’s case.
“They thought we would pay the money through intimidation,” Magufuli said in a speech reported by the English-language Citizen newspaper. “We will not. We will pursue the issue through legal channels.”
But the president’s diplomatic entreaties — his missive was delivered in person by the foreign minister — appear to have been for naught.
In a letter Trudeau sent back, released to the National Post, the prime minister said he couldn’t do anything while the case is before the courts.
“It is unfortunate that this situation has delayed the delivery of the aircraft,” Trudeau wrote. “However … the government of Canada is not in a position to intervene. We are confident that the court will adjudicate in the highest order of professionalism and impartiality.”
The plane was one of five ordered from the Montrealbased company for state-run Air Tanzania, part of a push to attract more tourists by improving travel options.
One then fell prey to a dispute over a road-construction project by Britishregistered Stirling Civil Engineering, which appears to operate chiefly from a base in Uganda.
The Tanzanian government cancelled the contract before it was finished and refused to pay Stirling, according to local news reports. An arbitration court then reportedly awarded the firm $28 million for its work, plus interest.
When the government did not pay up, Stirling obtained a court order registering the award in Britain, and earlier this year requested a Ugandan judge to do the same. That court refused, calling it a bid to “undermine the sovereignty” of Tanzania.
Stirling then appears to have asked the Quebec Superior Court to register the award and order the Bombardier plane seized against it.
Stirling did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The seizure was first exposed in Tanzania this August by Tundu Lissu, an opposition member of parliament and human rights lawyer.
The “fierce and outspoken” government critic was promptly apprehended and accused of insulting the president, one of his six arrests this year, according to Amnesty International.
Two weeks after revealing the Bombardier affair, Lissu was shot repeatedly outside his home in the Tanzanian administrative capital of Dodoma.
Amnesty condemned the “heinous crime” and urged the government to properly investigate the shooting, noting “space for dissent is quickly shrinking.”
There has been no evidence tying the attempted assassination to the government, with Magufuli — whose nickname is the Bulldozer — denouncing the shooting as a “barbaric act.”
But concern about the regime has increased since Magufuli’s 2015 election at the head of a party that has ruled Tanzania since independence. Four news outlets critical of the government have been shut down, journalists arrested and opposition political rallies banned.
“Magufuli is indeed controversial — admired by some for cracking down on corruption, weak performance by civil servants, et cetera, but also (disliked) for being very heavy handed in other respects,” said Stephen Rockel, an expert on East African history at the University of Toronto. “He advocates expelling pregnant girls from school, and has begun to exert extreme intolerance over homosexuality.”
Still, Rockel said political repression is rare in mainland Tanzania, which has been a relative oasis of stability in Africa since its independence.
An official at the Tanzanian high commission in Ottawa refused to discuss the case.