The recent protests in southern Tanzania were triggered by grievances regarding natural gas discoveries, but regional discontent has deep historical roots.
On 22 May, 2013 protests and street battles erupted in the southern Tanzanian region of Mtwara in response to the government's handling of mineral resource wealth and the contracts it has signed with various international actors.
The army and police were sent to quell the unrest, using teargas and live rounds, in the main southern town of Mtwara and in Mikindani, a smaller town around ten kilometres away in which at least three people died. Government and state-friendly media sources have typically portrayed the events as thoughtless violence and wanton criminality. However, this detracts from a widespread and more urgent malaise about how the government has handled the discovery of natural resources.
The 'hidden agenda' against the south
Until recently, the Mtwara region, on the border with Mozambique and looking across the Indian Ocean, did not receive much attention from the media, multinational corporations or the Tanzania government. The region had been best known for its Makonde wood carvings, its cashew nuts, and little else, and was often perceived as somewhat traditional or backwards.
It is common for Tanzanians from other parts of the country to refer to those from the south - which conventionally means the Ruvuma, Lindi, and Mtwara regions - as washamba, which can be literally translated as 'farmers' but is often used as a pejorative term more accurately translated as 'hicks' or 'peasants'.
These regions are not particularly well connected to the rest of the country, especially owing to the fact that the main trunk road south from Dar es Salaam remains tantalisingly unfinished - in spite of a promise made at independence in 1961 that the road would be completed quickly.
Many view this physical detachment as symbol of southern dislocation from the broader history of Tanzania, and some contend it is the result of deliberate ostracism by central government. Some have argued that this marginalisation has an historical precedent, a 'hidden agenda' against the south that apparently followed the Maji Maji rebellion against German colonial rule (1905-7).
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