Chissano dates JB on lake dispute

Former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano is expected in Malawi this Sunday to meet President Joyce Banda on the Malawi-Tanzania Lake Malawi border dispute.

Chissano is the chief mediator in the dispute in a team comprising three former Heads of State from the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc) countries.

He will be accompanied by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, who is also a member of the mediation team that also includes former president of Botswana Festus Mogae.

In an interview on Wednesday, presidential press secretary Steven Nhlane confirmed the visit of the two former leaders and said the discussions are expected to be held at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe.

He said: “Accompanying Chissano will be [former] president Thabo Mbeki. I can also confirm that the two are coming to hold discussions with President Dr Joyce Banda on the Malawi-Tanzania Lake Malawi border issue.”

As chairperson of the Forum of Former Heads of State of Sadc, Chissano was mandated to find a solution to the protracted dispute which has raised tensions between the two neighbours.

In the lake stand-off, Malawi is asserting full ownership of the lake except the south-eastern stretch in Mozambique whereas Tanzania is claiming the north-eastern half on its shores.

Malawi’s argument is based on a July 1 1890 treaty between Britain and Germany that maps the boundary between the two countries along the Tanzanian shore.

On the other hand, the neighbours are invoking the 1982 UN Convention on Law of the Sea that stipulates that in cases where nations are separated by a water body, the boundary lies in the middle of the water source.

According to the Anglo-German Treaty, the boundary “follows the course of the Ruvuma to the point of the confluence of the Msinje; thence it runs westward to Lake Nyasa; thence striking northward, it follows the eastern, northern and western shores of the lake to the northern bank of the mouth of the River Songwe; it ascends that river to the point of intersection by 30 degrees of east longitude….”

This treaty, the earliest available record of the boundary, places the boundary between then German East Africa and Nyasaland on the Tanzanian shore, according to the first volume of The Map of Africa in 1909.

A subsequent Anglo-German agreement of 1901 on the partition of Nyasaland and Tanganyika (Tanzania Mainland) modified the bank of Songwe River but said nothing about the lake.

The status quo remained in force until the end of World War I in 1918, when defeated Germany surrendered Tanganyika to the British mandate of East Africa in accordance with the Versailles Treaty of 1919.

However, there were undocumented shifts of the border when Tanzania was placed under the United Nations (UN) Trust later.

Chissano and Mbeki’s visit is the first major activity in the effort to deal with the dispute diplomatically after several months of mere tough rhetoric by both Lilongwe and Dodoma.

News of the forum’s visit comes a week after Banda last Thursday met prominent opposition leaders in the country to brief them on the progress of the mediation.