Malawi angers Tanzania

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Peter Mutharika

Malawi’s decision to burn a stockpile of ivory worth K5 billion has angered Tanzania who wanted to use the ivory.

Peter Mutharika
President Mutharika inspecting the ivory last March

The East African country says it is not amused with Malawi’s move to burn the 2.6 tonnes of ivory which it said would have been used to prosecute ivory smugglers.

The Tanzanians say the burning of the ivory will jeopardise a case in which some people are being accused of smuggling the ivory from Malawi.

“Tanzania is not amused with the decision to burn ivory. The problem is that it will affect cases in Tanzania. With the ivory destroyed, the case may be hard to prove,” said lawyer Christon Ghambi.

Ghambi said Malawi should have burned the ivory after the conclusion of the ivory related cases in Tanzania.

Malawi seized the 781 pieces of ivory from smugglers who were travelling from Tanzania, at one of its border posts, in 2013.

Tanzania has since last year claimed that a portion of the ivory was taken from its national parks and game reserves, hence it should have been returned to the East African country.

Malawi burned the ivory after a court ruled that the tusks should be burned by March 14.

Malawians however faulted government for going ahead to burn the ivory arguing that the elephants had already been killed and the country will not gain anything by destroying the tusks.

But Malawi’s director of Parks and Wildlife, Brighton Kumchedwa, said that while the move would not prevent the illegal killing of elephants, it would help prevent smuggling.

“By burning the elephants’ tusks, we actually remove the ivory from the market and that reduces the incentive for people to engage in smuggling,” he said