Ali Hassan MwinyiMr. President, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen:
First, Mr. President, may I give a very warm welcome to you and Mrs. Mwinyi and to distinguished members of your delegation here to No. 10 Downing Street this evening (applause). It is an honour for us to be able to entertain you here and we are so delighted that you were able to accept our invitation to come here at a time which was, I know, not the easiest for you and we take it as a compliment that you chose to be with us this evening.
You are, of course, no stranger to Britain, You took a good deal of your education at one of our ancient universities—the University of Durham—whose F.T.G. HollidayVice-Chancellor is here this evening to welcome you back! I think perhaps you can probably teach him a thing or too now, but I have no doubt that you learned quite a lot about education during your sojourn at that university.
Alas, I have not yet visited Tanzania. I say “not yet” , because you were kind enough to give me an invitation. I have heard so much about it but not yet seen it, but in any event, whether we have been there or not the links between this country and Tanzania are very close, because great and intrepid men like Dr. Livingstone, Burton and Speke set our from your native Zanzibar into the heart of Africa. They found a land rich in natural wonders. Africa's highest mountain, which I have only seen by flying through to Kenya, Kilimanjaro, standing beautifully through the clouds. They found the world's second deepest lake, Tanganyika, and the third largest lake, Victoria. Also, many of our children have been brought up on these marvellous stories of exploration and so we feel that we know Tanzania and we feel a part of the land which is your home.
We are all honorary Tanzanians in another way, because the earliest traces of human civilisation dating to three million years ago were found in Tanzania. You gave us a very good start, Sir! (applause) and we are very grateful to you!
We knew your Julius Nyererepredecessor very well indeed. He has dined where you are sitting now and frequently he took advantage of a habit and custom we have that when distinguished heads of state and government are passing through London, they come and have what is known as a “working lunch” , which is not in this grand state dining room, but in the small one next door, where we have sorted out many many problems and where Julius used to come, particularly over the time when we were concerned with the independence of Rhodesia and taking (changing) from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, and Julius used to come.
I learned so much from Julius, I am sure you did too—that is another thing we have in common—and so did a number of other politicians here. I have always been brought up in science and in law; therefore, I deal with facts, with sense, with logic. Not so Julius! Never! Never! [end p1] Facts? Good Heavens, Julius would never … “Do not deal with such things!” Logic? Julius had more than facts or logic; Julius had a silver tongue and I learned then, you know, how to deal with men with a silver tongue!
Julius came next door one day when we were nearly through the negotiations with Zimbabwe—we had nearly got to the end—and Julius came in for his final consultation and he sat in that room there and he said: “Margaret, I don't understand how it is going to happen! How are you going to do it? You have an army of Mr. Nkomo, an army of Mr. Mugabe and an army of Rhodesia—three armies! How can you make one? I do not understand! How can you put three into one?” and I said: “Never mind, Julius, never mind!” —I had learned to deal with him by this time!— “Never mind! We will send our policemen to be outside the ballot stations for the vote; we will send our army to be very restrained to keep order, and whatever happens we will abide by the result of it. Never mind, Julius, we will look after it!” —and we did—and so I was very pleased that I had learned by that time to deal with a silver tongue and, as you know, it all turned out extremely well. But for a lot of us Julius was Tanzania until you took over.
Probably the time when you took over, Mr. President, and some of the problems that your country had had to deal with … and also, if I might say, the great help that Tanzania has always given to her neighbours … no matter whether Tanzania has problems or not, Tanzania has a tradition of helping countries and people who are even worse off and whom her wisdom can help. Perhaps because of all of those things, when you took over, Mr. President, you faced quite an economic crisis and a political crisis—enormous problems—but your difficulties were mainly those of economic circumstances and you had to set about having a whole new policy and, as so often happens, when things are really bad you have to take drastic action, and then the question comes: how can you explain to the people? How can you get their support? Because you must have their support to do the things you have to do and how can you motivate them to do the things which you know need to be done?
You were successful. As you told me, when you took over Tanzania was in fact importing half her food. She is now, in fact, growing most of her food—about 80 percent; all of her maize; a surplus of cotton, a surplus of maize, and a great deal else besides. That was a very very considerable achievement.
You also had to negotiate with the IMF, which is something which a number of countries have to do and you had to get the exchange rate right and you had to go through a series of very very difficult circumstances. It means—as we know full well—getting the policies right for the long-term, in spite of the short-term difficulties. But of course in politics, as you and I know and every politician knows, the short-term difficulties come to you immediately and you have to explain about the long-term solutions and the long-term hope and it is not always easy. But you never flinched from taking the difficult decisions.
And now I have just a little bit of Swahili to say to you, if I can get it right, because I want to indicate how right you were in the decisions you took:
Um Sema Quali Hakosi (phon) (applause) Um sema Quala Hakosi [end p2] “A truth-teller is never wrong!” Sir, you were the truth-teller and we salute you for it! (applause)
We have tried to support you through your times of difficulty and you are one of those very marvellous heads of state and government who actually thanks one for doing it. A true gentleman! May I thank you for the thanks? And because you have been so marvellous in the things which you have done, we have been able to find a little bit extra for this visit, so if they say: “Was your journey really necessary?” you will be able to say: “Yes, it was!” Because of the admiration we have for the things you are doing, because of the friendship for your people, we have been able to find an extra little gift of ten million which I know will help your balance of payments and the projects which you need, because you have come to that time in your restructuring programme where you need a little extra boost to get through it.
May I also say it is not only helping in that way. When we have our great friends from Africa come and when we are able to give a little bit of aid, that is not the end of the story. You have our goodwill as well. That is not the end of the story. We, in countries like this, have to keep our markets open so the Tanzanian people can sell their produce for (to) us. Because they want to earn their way, they want trade as well as aid, and some of their main exports may well be in the agricultural field. Yes, this may give us problems, but we have to tackle those because unless Tanzania and other countries can export their agricultural produce they have no other way of pulling themselves up and gaining some of the investment and some of the foreign exchange which they need. So we have to keep our markets open and this will be one of the things, Mr. President, which will engage us at the Toronto Summit, because as you know, I am afraid the western world subsidises its agriculture—both the United States and Europe and Japan—so heavily that sometimes we hinder those countries in the developing world which we most want to help. We shall try to do our bit in that.
Also, with regard to debt, as you know, a certain other country's President has made pronouncements today on debt and it is our great pride that our Chancellor of the Nigel LawsonExchequer made similar but more forceful pronouncements a year ago on debt (applause) and had other countries in fact followed his example then, we would have settled quite a number of the problems. However, the important thing is that we manage to get them settled and we shall indeed do our part in that way.
You have recently, Mr. President, given a great deal of help to another neighbour—to Mozambique—which has gone through acute difficulty. You have something like 3,000 people from your armed forces there. We too have given help to Mozambique. Another link we have in common. As you have given help to Mozambique, so we have tried to give help to you, but we give help because we can give help; we give help because you are one of our great friends; because we have many things in common; and because we feel this fundamental link of friendship, kinship, with Tanzania; because we feel it is part of our history as well as yours.
And so you have brought new hope, Mr. President—new hope to your people, new hope to a number of other countries is Africa—because of the approach you have taken.
May we say to you that when you return we hope you will take with us (you) the warm good wishes, greetings and friendship of the people of Britain, very heartfelt, and also may I say to you that we wish you and Mrs. Mwinyi—whom we are delighted to see with us this evening—health, happiness and great success, and we wish the same to your people. [end p3]
May I ask you, therefore, to rise now and drink a toast to the health, happiness and success of the Tanzanian people and the personal health, happiness and success of the President and Mrs. Mwinyi (applause).