Inside Samia Suluhu’s historic 3-Day Russia visit

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan began her three-day visit to Russia on Wednesday, at a time where her country’s reputation has been badly smeared.

Samia has met her counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The western diplomats and human rights groups accused her government of causing the deaths of hundreds of people during the election period in Tanzania.

Apart from the mass killings, her government was also accused of conducting abductions and murders of critics in the political race.

The United States had gone further to announce that it was going to review its relations with Tanzania in the chaos of violence that had risen. 

On to show its seriousness, the United States sanctioned a senior police officer over the torture of two activists.

Contrasting the political environment then, Putin was on the forefront to congratulate Hassan on the election victory.

Putin says that he is excited and pleased to see president Samia Suluhu and called out for the two countries to engage more so as to ‘’increase trade’’.

A Russian-Tanzanian Business council was created in January and in the last month, Air Tanzania announced the launch of flights from Dar es Salaam to Moscow before the end of the year.

Samia has carried along with her a business delegation to Moscow in an effort to cement deals in trade, tourism and minerals.

She is the first president in the history of Tanzania to make a trip to Russia since the reign of Tanzanian’s founding father, Julius Nyerere who travelled there in October 1969.

A professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, who opted to remain anonymous cited that Russia can use the support ‘’ even if just for an abstention  for a critical vote at the UN’’ over the war in Ukraine.

According to Fergus Kell, who is of British think tank Chatham House, said  that Russia did not have much to gain from Samia’s visit rather  was taking the opportunity  of a weakened Tanzanian administration.

A government’s report into last year’s election showed that 518 people were killed but did there was no answer of who committed the murders neither have there been visible efforts of accountability.

President Samia on the other hand has not been apologetic or show any signs of remorse concerning the political tension that took place during the election period, instead she has described activists and protestors as ‘’disrespectful children’’ who should be disciplined through caning.