From: The Guardian:
Trini asks Govt for help with Tanzania property...
Get me back my coffee estate
Prior Beharry
Published: 7 Jun 2010
LEFT: Sohooba Keith Smith
RIGHT: Surujrattan Rambachan
Prior Beharry
Newly-appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Surujrattan Rambachan, is promising to look into the case of T&T-born Sohooba Keith Smith, who says a coffee estate was illegally taken away from him in Tanzania. For the past 16 years, Smith has been trying to return to Tanzania and his 1,750-acre coffee estate. Rambachan said yesterday he did not know about the case, “but if it comes to me, I will give it my attention.” Smith, 59, a US resident, left T&T in 1969, and did a number of odd jobs, saving his money while always dreaming of making a living in Africa—the home of his ancestors. He made his money hosting parties and said he was one of the first black men to work with the Miami-Dade Parks and Recreation Service. Smith began visiting countries in Africa during the late 1970s, and said he had lived in almost every country in East Africa.
His opportunity to live in Africa came in 1979, when Tanzania President Julius Nyerere invited people of the African Diaspora to repatriate to that country as part of his socialist experiment. In a telephone interview from New York, last week, Smith said: “I knew, then, this is what I had dreamt of.” He said they were allowed three years to bring in their personal belongings without paying taxes. Smith said among the group of people going to make a living in Tanzania was David Robinson—son of Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play major league baseball in the US. Soon he fell in love with and began to purchase the Ndamakai Coffee Estates. Smith said the price was listed as one million Tanzanian shillings, and he had paid 750,000 shillings as part of the purchasing agreement.
He said he was still learning to speak the native language of Kiswahili, but found some fame as he was one of only two black landowners in the area. The locals referred to him as mzungumousi—a black white man. Smith said for the next seven years, equipment and livestock were stolen from his estate, when his watchmen were attacked. He said he had sought help from the US Embassy, but was told to seek assistance at the grass roots level and work his way up. Smith made numerous reports to the police and government officials; held and filed charges against the criminals stealing from his estate, but the police did nothing. On May 11, 1987, Smith returned home and found that intruders were trying to murder his wife and children and remove him from his property. He said in trying to ward off the intruders, he shot one in self-defence. Smith said he drove the wounded man to hospital and then made a report to the police.
Later that day, associates of the man took him from hospital and he bled to death while in a car travelling for hours along rough mountainous roads. He was arrested the next morning and charged for murder. Smith said the only lawyer willing to represent him fraudulently obtained the keys to his property, fabricated a bill of sale and admitted a German expatriate onto it. All this, he said, happened within three weeks of his arrest. He was convicted of murder and spent three years as a condemned prisoner. With the help of his mother, Barbara, who travelled to Tanzania with T&T High Commissioner Frank Sealy, Smith said he was granted presidential pardon in 1993. He then left Tanzania as a prohibited immigrant. Smith is now in New York, and with the help of Diane Gurwitz, a video producer, he is trying to make representations to return to Tanzania and enjoy his estate.
Little help
Smith has written to a number of Trinidad and Tobago foreign ministers, with little success. He said in 2007, then Prime Minister Patrick Manning met with Tanzania’s President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, and Foreign Minister Bernard Membe in Dar es Salaam and discussed the case. He said Membe began an investigation and assigned one of his ministry’s lawyers, who found evidence of Smith’s ownership of the land in the Land Office. Smith said it was also discovered that the property was sold while it was under government investigation.
He also wrote to former foreign affairs minister Arnold Piggott, in 2007, asking him to raise the matter at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Uganda that year. But, he said it was not raised and neither at the CHOGM which was held in Port-of-Spain, last year. Dr Wilbrod Peter Slaa, an MP in Tanzania, is hoping to raise Smith’s case in the country’s Parliament this week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkEHWfj-Dlc