Area in focus for the wrong reasons

Arusha. Residents had for many years known the area as Kaloleni, but was renamed Soweto from the late 1970s, not because it had any links to the anti-apartheid struggle of those days.

The Arusha suburb earned the name simply because the new low-cost residential houses built in the area by the former East African Community (EAC) resembled those built in Soweto, near Johannesburg, for black South Africans.

The real Soweto became known throughout the world as the epicentre of the struggle against apartheid in the 1970s.

The fact that the Soweto area in Arusha has in the past few days turned into a scene of violent clashes between Chadema supporters and the police as well as a deadly bomb attack that killed three people and injured scores is just a coincidence.

The estate had hundreds of residential units which after the collapse of the EAC in 1977, were taken over by the Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC), a parastatal established as a holding company for property that formerly belonged to the EAC.

Although the area, just north of Arusha city centre, officially remains known officially as Kaloleni, it is popularly called all over the place and beyond as Soweto. There are reasons why the name stuck. It was a new residential suburb for the ordinary workers as the new fashion name Soweto came into the picture across Africa. For Arusha then, this was a growing suburb for the middle class.

Over the years, Soweto (Kaloleni) had grown alongside with the some of the oldest residential quarters which were built for junior African civil servants in the pre-Second World War Days.

The suburb became famous because it had many groceries, bars and guest houses and, as time went on, it was a favourite destination for travellers reaching Arusha also because of its proximity to the main bus terminal.

There were other reasons for that. The area was relatively peaceful as fewer crime incidents were reported as compared to other parts of Arusha, especially at the height of a crime wave prior to 2007.

As businesses picked up, the area attracted investors from near and far. New middle class property were put up, guest houses upgraded as posh residential areas came in.

Big investors have eyed the area and now at least two shopping malls are shortly to be put up. Soweto gained popularity not because of what many others had associated the name but a peaceful and safe neighbourhood.

In the middle of the estate, is a huge open space set aside for sports, one of them being basketball court where a grenade attack took place on Saturday, killing three people and injuring more than 70 others.

It was not clear if the area, which remains the property of AICC, had been used for political meetings in the past. Understandably, however, it has been used for open air functions.

Chadema’s presence on Saturday to wind up their month-long by-election campaign did not happen because the opposition party might have applied and paid to use the venue.

It was simply because one of the wards whose councillor seat was vacant was Kaloleni. The others are Elerai, Themi and Kimandolu. The seats were formerly occupied by Chadema politicians but fell vacant after they were stripped of the party membership.

And when the fatal explosion rocked one of the most attended rallies for the month-long campaigns, many did not believe on what had happened. The Chadema meetings and rallies have been associated with some fracas, but mostly involving tear gas.

May be Soweto is not the same as some Arusha people had thought when they gave it a new name. It could unfortunately gain notoriety associated with the J’burg suburb as witnessed by yesterday’s chaos and Saturday’s blast.