Tanzania and Kenya and their tiresomely recurring disputes

Tanzania and Kenya have narrowly escaped another tit-for-tat that would have severely hurt their economies.

On January 15, 2024, Tanzania announced that it would suspend Kenya Airways passenger flights to Dar es Salaam.

The decision was in retaliation for “Kenya’s recent denial of Tanzania’s request for cargo flights by its carrier, Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL), between Nairobi and third countries” (The Citizen).

Apparently, the threat of retaliation made Kenya change its mind and it allowed ATCL operations in Nairobi. As a result, Tanzania lifted the ban on Kenya Airways.

However, even when these types of threats are subsequently resolved, they are disruptive and create uncertainty, especially given their recurrence.

The love-hate relationship between Tanzania and Kenya goes all the way back to the colonial era.

Britain was not invested in Tanganyika the way it was in Kenya. When these countries gained independence and subsequently established the EAC, there was wide economic disparity between them.

This disparity, eventually, contributed to the collapse of the former EAC that existed for only ten years, 1967-1977.

One area where there is clear rivalry is in the tourism industry. In 1985, when these countries were hardly talking to each other, they decided that tourist vehicles registered in one country would not be allowed to enter the other country’s national parks.

Both countries have enforced this decision, on and off, depending on the political sentiment they have felt for or against each other.

In mid-2014, Kenya’s Tourist Regulatory Authority banned Tanzania’s tour operators from entering Kenyan game reserves, supposedly in retaliation for Tanzania’s similar action against Kenyan tour operators.

To put more pressure on Tanzania, in December of 2014, Kenyan authorities banned Tanzanian-registered vehicles from dropping off or picking up passengers at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi.

The ban was lifted within a month, and Tanzania and Kenya agreed to review their bilateral relationship as it applied to tourism.

The review process did not go well because Kenya imposed that ban again in February of 2015. This time, Tanzania retaliated by cutting back Kenya Airways’ flights to Tanzania from 42 to 16 a week.

These actions were hurting the tourism industry in both Tanzania and Kenya, as some tourists treat these two countries as complementary destinations.

It is not clear which side blinked first, but presidents Kenyatta and Kikwete of Tanzania and Kenya, respectively, reached an agreement in March of 2015 to immediately remove the ban on Tanzanian-registered vehicles at JKIA and to restore Kenya Airways flights to 42 a week while negotiations continued.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Tanzania and Kenya responded to the coronavirus pandemic differently, particularly in reporting cases.

This difference and the inherent mistrust between these countries were manifest in the handling of trucker border crossings.

Hundreds of truckers were stranded at the borders for many days, each side blaming the other.

The dispute escalated to the “reciprocal” banning of flights between the two countries in 2020. Again, the presidents intervened and good relations were re-established.

But here again the two countries came close to hurting their economies on matters that, as neighbours and members of an economic bloc, should and can be negotiated amicably.

The two countries share a 777 kilometres (485 miles) border. The peoples of Tanzania and Kenya have many things in common in terms of culture and a lingua franca.

Tanzania and Kenya hold a unique, de facto leadership position in the EAC, but they must lead by example.

Tanzania and Kenya are founding members of the former and current EAC. They contribute 56 percent to the eight-member economic bloc.

They provide the three landlocked countries in the EAC – Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda – and even the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo a gateway to the Indian Ocean.

Economic disruption in Tanzania and Kenya, inevitably, hurts the whole region.

Let’s hope Tanzania and Kenya will learn to live as good neighbours.