seating gently and humbly with most of his verbal full of bible quotations, Mr William Kalemba (72)explains on how he escaped death penalty after having stayed in jail for 21 years and later released this year.Mr Kalemba says he have stayed hardly seven months without permanent place to live as he finds it difficult to settle after using more than two decades in jail waiting to be hanged to death.He was sentenced after he was involved in a love triangle the fights accidentally caused the death of his own wife in 1988.He was then sentenced to death in 1993 and transferred from Mbeya to Dodoma at the Isanga prison.
Mr Kalemba is a resident of Mbeya, he today lives alone after finding all his relatives had passed away and left with only three old sisters. They used 24 hours crying not believing that they have met once again after 21 years.Mr Kalemba explains 21 years of pressure, not knowing when and at what time he was supposed to die; who is the next one to die was the question which has lingered in his head for over 15 years in a condemned department in prison.Several people who he met and lived with them found them hanged, I was lucky to survive all these hard times, it was Gods plans that I don’t die in the prison,” said Mr Kalemba.Today, Mr Kalemba is carried only one message to the public that “people should read Psalms 130, line 1-4, that is my message to all.”
With the world increasing pressure on the abolition of the penalty as they term it as cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment which violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Civil societies, international organizations, diplomats, Non-governmental organizations have been pressurizing the country to conduct a nationwide dialogue on whether Tanzania should retain or abolish capital punishments.On Saturday when the world marked the World against Death Penalty Day, they capitalized the need to review the country’s laws and make the death penalty illegal as it goes against human rights and it is brutal in nature.In Tanzania, the theme of the day was “it is easy to hang an innocent person, let’s fight against death penalty.” Mr Kalemba said death penalty was the most horrible penalty and terrific hence lacks a lesson a murderer can learn since is hanged and the story ends there.
“The most thing I remember in prison is when I witnessed my fellow mates taken to a hanging place and never came back, I will never forget that experience as I kept waiting who’s next for over 15 years,” said Mr Kalemba.Many people, Mr Kalemba said “Are sentenced to death innocently, I had three friends who were everyday crying that they were sentenced to death innocently, the real murderers are not hanged.”
Mr Kalemba was sentenced to death in 1993, and sent to Ruanda prison in Mbeya where he stayed for six months before he was transferred to Isanga prison in Dodoma end of 1993.He appealed the case in the same year and in 1994 he went back to Mbeya for his appeal, the appeal was not successfully and it was declared that he serve the death penalty as pronounced in the 1993 judgment.
“I was sent back to Isanga end of 1994 where I went to wait for my time of hang, I stayed 15 years at the condemn department but in 2006 the government decided I save for a life sentence instead of death penalty,” said a sad looking Mr Kalemba.After two years, my sentence was again changed to 30 years sentence where I was given a remission of 10 years plus the 15 years I served in condemn, I was then expected to serve five years only where in April 2009, I was set free for president’s sympathy, Mr Kalemba added.
Number of cases.
Since the country got its independence in December 1961, at least 2,478 people have been sentenced to death with only 232 having actually been hanged. It is a 9.39 per cent of the total number of death line criminal.According to reports in the media, President Jakaya Kikwete in August 2008 exchanged the death sentences of 400 people to life in jail. The penal cord Act Revised Edition 2002 pronounces the execution of the death penalty which contravenes with the article 14 of the constitution which talks on the right to life.Despite international efforts, figures of death penalty application worldwide remain high, according to figured by Amnesty International, in 2008, at least 2,390 people were known to have been executed in 25 countries and at least 8,864 people were sentenced to death in 52 countries around the world.
Five countries with the highest number of executions in 2008 were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States of America; they carried out 93 per cent of all executions carried out in 2008. The European Union in their statement to the media last weekend, they said the abolition of the death penalty was one of the thematic priorities in the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights with over 30 projects supported so far worldwide.The South Africa Human rights NGO Network (SAHRiNGON) once tabled a shadow report at the Geneva offices of the United Nations and the UN called on the (Tanzanian) government to abolish the sentence as soon as practicable.
Civil society organizations in South Africa successfully persuaded the Constitutional Court into abolishing capital punishment in 2005, where in the case the South African court used arguments by Tanzanian Judge James L. Mwalusanya on a case in our own country to declare the death penalty unconstitutional.In 2006, the law reform commission carried a research on capital punishments on whether Tanzania should abolish the death penalty or not, according to a report, the majority of those asked voted for the sentence to be retained.However a straw vote taken by the Human and Legal Rights Commission showed more than 70 percent of Tanzanians prefer a repeal of the penalty, in which the findings were criticized by human rights activists against the LRC findings.
Why Death Penalty is bad.
“Capital punishment is irrevocable. All judicial systems make mistakes, and as long as the death penalty persists, innocent people will be executed,……It is also discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor, the powerless and the marginalized, as well as against people whom repressive governments want to eliminate,” said Mr Kalemba while sheding light tears.Mr Kalemba said the death penalty was too unkind and a defiance of human rights which should be abolished.“I was personally sentenced to death by the high court of Mbeya, I served 21 years in jail, thank to the retired president Benjamin Mkapa who rescued me from death penalty, it is too bad,” said Mr Kalemba.
Mr Kalemba further said “I oppose the penalty because it does not help to make a person who has been hanged to regret what he or she did, the reason to commit murder is associated by the bad behavior, stupidity and superstitious conducts.”I really thank former president Benjamin Mkapa and President Kikwete for leaving me alive, may long and healthier life be upon them, God has a meaning by leaving me alive after witnessing many of the people I shared a room with being changed to death.Returired Chief Justice Barnabas Samatta who was speaking at the climax of the world Against Death Penalty Day after he had received a peace demonstration in Dar es Salaam over the weekend, said dialogue should be made to abolish death penalty as other countries have done.
Judge Samatta said “as we all know, dialogue and differences in views on the legality of death penalty have been there for ages….because the right to live is not warned by the constitution, since that is so, there are arguments that there is no one to end that right in any circumstances Judge Samatta said the article 18 of the constitution which reads “every person have the right to information in the country and the world at large which are important for the wellbeing’s.”
Albino cases.
This year’s world Against Death Penalty Day which was commemorated on Saturday came just two weeks after the death sentence was pronounced to three people for murdering an albino in Shinyanga high court.Masumbuko Madata, 32, Emmanuel Masangwa, 28, and Charles Kalamuji, alias Masangwa, 42, all residents of Shinyanga Region, were sentenced to death by the High Court sitting in Kahama for the brutal murder of a 13-year-old boy Death penalty has been backed by the majority as the main punishment in the fight against albino killers in the country which has attracted headlines of the local and international media.
International call to the abolition.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in which Tanzania is signatory, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948, recognizes each person’s right to life. It categorically states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”(Article 5). In Amnesty International’s view, the death penalty violates these rights. The community of states has adopted four international treaties specifically providing for the abolition of the death penalty. Through the years, several UN bodies discussed and adopted measures to support the call for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty.
More than two-thirds of the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice, however some of the African countries which have already abolished death penalty in Africa includes Burundi and Togo, Liberia, Senegal, Cote D'Ivoire, South Africa, Djibouti, Mauritius,: Guninea-Bissau Angola, Mozambique, Namibia.
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