[Oman-l] Zanzibar news??

[Perry H]

Can anyone help out here, I'd really like to go to a site where i could pick
up some accurate account of the news in ZNZ. There is so little reported in
the mainstream press, like nothing, and the whole issue of the up and coming
elections in October is not only fascinating but a little chilling. I
visited there in August and it was getting quite tense. Branch stacking was
rife, bringing in people from the countryside, and Tanzania it was rumoured,
to register in the city to make sure the opposition didn't win again.
The Treason Trials are another fascinating peice of Africana: the opposition
have all been locked up, and while i was there they had a special hearing to
ask for bail so that they could contest the election!
Victory at the last election was claimed by the 'opposition', but the Amour
and the Afro Shirazi's decided not to agree. The biggest knock-on effect was
that a lot of the aid that had been keeping the place going was stopped
because of what was seen as a corrupt political regime, or so i am told.
The whole place is a picture of decaying greandeur. There is a lot of
tourism, several large european club med look-a-likes. One chap i spoke to,
whose familly were originally from the Yemen ( yeah, why is it 'the'?)  I
asked him about how much of this money flows down to the people, are things
going up or down?
He said: 'We are in the grave'.
Anyone further interested in the place, i recently came across a wonderful
novelist fron ZNZ AbdulRazak Gurnah. This guy is a nice writer,  I have
read two works by him 'Paradise', set immediately before ww1 on the East
Afrcan coast, and is quite interesting for its Omani links and the
recreation of the place/period. The other called Waiting for Silence
examining the predicament of a Zanzibarri who left in 64 and lives in the UK
and eventually goes back only to understand that he is Mr In-Between.
There's a lot of insider stuff in these. Interesting, but I also think he's
a fine writer.