President Bingu wa Muthrika then died in office in April 2012. Despite Tanzanian protests, Malawi refused to stop. The contract included exploration within the Tanzanian-claimed area.
In October 2011, Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika awarded a UK company a contract to start oil and gas exploration in the eastern part of the lake. The border issue resurfaced this century because of strong indications that fossil fuels might lie under the lake. Life goes on, and Tanzanians and Malawians continue to cross the border, selling and buying products. So far, Malawi has not had any trouble on this front. Tanzania has become a lifeline for Malawi, and it cannot afford to have sour relations with the country. Malawi is connected to international markets through four key ports: Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Beira and Nacala in Mozambique, and Durban in South Africa. Tanzania’s first president, Julius Nyerere, conceded the boundary. Instead, in line with the Cairo Declaration, Tanzania recognised the general continuing validity of African borders as they had been at independence. Yet Tanzania’s challenge to the treaty was not actively pursued as government policy, and it effectively lapsed. Tanzania has also made arguments on the basis of its fishing economy, historical claims, and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Thus, Tanzania argues that it should own half the lake (see the map above). Tanzania sought recourse to the international legal rule that ‘boundaries at lakes are divided the median line’. Malawi’s view was that the boundary follows the lake shoreline in accordance with the 1890 Heligoland Treaty. There were brief arguments between the two states’ officials in 1967–68, with no clear outcome. It has navigation and fishing rights the lake supports a large number of artisanal fishermen and there are ancestral burial places that now lie under the water. Tanzania, too, derives considerable value from the lake. Malawi’s economic life, culture, folklore and national sentiment are indistinguishably linked to the lake. The lake constitutes about a third of the entire territory of Malawi. Today’s challenge – who owns the lake – would not have existed at all were it not for the treaty.ĬreditBorder claims by Malawi and Tanzania. They speak the same language, have the same culture, and share the same beliefs. People living around the northern shores of the lake are very much related. They created more problems in Africa than they solved. But these decisions were taken without consulting Africans, who should have had a say. The whole of the lake became part of Nyasaland. The treaty set the boundary along the Tanganyika side of the lake shore. The 1890 Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty between Great Britain and Imperial Germany agreed the boundary between the then British colony of Nyasaland – now Malawi – and German East Africa, which in time became Tanzania. It is the third largest lake in Africa at 568 km long and sometimes stretches to a width of 80 km. Lake Malawi or Lake Nyasa – the Malawi and Tanzanian name preferences, respectively – dominates the eastern border of Malawi. How did the dispute over the border arise? What has happened, and what is ultimately likely to happen in the future? However, because of the time and effort required to make the fossil fuel deposits profitable, and because of other issues preoccupying the Malawi government, little has actually changed as a result. In 2012, the issue came to the surface when Malawi’s then-President Bingu wa Mutharika saw an opportunity to investigate potential fossil fuel resources in the disputed area – under the lake that forms most of Malawi’s eastern border. Malawi also has a somewhat dormant border dispute with neighbouring Tanzania. These challenges make it more important than ever to maximise available resources. Moreover, climate change is bringing greater and more frequent destruction. An insurgency has taken root in next-door Mozambique since 2017 it is struggling to cope with large numbers of arriving refugees and its population has grown rapidly, to probably more than 20 million by this year.
The southern African country of Malawi is poor, with unstable neighbours. A dispute over the border between Malawi and Tanzania with its origins in the 19th century shows no signs of reaching a swift resolution.
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