{Malawian President Peter Mutharika has affirmed his country’s claim to Lake Malawi as a feud simmers with neighbouring Tanzania over the vast territory where both sides are hoping to find oil.
\n}<\/p>\n
“We are not going to go to war but the lake has been ours for 104 years,” Mutharika told a news conference in the capital Lilongwe late Tuesday, broadcast on public television.<\/p>\n
“The law is very clear, I think there is very little room for negotiations on the issue of the lake, but I think we will find a way to settle this out with Tanzania,” he said, the first time he has spoken out on issue since taking power on May 31. <\/p>\n
Based on an 1890 colonial agreement, Malawi claims ownership of the whole of Lake Malawi, which is believed to hold both oil and gas reserves. <\/p>\n
Tanzania insists that half falls within its borders and is already eyeing it for natural gas exploration. Mutharika said he met his Tanzanian counterpart Jakaya Kikwete during the US-Africa summit in Washington last week and invited him “to come and fish at the lake”. <\/p>\n
Former president Joyce Banda, defeated by Mutharika in the May poll, had often threatened to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice. The contentious part is a largely undeveloped swathe of the lake in the northeastern waters near Tanzania, where late president Bingu wa Mutharika, the incumbent’s elder brother, allowed a British firm to explore for oil. <\/p>\n
The 29,600-square-kilometre (11,400-square-mile) mass is Africa’s third-largest fresh water body and lies in the Great Lakes system stretching along the East African Rift. It is a major tourism attraction in Malawi and straddles one third of the country’s territory. Tanzania calls it Lake Nyasa, taken from Malawi’s colonial name <\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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