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Bigger museum for the army in pipeline
2008-08-31 08:05:54
By Staff Reporter
An army museum covering a large space will be built at Mwenge area in Dar es Salaam through assistance from the Democratic Republic of Korea, to facilitate the display of a wide range of military equipment that was used in the past.
Army Museum Curator Steven Balabala said yesterday that the present premises were too small to keep military ware that the public would like to learn about. He would not, however, divulge details.
Corporal Balabala was responding to queries from civilian visitors at the museum who wanted to know more on the types of military hardware that facilitated the overthrow of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the late 1970s as well as those applied during the liberation struggle in Africa, apart from the recent ones in the Comoros.
The curator said there were many wares that the public has every interest and right to know about although the current museum housed at the former OAU Dar es Salaam offices is too small to display them.
``Not all military equipment is secret. Some of it can easily come to the attention of the general public as it might have outlived its usefulness,`` he joked when he showed enthusiastic young visitors the remains of an engine of a military plane downed by soldiers of the Defence Forces some 36 years ago at Kitaya Village in Mtwara Region.
The museum is open to members of the public, as part of activities to mark the 44th anniversary tomorrow of the Tanzania People`s Defence Forces, reconstituted from the Tanganyika Rifles on September 1, 1964 following an army mutiny.
The curator said many people were visiting the museum and were eager to know various aspects of military activities.
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