Sawt Falasteen - Tanzania president visits Russia as Western ties fray

Western diplomats and rights groups have accused her government of massacring hundreds of people during election unrest in October and of conducting a spate of abductions and murders of critics in the run-up to the vote.

The United States has said it is reviewing relations with Tanzania in the wake of the violence, and last week sanctioned a senior police officer over the torture of two well-known activists.

By contrast, Putin was one of the first to congratulate Hassan for winning 98 percent of the vote.

Relations have been warming since. A Russia-Tanzania Business Council was created in January and last month Air Tanzania announced the launch of flights from Dar es Salaam to Moscow by the end of the year.

Hassan has been unapologetic about the political crackdown in her country, describing activists and protesters as "disrespectful children" who should be "beaten with canes".

She brings a business delegation to Moscow hoping to cement deals in trade, tourism and minerals during the first state visit to Russia by a Tanzanian president since the country's founding father, Julius Nyerere, travelled there in October 1969.

Trade currently stands at just over $307 million annually and the only concrete joint project is a planned uranium mine that has been on the drawing board for more than a decade.

Russia can use the support "even if just for an abstention for a critical vote at the UN" over the war in Ukraine, said a former political science professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, who was too scared to give his name due to repressive measures in the country.

"Russia is being opportunist... It doesn't have a massive amount to gain, but it is taking the opportunity of a weakened (Tanzanian) administration," added Fergus Kell, of British think tank Chatham House.

A government report into last year's election violence said 518 people were killed but did not say who was responsible, and there has been little sign of accountability.

M.AlAhmad--SF-PST