Geneva, Switzerland, Nov. 9 -- At the 53rd session of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR53) in Geneva, Professor Hamisi Masanja Malebo, Executive Secretary of the UNESCO National Commission of Tanzania, articulated the official position of the Tanzanian government regarding land rights and ethnic categorization.

Prof Malebo, on behalf of the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, clarified that Tanzania is home to more than 120 distinct ethnic groups, and it is one of the few African nations that encompasses representatives from all four of the continents major ethnolinguistic families.

Khoisans, he noted, are the earliest inhabitants, represented by hunter-gatherer communities - the Hadzabe and Sandawe people, wh...