Mapokezi ya Nyerere huko Uingereza

[Shwari]

Army Mutiny in Tanganyika:
An Eyewitness Report​

THE army mutinies in the three East African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika in January 1964 were some of the most significant events in the history of post-colonial Africa.

They demonstrated the power of the soldiers and the potential they had to influence the course of events in their countries against the wishes of civilian governments.

They were also among the first manifestations of military power in the political arena and a demonstration of the military as the most powerful institution in the newly independent African countries. And they helped change and shape the course of African history by encouraging soldiers in other African countries to overthrow governments in the following years.

The army mutiny in Tanganyika took place one week after the Zanzibar revolution and about three months before Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanzania.

One of the people who was in Tanganyika during that time was John D. Gerhart from Harvard University who was teaching in Dar es Salaam under a programme called Project Tanganyika. He wrote the following report which was published in The Harvard Crimson daily newspaper on 10 March 1964:

Tanganyika Embarrassed By Need for British Assistance –
Calls for Pan-African Force To Aid Future Crises​

The city of Dar es Salaam woke early on the morning of Saturday, January 25. At about 6.15 a.m. citizens all over the sprawling capital were shaken out of bed by what some thought at first was an early onset of the monsoon season.

But the evenly-spaced rumblings in the distance were not thunder; they were a diversionary barrage from the anti-aircraft guns of the British aircraft carrier Centaur.

By 7 a.m., when government workers began leaving for their 7:30 jobs, Tanganyika's five-day-old army mutiny was over and East Africa's oldest independent government was back in control.

The short, well-timed action which put down the revolt was carried out by the Royal Marine Commandos with an efficiency that will probably win it a glowing place in British military history.

While the barrage went on, helicopters lifted some 60 commandos to a ravine behind the Tanganyika Rifles' barracks about six miles north of the city. As the Tanganyikan soldiers spilled out of their barracks, they were quickly captured from behind by the British troops.

One mortar shell broke up the resistance; only three Rifles members were killed; and though several hundred soldiers escaped in the bush, all but a handful were quickly recaptured.

The exercise was directed by the commanding officer of the Tanganyikan forces, a Britisher who had escaped the mutiny on Monday and had been hiding in European homes in Dar's fashionable Oyster Bay area during the week.

The Marines' performance was most remarkable because they accomplished it virtually unarmed.

According to an official in the British High Commission here, the British quartermaster in Aden had furnished the Marines with the wrong calibre of rifle ammunition, and the mistake was not discovered until shortly before the landing was to take place. The only effective weapons available were mortars and a few pistols.

When the troops landed they went immediately taken to the Tanganyikan armory to rearm themselves, which explains why so many of the Tanganyikan soldiers were initially able to escape. The quartermaster in Aden has since been returned to England for court-martial.

Though they had never been in danger during the revolt, Dar's British citizens were thrilled to have the “shocking do” over with, and “the boys” standing guard.

The New Africa Hotel did a landslide afternoon tea business. There was a band concert by the forces on the following afternoon. Smiling Scotsmen bought cases of beer and Fanta for the troops.

Our neighbors spoke to us for the second time in six months, the first time having been on Monday when the “do” began.

But in spite of the local European reaction, there were no neo-colonialist overtones. The British offered to withdraw immediately on the wishes of the Tanganyika government, and the President, Julius K. Nyerere dispelled further doubts in a speech given Saturday afternoon. “Any independent country is able to ask for the help of another independent country,” he said. “Talk that the British have come back to rule Tanganyika again is rubbish.”

Request Difficult​

“But,” continued the President, “asking for help in this way is not something to be proud of. I do not want any person to think that I was happy in making this request.”

The decision was undoubtedly a painful one for Nyerere, who had worked so long to gain Tanganyika's independence from the British, but in the end, it was the only choice he could make and be sure of his government's survival.

What had begun on Monday as simply an army revolt for higher pay was beginning to take on much more threatening tones. The story of this deterioration in the situation is the real story of the army revolt. The mutiny began shortly after midnight on January 20 when the troops of the Tanganyika (formerly King's African) Rifles First Battalion seized the arms at Colito Barracks and arrested their European officers and NCOs.

Soldiers then proceeded to surround the State House and to take over the radio station, airport, telegraph office, and other key points throughout the city. Several ministers were arrested before dawn, but President Nyerere and Vice President Rashidi Kawawa escaped.

Though Nyerere reappeared the next day, rumors circulated wildly that he had gone to Arusha in the north of the country, gone to Nairobi, been captured, or was hiding in the embassy of “a friendly country.”

In actuality, Nyerere remained in Dar es Salaam, but he let his Defense Minister Oscar Kambona come to terms with the soldiers. This was probably because he felt that his first duty to the nation was to survive unharmed, and also because he did not want to demean his office by dealing with the mutineers.

Throughout the mutiny, troop movements were confined almost entirely to the town proper and to the African business quarters of Magomeni and Kariakoo (named for the German Carrier Corps stationed there in 1918). The large European and African suburbs to the north and south of the town were not entered.

The first indication I had of the trouble was about 8 a.m. when, upon reaching the Tanganyikan school where I teach, I found classes dismissed and the headmistress, a close friend of Nyerere's, in tears.

Cars Halted
​

With two other teachers, I headed toward the downtown area. We passed milling crowds of Africans and Arabs in the streets, but saw no signs of other vehicles or of soldiers. However, we soon reached a bridge leading to the town's center and ran directly into a roadblock of soldiers who, pointing guns at our tires and faces, quickly persuaded us to return the way we had come. Though not proficient in Swahili, we found that our comprehension was almost perfect.

About noon on Monday the road blocks were removed and another teacher and I, with a Tanganyikan friend, took the opportunity to drive through Kariakoo to the Muhimbili hospital, where my friend had a surgical appointment. This time cars were in sight, but most of them contained soldiers with large guns who had commandeered taxis and private vehicles for cruising the streets.

Looters Shot
​

Entering the first rotary intersection in the bazaar district, however, we saw a frightening sight. Looting had broken out during the mid-morning and the soldiers, aided by normal police forces, were firing at and beating looters in the street.

On the opposite side of the intersection a hatless soldier was casually aiming his rifle, not at a looter, but at a family of Indians watching the scene from a fourth-story apartment nearby. The bullet smashed over their heads.

The soldier laughed, turned backdown the street and shouldered his weapon.

Proceeding down the main street about two blocks from the African market, we were soon stopped by a group of soldiers and forced to wait outside the car for about twenty minutes. Actually, this provided us with a relatively safe viewpoint from which to watch the soldiers in action.

They seemed content to let the more efficient police restore order; the streets cleared rapidly and occasional shots rang out, often fired into a trash can “for effect.”

Civilians Killed​

We soon continued to the hospital where casualties were being brought in. One of the first was a soldier with a bullet fired clean through the chest. His agonized expression seemed to frame an ironic question about the value of his comrades' revolt.

On Monday, four soldiers, six Arabs, and about a dozen African civilians were killed, all in “non-military” action.

On Monday afternoon the government agreed to give “urgent consideration” to the troops' demands for a pay increase and the removal of all expatriate officers.

The soldiers returned to their barracks and Kambona announced he had “mediated a dispute between African and British soldiers in the Tanganyika Rifles” and that the troops were still “loyal to the government.”

On Tuesday the capital returned to almost normal.

As the week continued, it became increasingly apparent that the government could not continue to operate with the army able to seize power at will merely by entering and occupying the city. Negotiations over pay increases were conducted with the mutiny's leaders, but by Friday they had become, as Nyerere later said, “analogous to the negotiations between a blackmailer and his victim.”

One reliable source says that the mutineers were demanding the right to name three new ministers. Nevertheless, the government wanted, if at all possible, to avoid calling in outside (namely) British help.

Strike Plotted​

In the meantime, a group of politicians and trade union leaders including an Area Commissioner who had been a long-time TANU stalwart, had begun conspiring with the ringleaders of the mutiny to bring about a real overthrow of the government. They planned to initiate a general strike on Saturday, followed by a coup on the following Monday in which, it was rumoured, Nyerere and his ministers would be removed.

Nyerere got word of this on Friday afternoon and Friday evening he asked for British aid. Fortunately for the government, the British were close at hand and the more serious threat was stopped before it could materialize.

On Saturday night police detained about 200 persons, including officials of five major unions and the General Secretary of the Tanganyika Federation of Labour (TFL). Most of the officials are only now being released. The government has announced plans to disband the TFL and its eleven affiliated unions and to institute in their place a single, giant trade union representing all the workers in the country.

Though the trade unions have opposed the government in the past, they have paraded through Dar es Salaam almost daily for a week to demonstrate their present loyalty.

External Impact​

In fact, the revolt may have more important implications for Tanganyika's external than its internal affairs. The 98 per cent of the nation's people who live outside the capital had little or no knowledge of the mutiny at all, and though the army is being disbanded and security measures increased, there are no sweeping changes in store for anyone outside the unions.

Nyerere is calling for a constitutional one-party state which will only make Tanganyika in name what it is in fact. The most widely felt “internal” result of the revolt so far has been the banning of the Nairobi-based Daily Nation for publishing an “exaggerated account” of the disturbances.

Conference Called​

Externally, Tanganyika's reputation for stability was undoubtedly damaged. Foreign investors may lose confidence in the country, although such a loss would not be justified and should not be severe. And the fact remains that Tanganyika is embarrassed, though not apologetic, about having British troops in the country.

It was for this reason that Nyerere called for the emergency meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Organization of African Unity, which opened in Dar es Salaam on Feb. 12, and which makes a proper concluding chapter to an account of the revolt.


The conference, with Tanganyika's Oscar Kambona as chairman, held its opening session in the attentive view of the world press, the TANU political hierarchy, and the local diplomatic corps.

Although the ambassador of the Chinese People's Republic was tactfully seated some distance from his American counterpart, the reporters from the New China News Agency vied openly with those of the USIS for picture positions, while the representative of the Vatican press religiously took notes.

Though the Moroccans looked like French grocers and the Liberians like American businessmen, the assembly was an impressive one and Nyerere made an equally impressive opening address.

“The presence of troops from a country deeply involved in the world's cold war conflicts,” he said, “has serious implications in the context of African nationalism and our common policies of non-alignment... The presence of British troops in Tanganyika is a fact which is too easily exploited by those who wish to...play upon natural fears of neo-colonialism in the hope of sowing seeds of suspicion between the different African states.”

In a matter minutes, Nyerere neatly converted the revolt from an internal to a pan-African affair. He also pointed out that the African liberation movements, with headquarters in Dar es Salaam, might be damaged by the existence of just such a state of affairs in Tanganyika, and that this was also “the concern of the whole of Africa.”

Nyerere then asked for an African armed force to help replace the British while Tanganyika trains its own forces. This proposal was accepted later in the week, though the practicalities of compiling an all-African force may be difficult.

Note:

When John D. Gerhart's article was published in The Harvard Crimson, Nigeria had already agreed to send troops to Tanganyika to replace British soldiers until the country had a new army. – Godfrey Mwakikagile.

Source:

John D. Gerhart, “Tanganyika Embarrassed By Need for British Assistance – Calls for Pan-African Force To Aid Future Crises,” The Harvard Crimson, 10 March 1964, in Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa 1960 – 1970: Chronicle and Analysis, New Africa Press, 2014, pp. 684 – 692).

​

 

[Shwari]

Here is another eyewitness account of the army mutiny by the American Deputy Ambassador to Tanzania from 1961 to 1964, Robert Hennemeyer, in Godfrey Mwakikagile, The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: Formation of Tanzania and its Challenges, pp. 48, 55 – 65:

“Robert Hennemeyer who (as DCM – Deputy Chief of Mission) served under Ambassador William Leonhart, was also in Tanganyika when Tanganyika united with Zanzibar. He said the union “was not a merger” but a federation. Leonhart was the first American ambassador to be accredited to Tanganyika, later Tanzania.

Hennemeyer also talked about other subjects concerning Tanganyika, later Tanzania, and reflected on the years he was there:

Q: How about Nyerere? Back to him for a minute. What was his attitude toward the United States?

Hennemeyer: I think it was very friendly. I thought his attitude toward the United States was generally positive. I think there were times when he felt that we were neglecting Africa, other times that he felt that we were excessively preoccupied with the Cold War, but I felt that, too.

Q: How about the situation in Zanzibar? That became rather volatile while you were there.

Hennemeyer: Yes, it did. That happened in January of 1964. To me it came as a surprise, although, in retrospect, Fritz Picard, who was our consular there at the time, was aware of growing unrest. I don't think any of us predicted what finally happened. Yes, I remember very well.

Then the press descended on Dar es Salaam to try to find out what was going on in Zanzibar. But we had no special brief for the Sultan's Government in Zanzibar. In fact, as you recall, the election, which had confirmed the Sultan's Government in power, was one that was a very dubious affair, and nobody was really happy with the result. It was clear, I think, to most observers that if it was going to survive, it was going to have a lot more representatives, and it didn't have a chance to do that.

A lot of people have forgotten what a bloody affair that was--there were several thousand people killed, Arabs driven down to the beaches and slaughtered at the beaches by the insurgents.

There was an Italian photographer who chartered a plane from Mombasa, flew down there and got some extraordinary footage of the slaughter on the beach.

At any rate, our concern was exactly the same as the Tanganyikan Government's concern, and that was to contain the rebellion on Zanzibar and direct it to a more constructive end. That is, it accomplished its immediate purpose--that is, it brought a black African majority group into power. But then the question arose for Tanganyika's own security: What kinds of relationships would that new government have? As you know, very early on there was a fairly strong East Bloc presence, and that concerned us and the Tanganyikans.

So very quietly and discreetly we worked with the Tanganyikans to help them establish a police presence initially on Zanzibar, and we encouraged Nyerere in his efforts to develop a cooperative federal arrangement with the Zanzibar Government. That succeeded to some extent, although it never worked the way it was supposed to. But in time, the red house on Zanzibar, for whatever reason, calmed down and it never became what some sensationalists predicted, the 'Cuba of Africa.'

Q: Did you have any part in dealing with it? At one point, Picard and the others were actually under arrest and they had a problem extracting.

Hennemeyer: That's right. I was involved in the call. There was a U.S. Navy ship in the city. At that time the Navy ran periodic cruises around Africa. I think they were called SoLant Amity at the time. The ship was the USS Manley, I remember very well, was visiting Mombasa at the time of the Zanzibar revolt. Picard and the other Americans there, particularly the Project Mercury people, which was a NASA project, a tracking station for NASA's satellite program, most of them were contract employees of Bendix, as I recall, they were literally trapped on the island. There came the question of trying to get them out. Fritz Picard, with great courage, persuaded Karume and the revolutionary council to agree that the Americans would leave.

Ambassador Leonhart and Jim Rookte, who came down from Nairobi to help us out, and I, we succeeded in getting in touch with the Manley and got approval for the Manley to come down. I believe Jim flew back to Mombasa, boarded the Manley, then went with the Manley into Zanzibar.

Fritz, at great personal risk, succeeded in getting everybody on the ship. He and maybe Dale Povenmire, stayed behind. I can't swear to that. But Fritz stayed behind. I remember Fritz's wife, Shona, and their son came and stayed with us. Fritz came out later, but I've forgotten how. He also came to live with us.

As you know, he was quite ill at the time. He had what seemed to be a kind of nervous breakdown. No sooner did he arrive with us than the Tanganyika Army mutinied. Fritz thought he was back on Zanzibar, and this was Zanzibar happening again. So he was very difficult to control for a few days.

Unfortunately, during some of that time, I was under arrest by the mutineers, and after that, trapped in our embassy, in the chancellory, for a while. So I was unable to assist my wife in trying to manage Fritz. It was a very difficult time for her. Shona and Hoge, the boy, we had gotten out earlier before the mutiny, and they had gone to Nairobi.

At any rate, the mutiny burst on us completely unprepared. We didn't know that was going to happen. I realize now what the immediate causes of it were, and it was one of these unfortunate management glitches which occurred on Nyerere's watch. There was a program for Africanizing the Tanganyika rifles officer corps. The non-commissioned officers and the enlisted personnel were all Africans. This was supposed to be phased in over a period of time; I've forgotten how long it was. It was a three- or four-year period.

In the meantime, Tanganyikan African officer candidates were being sent to Sandhurst, the British military academy, for the short course, and as they returned, one more British officer would return to his regular regiment. In the process, however, not all billets were slated for Africanization in the near future. In a few of those cases, some British officers were being replaced by British officers. This was misunderstood by many of the Tanganyikan non-commissioned officers who thought that meant that Africanization was being abandoned.

The reason they thought that was that Nyerere had made a speech that because they had moved too quickly in Africanization, there were a number of economic activities and other government activities that had suffered in the process, and therefore they were going to have to reschedule this and draw this out. This coincided with three new British officers arriving. Mind you, we're dealing with a fairly small universe. A number of senior non-coms decided this meant that Africanization of the officer corps was being abandoned, and they had pay demands, as well, and so on. Within a couple of nights, the mutiny was plotted.

The first inkling we had of it was when I got a call in the middle of the night from an African officer, Alex Nyirenda, one of the first commissioned officers, later became commanding general, saying that the troops had mutinied, that many of the officers had fled, and that some of the British officers had been captured up at Colito Barracks, north of Dar es Salaam, were being held prisoner, and he was saying, 'You should keep your people off the streets.' That's what his message was.

So I called Ambassador Leonhart. We had a warden system, and he agreed to implement the warden system and tell people to stay home. I agreed I would go down to the chancellory and get a message out. So I started driving down. It must have been about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. I decided I would drive by State House to see if anything was going on, or if Nyerere was up, I'd talk to him.

I got there just in time to see a group of soldiers breaking down the front gate, while being resisted by a group of police. So I decided not to stop there, and drove down to Azania Front, which was the street right on the harbor in the center of town, where the old German bungalows were, which housed some of the ministers.

I saw, on the street corner, my British colleague. He was the number two, but was then serving as chargé, Steven Miles, and the Minister of the Interior, Job Lusinde. So I stopped. We were chatting, trying to put together what was happening. Just then an Army jeep Landrover pulled up with a group of soldiers on it, and they grabbed the three of us and threw us in the back of the Landrover and drove off with us, not far, a few blocks away to the post and telegraph building, where they put us up against the wall and held us there.

This group was rather disorderly. Some had been drinking, and some, I think, had been smoking bang, a type of hemp. Some were sort of in bits of pieces of uniforms. All of them had their new British-issued rifles that they had gotten to replace the old Lee Enfield 303s. They had their new SLR NATO-type rifles.

Periodically, several of them would say they were going to shoot us, and they'd level their rifles at us. One, the only who I think was not drinking, a corporal, kept saying, 'No, no, they're not British officers.' Well, they knew who Lusinde was, but they thought Miles and I were new British officers who had come. The others kept saying we were, and we should be shot.

I remember one imaginative young soldier taking the clip out of his rifle, taking the cartridges out of the clip, sharpening them on the sidewalk (in front) of us, reloading, pulling the bolt, and putting the muzzle right up against my nose, and saying, in what English he knew, 'Time is finish. Now is time to kill.'

At any rate, this went on all night. I remember I turned to Job Lusinde and I said, 'What are we going to do about this, Job?' He turned to me and said, 'It's better if we don't know each other.' So we three tried to stay as quiet as we could while this internal debate went on.

I remember sometime during the course of the night, a truckload of soldiers came by and said that they wanted to take us along. Our guys said, 'Go find your own prisoners.' At any rate, it was a long and difficult night.

Q: In a situation like that, all the diplomatic niceties and everything else go by the boards, because there's nowhere to go or to protest or anything else.

Hennemeyer: No, and I tried a diplomatic nicety, but it didn't work. I didn't know how to say I was deputy to the ambassador in Swahili, but I knew how to say 'ambassador.' So I told them I was the ambassador and I was going to my office. One said, 'No, I've seen the ambassador, and you're not the ambassador.' So I just made my case more difficult.

At any rate, this went on in this vein, with them being ugly and calm at intervals, until about 7:00 in the morning, I guess, when they suddenly said to me, 'Kwenda.' 'Go.'

I started to walk down the street, making myself walk very slowly. I turned around and I saw that they had their rifles leveled at me. I don't know if that was to see if I would run or what, but at any rate, I walked down the street, and when I got to the first corner, I ducked around it, only to find two more standing there saying I couldn't go that way, I had to go back out in the same street.

At any rate, I walked down the length of the street, turned the corner, and got over to the chancellory, where Bill Leonhart was waiting and very anxious about what had happened. He asked, and I said, 'Well, the mutineers took me prisoner.' I remember he said, 'Good. You can try to finish this cable.' He handed it to me. He was trying to describe what had happened, and thought that since I had been with them, I could finish it.

I sat down to try to write it. Just then, the reaction set in. I couldn't write, my hand was shaking so. That lasted only about a half-hour or so, but at any rate, we got the word out. That was my little adventure.

Then came the problem of what to do, because some of the mutineers were getting out of hand, there was a little looting. Although in retrospect, I have to say, given what I've heard of since, it was a relatively orderly mutiny.

Q: It wasn't of the scale, say, of the Force Publique, which was full of killing and looting?

Hennemeyer: No, no. There was a little killing and a little looting, but by and large, as I say, in retrospect I have to say that it was a fairly orderly mutiny.

As soon as we could move around a little bit, which took a day or so, in the meantime, the mutineers decided that there might be a landing and that they would take my house as a stronghold to defend against the expected landing. My wife and our two very small children were surrounded by these soldiers, who didn't harm them, but it was frightening for them.

Then came a rather confused several days when we were consulting with our British allies, trying to figure out what to do. Basically, this was Bill Leonhart's responsibility, with the British chargé, to persuade Nyerere to ask for British assistance. That proved to be rather difficult, but eventually he did agree.

At that time, the British aircraft carrier, the HMS Centaur, came in from Aden with the Royal Marine commandos. There were some extraordinary events, some of which I heard about, some of which I saw, of getting Brigadier Patrick Shelton Douglas, who was the deposed commander of the Tanganyika Rifles, out to the Centaur to lead the Royal Marine commandos. That was accomplished largely, I think, by the NI-5 man at the British High Commission, a gentleman by the name of Jacobson.

There were a few of us who knew that the Royal Marine commandos were going to come in to Colito Barracks the next morning very early, and as I recall, those of us who knew agreed to stay in the chancellory or at the High Commission that night so there would be no leak.

They did come in. They had a bombardment of blanks first, artillery blanks, over the barracks, then came in with helicopters. Douglas landed first and told them to surrender, identified himself. There were a few shots fired. The Marine commandos then fired a bazooka, shot through the orderly room, killed a few of the mutineers, and then the others ran. They ran to the bush, and the helicopters rounded them up. Most of them were taken prisoner. They were picked up over a period of days.

I think the following day, the Royal Marines flew to the other garrisons. I think there was one down at Iringa (Nachingwea), one up in Moshi or Arusha, I can't remember where, and one in Tabora. They took their surrender, so that ended it.

Then subsequently there was a Commonwealth arrangement whereby the Nigerians came in and replaced the British. The Nigerians maintained order until Tanganyikans were able to reorganize another force.

Q: Did Nyerere come to you or to our embassy, or did you go to them as being a party off to one side?

Hennemeyer: Nyerere was in hiding during this week. Subsequently, I learned that he was held very closely, and I was not involved with the negotiation with Nyerere, so I didn't have to know. But I've learned later that he was in a convent on the south end of the harbor, the other side of town. But he was reachable. It was, I think, mostly Steven Miles who conducted the negotiations.

There was some criticism of Nyerere at the time for being in hiding. I guess one has to respect his judgment. It was Oscar Kambona, the Minister of Defense, who went out on the streets and tried to get the disorderly elements of the troops to go back to their barracks, and who then went out to the barracks to try to free the British officers who were being held prisoner, for which he was beaten and pretty roughed up by the soldiers.

At the time we thought Kambona showed great courage, and it contrasted with Nyerere's being in hiding. But there may have been more important reasons for that. I'm not suggesting Nyerere should have gotten out on the streets. He might have been killed, and the sole rallying point for the country would have been lost. But I think it hurt him somewhat politically and probably led later to the quarrel with Kambona, which resulted in Kambona being exiled. I believe he's still in exile in London. I think from that time, there was ill feeling, but I'm speculating here. That was the conventional wisdom.

There was considerable disorder and considerable confusion. I remember the chief of protocol was also chief of the secret police. We were friendly. He came to my house to warn my wife that he feared the next day there would be kind of a 'night of the long knives' against the wives. This allegedly because the dock workers' union, the leadership of which had been East German-trained, had made common cause with the police, and they had decided that they would also mutiny.

The police, by the way, had more or less disappeared when the Army came, with the exception of the prison wardens out at Morogoro, who decided to march on Dar es Salaam to combat the Army, which would have been very foolish because they didn't have the weaponry at all. Fortunately, somebody stopped them before they got there. At any rate, these are random bits and pieces.

Q: What was our embassy role at the time? Was it basically one of reporting?

Hennemeyer: It was basically one of reporting, and supporting our British colleagues, who were the ones directly involved in trying to bring some order out of the chaos. We supported their effort to get Nyerere to agree to ask the British to come in, because the alternative was anarchy. So our role was a support role, not a lead role.

Q: That was just before you left?

Hennemeyer: This was January 24th, within a week of the Zanzibar events.

Q: When did you leave?

Hennemeyer: I left in July. The rest of the time following the post-mutiny events in Tanganyika and the negotiations that Nyerere was having with Karume to establish Tanzania, one of the concerns of the Tanganyikan Government, which was initially allowed to send a small police contingent over to help maintain order in Zanzibar, was allowed by the Zanzibari Revolutionary Council, was that compared to the Zanzibar rebels, they did not have the same fire power at all.

So we were of some assistance in getting the place some hardware which they could then give to their force in Zanzibar. That may or may not have played a role, but ultimately, as you know, the negotiations were successful. I think April was the date when Tanzania was announced.

It was a very, very loose federation, indeed, with a good bit of friction between mainland and island. But it did, I think, mark the high point of what could have been potential disorder from the island to the mainland. From then on, things gradually got under some degree of control.”

Hennemeyer was later appointed ambassador to The Gambia.

One of the American diplomats who was in Zanzibar before and after the revolution and when Tanganyika united with Zanzibar was Donald Petterson. He was in Zanzibar from 1963 to 1965. Years later, he served as the United States ambassador to Tanzania from December 1986 to December 1989. He said the following in an interview years later about those days....” – (Robert Hennemeyer in Godfrey Mwakikagile, The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: Formation of Tanzania and its Challenges, New Africa Press, 2016, pp. 48, 55 – 65. See also Ambassador Robert T. Hennemeyer interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy, February 1989, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST), Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, pp. 8 – 20; initial interview date: 15 February 1989; copyright 1998 ADST).​

 

[Shwari]

Tanzania President Nyerere

President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania on a state visit to Ireland talks about democracy in Africa.

www.rte.ie

 

[Shwari]

Mutiny, Nyerere and Kambona
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Cold War intrigues were a factor but not the prime determinant of what transpired in Tanganyika and Zanzibar in the sixties. Nyerere's role was partly dictated by the imperatives of the Cold War in the regional context of East Africa but there were other factors as well, including security for Tanganyika, Pan-African solidarity and the quest for unity, which played an important role in determining the course of events during those “turbulent” years.. But the Cold War was not a factor in the army mutiny in Tanganyika. See below:

“When the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in May 1963,...Tanganyika was chosen by the African leaders to be the headquarters of the OAU Liberation Committee and all the African liberation movements. And they all went on to open their offices in Tanzania's capital, Dar es Salaam. They also established guerrilla training camps in the country.

The decision by African leaders to choose Tanganyika as the headquarters of the OAU Liberation Committee angered Nkrumah who wanted his country, Ghana, to be the headquarters. His rivalry with Nyerere came out into the open at the OAU summit the following year in Cairo, Egypt, in July 1964 when he denounced Nyerere as “an imperialist agent” who could not be trusted to handle such responsibility.

During the army mutiny in Tanganyika in January 1964, Nyerere sought British assistance – from the former colonial power – to subdue the mutineers, a decision that earned him the uncomplimentary title, “imperialist agent,” from Nkrumah (among other reasons including Nyerere's advocacy of formation of regional federations as a practical step towards continental unity contrasted with Nkrumah's quest for immediate continental unification which Nyerere thought was unrealistic).

The mutiny in Tanganyika inspired soldiers in neighbouring Kenya and Uganda to follow suit. They mutinied in the next few days.

The leaders of the two countries, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, and Milton Obote of Uganda who coincidentally was a close friend of Nkrumah, also sought military assistance from their former colonial rulers, the British, like Nyerere did, to quell the mutineers.

In the eyes of Nkrumah, seeking military assistance from a former colonial power was tantamount to betrayal of the African cause, and surrender of sovereignty. But he did not apply the same judgement to Kenyatta and Obote, calling them imperialist agents, the way he did to Nyerere, although they also sought the same assistance from the same former colonial power, Britain.

And unlike Kenyatta and Obote, Nyerere did not even let British troops stay long in his country but called an emergency session of the OAU to seek military assistance from fellow Africans to replace British soldiers. Nigeria agreed to do so and sent troops to Tanganyika to assist in providing security and defence while the country was rebuilding its army.

The OAU meeting was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, from 12 February 1964 and lasted for about one week. It was attended by the African ministers of foreign affairs. It was chaired by Tanzania's minister of external affairs and defence, Oscar Kambona.

What was behind all that name-calling by Nkrumah was not because he really believed Nyerere was an imperialist agent; it was because he saw Nyerere as a rival and as his biggest threat to his stature as a continental leader.

Although 13 years younger than Nkrumah, Nyerere was rising fast as a leader of continental stature who was highly respected by his colleagues across the continent. He had a lot of influence in African affairs especially concerning liberation of southern Africa from white minority rule – in a way Nkrumah did not expect him or want him to be. As Professor Ali Mazrui stated in his lecture at the University of Ghana Legon, Accra, in 2002:

“Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania was regarded as revolutionary partly because he became the most radical voice of Pan-Africanism after the overthrow of Nkrumah. Nyerere was also regarded as a revolutionary innovator in socialism and a left-wing experimentalist....

In the debates between incremental Pan-Africanism and rapid unification Nkrumah found a rival in Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania....

Nyerere’s reputation came much later as a symbol of post-independence African radicalism rather than of pre-independence African militancy....the torch of African radicalism, after the coup which overthrew Nkrumah in 1966, was in fact passed to Nyerere.

The great voice of African self-reliance, and the most active African head of government in relation to liberation in Southern Africa from 1967 until the 1980s was in fact Julius Nyerere....

In reality Nkrumah and Nyerere had already begun to be rivals as symbols of African radicalism before the coup which overthrew Nkrumah. Nkrumah was beginning to be suspicious of Nyerere in this regard.

The two most important issues over which Nyerere and Nkrumah before 1966 might have been regarded as rivals for continental pre-eminence were the issues of African liberation and African unity.

It was soon clear that the most difficult problems of decolonization were likely to be the Portuguese dependencies and Rhodesia.

The Organization of African Unity, when it came into being in May 1963, designated Dar es Salaam as the headquarters of liberation movements.

The choice was partly determined by the proximity of Dar es Salaam to southern Africa as the last bastion of colonialism and white minority rule. But the choice was also determined by the emergence of Nyerere as an important and innovative figure in African politics.

Nkrumah’s Ghana did make a bid to be the headquarters of liberation movements but Nkrumah lost the battle. If the reason had simply been that Dar es Salaam was closer to the arenas of colonial conflict, Nkrumah might have accepted this more readily.

But at least as important a reason for the success of Dar es Salaam in being designated the Mecca of liberation movements was the fact that Nkrumah, by mid-1963, had already accumulated several enemies, especially in French-speaking Africa. Nkrumah’s encouragement of dissidents from neighboring countries, although it had yet to reach the proportions it reached in 1965, had begun to rear its head as a grievance among neighbours....

As the years went by Nkrumah felt that freedom fighters were not simply those who were fighting against colonial rule but also those who were fighting against their own African neo-colonial regimes. This was domestic revolution versus anti-colonialism first phase.

The hospitality he extended to rebels from his French-speaking neighbours, and even to dissidents from Nigeria, made him less and less acceptable as a patron of major Pan-African ventures, especially if these depended on the blessing of the Organization of African Unity. In 1963 suspicion of Nkrumah was already strong enough to make it unlikely that Accra, Ghana, would be acceptable as the official liberation capital of the African continent. Nkrumah strongly resented this reaction.

The other major arena in which Julius Nyerere was a rival to Nkrumah was the arena of regional integration. For years Nkrumah had been the eloquent voice of Pan-Africanism and the symbol of the continent’s quest for greater integration. On a more modest scale Nkrumah had even attempted to lead a union first between Guinea and Ghana, and later between Guinea, Ghana and Mali....But these...attempts at unification which Nkrumah had led proved abortive.

Then in 1961 and 1962 it appeared as if Nyerere was going to succeed in leading the East African countries to a regional federation of Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. By June 1963 the three heads of government in East Africa – Kenyatta, Obote, and Nyerere – felt confident enough to announce plans to form an East African federation before the end of the year.

In 1960 Nyerere had already stolen the limelight on federalism in Africa by announcing his readiness to delay Tanganyika’s independence until Kenya and Uganda became independent if this would facilitate the formation of an East African federation. In June 1963 Kenya was still not independent, but the other two had attained theirs.

This time the clarion call was not for Tanzania to delay its independence but for Kenya to speed up its own timetable of decolonization. The British were called upon to grant Kenya independence by December 1963 so as to enable it to join in a federation with the other two.

It was in this sense that Nyerere had by that time become a symbol of African unification, apparently standing a greater chance of success in effective inter-territorial integration than Nkrumah had stood in his own ventures with Guinea and Mali.

Nkrumah’s reaction was not overly subtle. He propounded a new thesis that sub-regional unification of the kind envisaged in East Africa was in fact simply 'Balkanization writ large.'

Further, the enterprise was likely to compromise the bigger ambition of a continental union in Africa. It was a case of the good being the enemy of the best – and East Africans who accepted the minimally good achievement of sub-regional federation would no longer have the incentive to embark on continental union as a more effective bulwark against neo-colonialism and poverty. Nkrumah pointed out that his own country could not very easily join an East African federation. This proved how discriminatory and divisive the whole of Nyerere’s strategy was for the African continent.

Nyerere treated Nkrumah’s counter-thesis with contempt. He asserted that to argue that Africa had better remain in small bits than form bigger entities was nothing more than 'an attempt to rationalize absurdity.'

He denounced Nkrumah’s attempt to deflate the East African federation movement as petty mischief-making arising from Nkrumah’s own sense of frustration in his own Pan-African ventures.

Nyerere was indignant. He went public with his attack on Nkrumah. He referred to people who pretended that they were in favour of African continental union when all they cared about was to ensure that 'some stupid historian in the future' praised them for being in favour of the big continental ambition before anyone else was willing to undertake it.

Nyerere added snide remarks about 'the Redeemer' (Nkrumah’s self-embraced title of the Osagyefo).

On balance, history has proved Nkrumah wrong on the question of Nyerere’s commitment to liberation. Nyerere was second to none in that commitment.

At that Cairo conference of 1964 Nkrumah had asked 'What could be the result of entrusting the training of Freedom Fighters against imperialism into the hands of an imperialist agent?'

Nyerere had indeed answered 'the good Osagyefo' with sarcasm and counter-argument. But Nyerere was also already trying to sharpen his country’s militancy in anti-colonial policy. At Cairo he took the posture of a leader disillusioned with the arts of persuasion in matters of liberation. He now demanded rigorous action to expel Portugal from Africa. As he put it:

'I am convinced that the finer the words the greater the harm they do to the prestige of Africa if they are not followed by action …Africa is strong enough to drive Portugal from our Continent. Let us resolve at this conference to take the necessary action.'

Nyerere did indeed attempt to take the lead in this new militancy. He became the toughest spokesman against the British on the Rhodesian question. His country played a crucial role at the OAU Ministerial meeting at which it was decided to issue that fatal ultimatum to Britain’s Prime Minister, Harold Wilson – 'Break Ian Smith or Africa will break with you.'” – (Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa 1960 – 1970: Chronicle and Analysis, op. cit., pp. 114 – 120).​

Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence on 11 November 1965 under the leadership of Prime Minister Ian Smith. Tanzania was the first country to sever diplomatic ties with Britain over Rhodesia, followed by Ghana the next day, when the white minority rulers illegally declared independence for what, legally, was still a British colony.

Three months and two weeks after Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence (UDI), Nkrumah was overthrown in a bloody coup, ending an illustrious political career of one of Africa's most highly esteemed leaders, leaving Nyerere unchallenged for preeminence as a liberation icon who was also described by Professor Mazrui as “the most enterprising of African political philosophers (who) has philosophized extensively in both English and Kiswahili.”

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[Shwari]

AP Archive.

African leaders meet in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to discuss Rhodesia, 26 July 1966.

A 'little summit' meeting is held in Tanzania. It is attended by Kenya's Vice-President Joseph Murumbi, the President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere President of Tanzania, the President of Uganda Milton Obote and Kenyan politician Tom Mboya. During the meeting Kaunda accuses Britain of mishandling Rhodesia.

 

[Shwari]

Also at the meeting of African leaders in Dar es Salaam on 26 July 1966 to discuss Rhodesia was Jorge Risquet, a Cuban revolutionary and tough negotiator – he was also a rambunctious speaker – who years later led the Cuban delegation to a conference with the South African apartheid regime (its delegation was led by Foreign Affairs Minister Pik Botha), representatives of the MPLA government and the United States on how to end the Angolan civil war.

 

[Shwari]

The mutiny, Kambona and the 1969 coup attempt​

The army mutinies started in Tanganyika on 20 January 1964 and spread to Kenya and Uganda within two days. The mutineers demanded higher salaries and expulsion of British army officers whom they said should be replaced by African officers. But there was also potential for a military coup in each of those mutinies.

In Tanganyika, the involvement of union labour leaders Christopher Kasanga Tumbo and Victor Mkello who had close ties to the mutineers created strong suspicion that the mutiny was an attempt to overthrow the government....​

Officials in the Johnson Administration were convinced that communists had played an active role in the Zanzibar revolution on 12 January 1964, according to released documents contained in the 850-page volume of Foreign Relations of the United States 1964 – 1968. As one US State Department background paper, 7 February 1964, asserted: “There was obvious communist involvement in Zanzibar.”

Yet, the same officials admitted that disturbances in other parts of East Africa – the army mutinies in Tanganyika, Kenya, and Uganda in January 1964 – around the same time did not appear to be communist-inspired.

In fact, President Nyerere himself resolutely maintained:

“(There was) no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the mutinies in Tanganyika were inspired by outside forces – either Communist or imperialist.” – (Julius Nyerere, quoted in the East African Standard, Nairobi, Kenya, 13 February 1964; cited by Ali Mazrui, Towards a Pax Africana, op. cit., p. 153).

There was also a common logic that linked the mutinies to the Zanzibar revolution. The revolution was an African uprising against Arab domination and had a distinct racial component (it was also a class conflict between dispossessed blacks and the merchants and landowners who were mostly Arab and Indian), as was clearly demonstrated during the revolution in which many Arabs and Indians, as well as some Comorians, but mostly Arabs, were massacred.

The highest figures of those who were killed – 13,000 to 20,000 – mostly come from the supporters of the old Arab regime who, even today, are still opposed to the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

The army mutinies in Tanganyika and in the other two East African countries (Kenya and Uganda), partly inspired by the uprising in Zanzibar, also had a racial dimension. In addition to demanding an increase in salaries, the mutineers also demanded the replacement of British army officers with African ones to Africanise the armed forces all the way to the highest level in a true spirit of independence by eradicating the last vestiges of colonialism.

The mutiny in Tanganyika was not only the first one among the three in East Africa; it was also the most successful in terms of “usurpation” of power as the only mutiny that almost ended up in a military coup, according to the evidence gathered from an analysis of records and documents contained in the archives of the East Africana Collection at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. As Professor Ronald Aminzade states in “The Politics of Race and Nation: Citizenship and Africanization in Tanganyika”:

“(The) abortive military mutiny on January 20, 1964, (was) motivated by demands for higher pay and the replacement of British officers by Africans.

The six-day mutiny, which began at Colito Barracks (renamed Lugalo Barracks) in Dar es Salaam and spread to troops stationed at Tabora (and Nachingwea), appears to have been well-planned. After arresting their British officers, soldiers built roadblocks at strategic points throughout the city, seized the State House (the president’s official residence, although Nyerere did not live there but in a simple house on the outskirts of the city in Msasani, and used the State House, popularly known as Ikulu, only for official functions), police stations, airport, radio station, and railway station, and placed guards at critical postal, telegraph, and bank buildings.

The Tanganyikan mutiny sparked similar uprisings in the Ugandan and Kenyan armies as well as the looting and pillaging of Asian shops in Dar es Salaam.

Hundreds of people were arrested during the looting in the commercial areas of the capital. Local forces of order were weakened by the government’s earlier decision to send the Dar es Salaam Field Police (known by the acronym FFU - Field Force Units), a contingent of 300 men, to Zanzibar to help restore order on the troubled island.

The fear that racial violence might escalate was linked to the revolution in Zanzibar, which took place in the preceding week and was accompanied by race riots, the murder of hundreds of Arab and Asian shopkeepers, and the mass exodus of Asians to the mainland.

Field Marshal John Okello, who had seized power in Zanzibar, declared: ‘We are friends of all Europeans and other foreigners. It is only the Ismailis and certain other Indian groups and people of Arab descent we do not like.’ (Tanganyika Standard, January 17, 1964).

The racial antagonisms behind the army mutiny were evident in the behavior of the mutinous soldiers stationed in the town of Tabora, who beat up all Europeans and Asians who crossed their path. (Listowel, 1965: p. 433). During the looting of Asian shops in Dar es Salaam, 17 people were killed and 23 seriously injured. (Tanganyika Standard, January 22, 1964). Rumors spread throughout the capital that Nyerere had fled the country and a general strike was imminent. Nyerere, while still hiding, broadcast a radio message on the second day of the rebellion, to reassure the country that he was still in power.

Had they moved quickly, the mutineers could probably have seized control of the government, but the rebellious army units had no plans to launch a coup d’etat. Rebellious soldiers negotiated with Minister of Defence Oscar Kambona and agreed to release the 30 captured European (British) officers, who were quickly flown out of the country.

Kambona had offered to replace all European officers with Africans and discuss wages, provided the troops release the officers and return to their barracks.

Nyerere’s first public act, after he emerged from hiding on January 22, was to tour the city on foot, visiting the areas of looted Asian shops to express his condolences to Asian shopkeepers who had been targets of violence. (Tanganyika Standard, January 23, 1964).

Only after the mutineers began to negotiate with militant leaders of the trade union movement did the government reluctantly ask the British to intervene (the British were soon replaced by Nigerian troops at Nyerere’s request at an urgent OAU meeting he called in Dar es Salaam to deal with the crisis). Trade union leaders hoped to take advantage of the situation and turn the mutiny into a coup d’etat.

The two most prominent proponents of Africanization, trade union leaders Christopher (Kasanga) Tumbo, who had returned from Kenya, and Victor Mkello, met in Morogoro to plan a new government. (Listowel, 1965: pp. 437 - 38). On January 25, British troops quickly took control of the barracks and disarmed the rebels, killing five African soldiers in the confrontation.

The army mutiny proved to be a great embarrassment for the government, which was forced to call on troops of the former colonial power to restore public order. Yet the uprising also provided the occasion to move decisively against those who had continued to press for Africanization.

After the abortive mutiny, the government arrested 50 policemen implicated in the uprising, reorganized the military (while Nigerian troops sent to Tanganyika by the Nigerian Federal Government provided defence for the country), and replaced British officers to defuse the issue of Africanization.

It used Preventive Detention Law, rarely invoked since its passage in 1962, to order the arrest of more than 200 trade union leaders, many of whom were released after questioning.

Fifteen soldiers were sentenced to prison for their role in the mutiny. The trade union movement was brought firmly under the control of the government by the dissolution of the Tanganyika Federation of Labour (TFL) and establishment in its place of the TANU-controlled National Union of Tanganyika Workers (NUTA).

Several days after the suppression of the mutiny, on January 28, 1964, Nyerere announced the appointment of a presidential commission to pursue the plans that had been announced earlier to create a single-party state, subsequently instituted in the constitution of 1965.” – (Ronald R. Aminzade, “The Politics of Race and Nation: Citizenship and Africanization in Tanganyika,” in Diane E. Davis, ed., Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 14, Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2001, pp. 53 – 90; Ronald Aminzade, “The Africanization Debate, The Failed Army Mutiny, and a Restructured State,” in Ronald Aminzade, Race, Nation, and Citizenship in Post-Colonial Africa: The Case of Tanzania, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 79 – 89).

Professor Aminzade of the sociology department at the University of Minnesota conducted his research in Tanzania which was published on 2 December 1998.

Reports on the mutiny in Tanganyika were also published in the Tanganyika Standard, Dar es Salaam, 22 – 23 January 1964.

In spite of all the speculations about the spectre of communism looming over East Africa, especially Tanganyika and Zanzibar, we see that from all available evidence, it is clear that communism – or any form of external involvement or manipulation – was not a factor in the army mutiny in Tanganyika or those in Kenya and Uganda; three inter-related incidents in a chain reaction that almost plunged the three countries into chaos during those fateful days in January 1964.

Probably more than anything else, even more than salary demands, the mutinies were inspired by black nationalism and were a military expression of indigenous political aspirations; so was the Zanzibar revolution, although it transcended race and included some Arabs and people of Persian origin in the vanguard in the quest for racial justice.

But since the oppressive regime that was overthrown was Arab, oppressing and exploiting black people more than anybody else, the revolution assumed a racial dimension as an indigenous expression of the political and economic aspirations of the black majority – who did not need communism to wake them up to reality and show them that they were being oppressed and exploited by the Arabs because they were weak and black. Experience is the best teacher.

Although all three governments – under Nyerere in Tanganyika, Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, and Milton Obote in Uganda – survived and remained in power, there is no doubt that the mutinies had a profound impact across the continent and helped change the course of African history during the post-colonial era.

The mutinies not only demonstrated the power of the armed forces to extract concessions from national leaders and governments; they also showed, probably more than anything else, that soldiers in any African country had the power to overthrow governments without fear of retribution or any kind of punishment against them. Governments were too weak to stop or punish them, except in cases of abortive coup attempts.

Within a few years, military coups became a continental phenomenon, although not all of them could be attributed to the mutinies in East Africa. The coup in Togo is a good example. It took place in January 1963, almost exactly one year before the army mutinies in East Africa.

But like their counterparts in the three East African countries who mutinied in January 1964, soldiers in other parts of Africa knew on their own that they could storm out of the barracks, force national leaders to bow to their demands, and even overthrow them at will.

They knew the military was the strongest institution in Africa. Civilian governments were at their mercy and remained in power because soldiers allowed them to. The people were powerless to stop such intervention even if some of the governments which were being overthrown were popular and had been democratically elected.

The army mutinies in the three East African countries not only helped inspire military coups on the continent when soldiers in other countries saw how they could use guns to extract concessions from civilian governments and even overthrow them if they wanted to; they were also some of the earliest manifestations of the intrusive power of the military in African politics as a continental phenomenon, and of what was yet to come in an even more violent way: coups and assassinations spanning four decades.

The events in Tanganyika and Zanzibar in January 1964 – the Zanzibar revolution and the army mutiny on the mainland – were soon followed by another major development unprecedented anywhere else in Africa: formation of a political union of two independent states, Tanganyika and Zanzibar, to create Tanzania on April 26th in the same year....

In the treason trial which began in June 1970, it was alleged that Kambona was the mastermind behind the coup attempt....The conspirators wanted not only to overthrow the government but also to assassinate President Nyerere....

It was alleged by the prosecution team that the conspirators intended to launch a military coup between October 10 and 15, 1969. During that time, President Nyerere and a large number of high-ranking government officials including cabinet members, as well as the head of the Tanzania People's Defence Forces (TPDF), Major-General Mrisho Sarakikya, were out of the country. The plotters felt that this was the perfect time for a coup. Some people in Zanzibar were also implicated in the coup plot.

Geoffrey Sawaya, the director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), told the high court that Oscar Kambona sent large sums of money to the people in Tanzania who were to take part in the coup; and that all the conspirators used aliases.

One key figure in uncovering the plot was a South African freedom fighter living in exile in Tanzania, Potlako Leballo, the leader of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), a black nationalist group which was formed in 1959 by members who left the African National Congress (ANC) over policy differences. The first leader of the PAC was Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, a professor at Witwatersrand University and compatriot of Nelson Mandela. Mandela remained in the African National Congress and later became president of the organization which spearheaded the struggle against apartheid.

Leballo became head of the PAC after Sobukwe was sent to prison by the apartheid regime. And his testimony in Tanzania's first treason trial proved to be critical.

The coup plotters approached Leballo and enlisted his help in carrying out the coup, possibly with the help of his guerrilla fighters based in Tanzania, and he went along with the plan to gather intelligence for the government. Leballo met with the conspirators on a number of occasions. He had already informed the government and the conspirators were now under surveillance, with all their meetings being monitored by Tanzania's intelligence officers. Leballo became the government's key witness who unlocked all the secrets of the coup plotters. He also testified in court that Kambona had been given a lot of money to finance the coup. According to Africa Contemporary Record:

'The central prosecution witness was Potlako K. Leballo, a founder of the Pan-African Congress (Pan-Africanist Congress) of South Africa (PAC), which had its exile headquarters in Dar es Salaam.

The state maintained that seven defendants attempted to enlist Leballo in the plot but that he informed government officials and only appeared to go along with the plot in order to assist in capturing the conspirators.

Leballo testified that he frequently met with Kambona in London and that Kambona had shown him a cache of $500,000 and told him that he could 'get more where that came from' by contacting a U.S. Information Service 'friend' in London (New York Times, 19 July 1970, 12).

Leballo further testified that Kambona had an agreement with the South African foreign minister, Hilgard Muller, that South Africa would support the coup.

The defence charged that Leballo had a grudge against the Nyerere regime, which had cut off the funds it had given PAC, and that he would have been appointed a Bantustan leader in South Africa had the coup been successful.

Leballo denied that he was a South African spy, and the defendants called Leballo's evidence a fabrication. Some defendants (such as Bibi Titi Mohammed) denied any involvement in the plot, while others maintained that their opposition was by constitutional, not violent, means.

Chief Justice (Phillip) Telfer Georges and four others found six of the seven guilty. Milinga was acquitted. Mattaka, the Chipaka brothers, and Bibi Titi were found guilty of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment; Kamaliza and Chacha were convicted of misprison (misprision) of treason and sentenced to prison terms.' – (Colin Legum and John Drysdale, eds., Africa Contemporary Record: Annual Survey and Documents 1970 – 1971, London: Africa Research Ltd., 1971, pp. 170 – 171. See also Ronald Christenson, ed., Political Trials in History: From Antiquity to the Present:, Transaction Publishers, 1991, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA, pp. 235; and Oscar Kambona in Jacqueline Audrey Kalley, Elna Schoeman, Lydia Eve Andor, Southern African Political history: a Chronology of Key Political Events from Independence to mid-1997, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999, p. 594).

When Tanzania's Attorney-General Mark Bomani asked the Director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Geoffrey Sawaya, how he knew for sure that Leballo met the conspirators, Sawaya said whenever he knew in advance that there would be a meeting, he would assign his intelligence officers to monitor the proceedings in a clandestine operation the coup plotters never knew about. He also testified before the court that Leballo told him, in advance, about a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, on March 25, 1969; and that Leballo did go on that trip and returned to Dar es Salaam on April 1st .


Leballo told the director of criminal investigation the purpose of the trip was to meet with Gray Likungu Mataka, who then lived in Nairobi which was one of the operational bases for the coup plotters, to get confirmation of the coup plot as Mataka had explained to him earlier.

Sawaya went on to say that he already knew that Leballo and Colonel Chacha had a meeting and that Leballo had been introduced to Prisca (one of the code names used by one of the conspirators) and Bibi Titi Mohammed. Chacha and Leballo met at Twiga Hotel in Dar es Salaam. Leballo also met with Bibi Titi Mohammed at an Islamic Centre at Chang'ombe in Dar es Salaam and discussed how President Nyerere and other senior government officials including some cabinet members would be assassinated.

Sawaya further testified that on March 24, 1969, Leballo went to him and told him about the meeting he (Leballo) had with Chacha at Twiga Hotel. When Attorney-General Mark Bomani asked him how he knew the meeting had taken place, Sawaya said he sent his intelligence officers to Twiga Hotel on a surveillance mission after he was told about the meeting in advance. And they observed the meeting taking place.

On the following day, March 25, Leballo left for Nairobi, the criminal investigation director said, and was 'escorted' by some intelligence officers who had been assigned by the director to accompany him.

Sawaya went on to tell the court that in April 1969, he went on a trip overseas. He said he met again with Leballo on May 2, 1969, and that Leballo told him that the plan for the coup as explained by Gray Mataka in Nairobi was very well received by Colonel Chacha, Michael Kamaliza and Bibi Titi Mohammed in a jovial mood. He also said Mataka had promised to ask for some money from Kambona to facilitate the operation. The CID chief further stated that Leballo produced a letter written to Prisca by Mataka, and that Mataka himself copied the letter in his own handwriting and gave the copy to Leballo,

Mark Bomani: Can you recognize the copy of this letter if you see it?

Sawaya: Yes, I can.

Bomani: How can you recognize this letter?

Sawaya: I can recognize it by the name of Chaima.

Leballo: He (the criminal investigation director) told me that after I met with Mataka for the first time, the accused changed his name and gave himself the code name of Chaima.

Chief Justice: Was the letter translated?

Sawaya: Soon after the copy of the letter was made, it was translated so that I could understand what it said.

Bomani: Did you know the letter was delivered?

Sawaya: I was informed that it was being delivered.

Sawaya went on to say that according to the information he got from Leballo, Chipaka, Titi, Kamaliza, Leballo and Prisca were going to have a meeting to discuss what they would be doing when they were waiting for some money from Kambona.

At that meeting, Kamaliza asked Leballo to go to London and ask Kambona to send more money. Kamaliza also asked Chipaka to write Kambona a letter and send him a 10-shilling note for Kambona to sign it. With Kambona's signature on the 10-shilling note, Kamaliza said the note would be passed around to convince some cabinet members and members of parliament to support Kambona in overthrowing the government.

It was also expected that the note would be used to raise more funds for the coup and get support from TANU leaders and workers and from the leaders and members of the country's labour union, the National Union of Tanganyika Workers (NUTA), to oppose the government; thus encouraging others to overthrow it.

Kamaliza told Leballo there was no doubt that the workers of Tanzania would support the coup because the president had removed him (Kamaliza) from the leadership of NUTA against the wishes of the workers.

Geoffrey Sawaya went on to say that Leballo met Titi (Bibi Titi Mohammed) at her house on June 23, 1969. She told him that she had been to Nairobi where she stayed for four days and made a telephone call to Kambona asking him to send one million shillings for overthrowing the government within two weeks.

Titi gave Leballo 400 shillings and said she had received 2,000 shillings, $1,000 for Colonel Chacha, for incidental expenses. Titi told Leballo she would give him 600 shillings in a few days, and did so on June 26. The money was presented in court as evidence.

On June 28, Colonel Chacha made arrangements to meet with Leballo on June 30 in order to introduce him to Major Herman. Chacha and Lieutenant-Colonel Marwa went to Leballo's residence at 3 a.m. on June 30. Chacha and Leballo went into the bedroom, leaving Marwa in the sitting room. There in the bedroom, Chacha told Leballo that he was ready to overthrow the government if he was paid 20 million shillings, and wanted Leballo to tell Kambona to send the money right away.

On July 3, Chacha and Leballo met again at the army headquarters at Chacha's request. Chacha told Leballo he was disappointed because the money was being delayed. And he wanted Leballo to go to the officers' mess at Lugalo Barracks where Captain Elia Dunstan Lifa Chipaka would introduce him to Major Herman.

Leballo went there and found Captain Chipaka waiting for him. Captain Chipaka told Leballo that he did not trust Major Herman as someone who would be involved in overthrowing the government because he was a half-caste from Iringa (in the Southern Highlands of southwestern Tanzania); and that he would give him a list of army officers which would include the name of one officer from Zanzibar. From that list would be chosen a person who would lead the coup.

Afterwards, Captain Chipaka introduced Leballo to Major Herman.

After this meeting, Leballo met with John Chipaka and Michael Kamaliza in the main office of NUTA in Dar es Salaam. They had a discussion and agreed that Leballo should go to London and ask Kambona to send more money.

Around 4.15 p.m. on the same day, Leballo was again asked to go to the same office. He went and found Kamaliza alone in the office. Kamaliza told Leballo that he had sent someone to Kambona to get and bring the money. He also told Leballo that he personally would like Major Herman, and not Colonel Chacha, to lead the coup.

There were conspirators in Zanzibar but, because the former island nation was an autonomous entity with its own legal system even after uniting with Tanganyika to form Tanzania, the authorities in the isles dispensed swift justice against them. So, it was only the ones on the mainland who had to appear before the Tanzania High Court in Dar es Salaam presided over by the Trinidadian jurist Philip Telfer Georges.

The criminal investigation director (CID), Geoffrey Sawaya, told the court that the coup did not take place because some of the conspirators were arrested and detained before the scheduled date for the takeover. He said some of them made statements after their arrest admitting most of the allegations about their involvement in the abortive coup attempt. And he produced evidence showing instructions on how strategic locations would be taken over. He also presented to the court lists of prominent people who were to be detained by the coup makers.

There were moonlight trips by dhow between Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, made by the conspirators and their couriers. Secret meetings were held in expensive hotels in Nairobi, Kenya, in London, and in Dar es Salaam. Nightclubs were another hot spot where the coup plotters met to discuss their nefarious scheme which included a plot to assassinate President Nyerere. There was even a plan, for whatever reason they deemed appropriate, to bomb the University of Dar es Salaam; probably to cause panic while they executed the coup, or simply to wreak havoc and cause mayhem.

One of the most damaging pieces of evidence against the coup plotters presented in court was the 'wedding guest list' found at the residence of Captain Elia Dunstan Lifa Chipaka. All 37 "guests" named on the list were army officers. Captain Chipaka told the court that the names were part of a list of the names of guests he was going to invite to his wedding. But, as Chief Justice Philip Telfer Georges said at the end of the trial, the list contained comments which an average person would consider to be totally irrelevant to preparation for a wedding. For example, against the name of one colonel was this comment: 'Dissatisfied, but his stand is not known.'

Other evidence included letters from Oscar Kambona written to the conspirators.

What the coup plotters did not know was that Potlako Leballo, the South African political exile and president of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) was already working for the Tanzania intelligence service but gained their confidence. The outlandish claim by them that Leballo had manufactured the whole thing and was really a spy for the South African apartheid regime was dismissed as nonsense by the court.

In delivering the verdicts, the chief justice denied pleas for clemency made by the defence lawyers and made it clear that overthrowing governments was not an acceptable way to change leadership, emphasizing that the young African nations needed peace and stability to consolidate their independence and serve their people.​

The trial lasted 127 days, the longest in the country's history. Chief Justice Philip Telfer Georges did not sentence the conspirators to death...but nonetheless gave them stiff sentences as follows:

Bibi Titi Mohammed: life imprisonment for treason.

Gray Likungu Mataka: life imprisonment for treason.

Elia Dunstan Lifa Chipaka: life imprisonment for treason.

Michael Kamaliza: ten years' imprisonment for misprision of treason.

William Makori Chacha: ten years' imprisonment for misprision of treason.

Alfred Philip Milinga was acquitted of all charges, but after spending 16 months in detention under the Preventive Detention Act during the investigation and trial of the treason case.

The act was passed by parliament to allow the government to detain people if they posed a threat to national security but was criticized by the chief justice during the treason trial for detaining people for too long before they were brought to court.

The ringleader and mastermind of the treasonous coterie, former foreign affairs minister Oscar Kambona, was not tried even in absentia. Only three years earlier, President Nyerere had said of his cabinet colleague and close political aide:

'Oscar is extremely loyal – to the party, to me, and to the people.'

Kambona...was never arrested. No extradition proceedings took place and he remained in Britain until he willingly returned to Tanzania in April 1992 after the country adopted the multiparty system which enabled him to form a political party and challenge the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (Revolutionary Party) which had been in power since independence, first as TANU....

Twelve years after the treason trial, Oscar Kambona gave an interview in April 1982 in which he explained why he was highly critical of Nyerere, and by implication tried to justify his attempt to overthrow the government, although nothing he said could justify that. As he stated in the interview with Drum:

'Nyerere and I go back a long way - we founded TANU. Nyerere was the chairman and I was the secretary-general.

Problems between us began in 1964 during the army mutiny. Nyerere and Kawawa hid themselves in a grass hut while I was left to face the music (Kambona was then minister of defence).

I negotiated with the army and managed to settle the uprising. When Nyerere returned, the army wanted to mutiny again - that was when we asked for military assistance from the British.

After the mutiny, some friends told him that he was losing his grip on the country and I think he believed them.

When Nyerere visited China, he was very impressed with the glorification of Mao Tse-Tung. I think the seeds of a single, all-powerful individual, an autocrat, were sown in him on this trip. And when he came back, he wanted a one-party state.

I sat on the commission that looked at the question of a one-party state and produced a minority report in which I wanted to know what mechanism we had of changing government peacefully.

Nyerere persuaded me not to present my report and said that I should go along with the majority report which was in favour of a one-party state and that at the end of five years, we would review the situation and if we found any weaknesses we could put them right. I agreed, but I refused to sign as a member of the committee.

I think that Ujamaa was badly implemented and that is why it has been a failure. The government should have had pilot schemes which were successful so that people could go to see them.

The farmers in Tanzania are very conservative. They want to know what they get from their labour. If a man has a farm and earns 200 British pounds from it, and is then asked to go into an Ujamaa village and gets 20 pounds for the same work, he begins to ask: 'How is Ujamaa good for me?'

The system in Tanzania is such that Nyerere will continue to remain in power. The president chooses all the candidates for elections. Whichever way you vote, you still vote for his man.

In the presidential elections, there are only two boxes – one for Nyerere and the other against him. When you go into the polling booth, there is a soldier standing there. He tells you, 'If you want Nyerere, vote there, and if you are an enemy of the people, then vote in the 'no' box.'

Nyerere has been in power for 21 years now. And nowadays he is always saying that he is going to resign. Then the parliamentarians stamp their feet and shout that he is their leader and Nyerere says: 'Well, what can I do? A captain cannot abandon his ship and let it sink.'

But why is it that during all this time he hasn't been able to find anyone who can rule the country besides himself?

I feel very sorry for the person who will take over because the country is bankrupt. If I took over I would change the economic policies and do away with detention for longer than ten days.'
​

But even after multiparty politics was introduced, Kambona was still not able to get significant support among the people after he returned to Tanzania in April 1992 from 25 years of exile in Britain.” – (Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa 1960 – 1970: Chronicle and Analysis, op. cit., pp. 242 – 248, 490, 495 – 496 – 503, 505, 506 – 507).

The plot to overthrow the government and assassinate President Nyerere was real. The accused were not convicted on trumped-up charges. John Lifa Chipaka did not even deny they were going to eliminate the president. He didn't deny that. He just put a spin on the word “eliminate” and said “eliminate him politically not physically.”

Central to the plot was not just ouster but also assassination of the president. And the mastermind of all that was Oscar Kambona from his sanctuary in London.

I was at Saba Saba fair grounds in July 1972 when Portuguese planes flew over and dropped leaflets denouncing Nyerere. Most of the people did not get the leaflets but word spread quickly that Kambona was behind all that. And he was, in collusion with the Portuguese authorities and the apartheid regime.

When Kambona was plotting to overthrow Nyerere, he was in touch with Nkrumah who was then living in exile in Guinea. Nkrumah wrote Kambona supporting the coup plot. Some people in Tanzania said they saw and read the letter Nkrumah wrote Kambona agreeing with him that Nyerere should be overthrown.

Nkrumah was worried Nyerere would eclipse him as a leader of continental stature because of Mwalimu's enormous influence across Africa and beyond. Therefore, it is not inconceivable or surprising that he wanted him removed from office. And he found a comfortable ally in Kambona who also wanted Nyerere out of power; a leader who also humiliated Nkrumah at the OAU summit in Cairo in July 1964 with his brilliant and scathing response to attacks on him by the Osagyefo. Delegates to the conference saw Nyerere rewriting his speech as the Osagyefo spoke. Nyerere responded accordingly, and Nkrumah was still reeling from that even years later. He underestimated Nyerere. He never expected such a furious and brilliant response from Mwalimu.

Eight months after the OAU summit in Cairo, Nkrumah tried in March 1965 to work with two Tanzanian leaders who were close to Nyerere in an attempt to undermine him. Probably both were cabinet members, and one of them was probably Oscar Kambona who was already close to Nkrumah as the other leader also probably was; it was probably Kassim Hanga since he was a very close friend of Kambona and was also close to Nkrumah.

Bediako Poku, head and secretary-general of Ghana's ruling Convention People's Party (CPP) who knew Nkrumah very well for many years said Nkrumah was jealous of Nyerere; Kojo Botsio, Ghana's minister of foreign affairs under Nkrumah who was a friend of Nyerere, probably intimated as much.

Therefore, when Kambona came up with a plan to oust Nyerere, Nkrumah had no reason to oppose it and instead supported the plot to remove from office, his nemesis, Mwalimu Nyerere, and help ensure his legacy as Africa's preeminent leader; an evaluation on which the continent awaits the verdict of history.

Kambona also had his own merits and demerits. He will always be remembered as a leader of national stature and as a luminary in the struggle for Tanganyika's independence. But he will also be remembered as someone who tarnished his image and legacy when he tried to gain power by unconstitutional means and in collaboration with some of Africa's arch-enemies, the white minority rulers of southern Africa who, among others, were strongly denounced by his friend Nkrumah in his letter to Moise Tshombe, dated 12 August 1960, when the Congolese secessionist leader enlisted their help to dismember Congo, an admonition also applicable to Kambona who sought help from the same enemies of Africa in his attempt to overthrow Nyerere. As Nkrumah stated in his letter to Tshombe:

“You have assembled in your support the foremost advocates of imperialism and colonialism in Africa and the most determined opponents of African freedom. How can you, as an African, do this?"

Substitute “Kambona” for “Tshombe” in the letter. The gravity and magnitude of what he attempted to do is as clear as Tshombe's.

 

[Shwari]

Source:
Reuters News Archive.

Saturday, June 8th 1968.

Interview with Oscar Kambona, the former Foreign Minister of Tanzania in Victoria Island, Lagos, while on a speaking tour of Nigeria.

The series of lectures were organised by the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. The purpose of the tour was to discuss current political trends in Tanzania where he felt government policies were leading the country to authoritarian rule.

Kambona fell out with Dr. Julius Nyerere and went into exile in London.

Note:

The Lecture tour of Nigeria (by) Mr. Kambona came after the recognition of the secessionist state of Biafra by the Tanzanian government in April 1968. The war with Biafra lasted until January 1970 when it surrendered to Federal Nigerian forces.

 

[Chinona]

Imekaa vyema

 

[Shwari]

Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere arrives for talks with United Arab Republic (UAR) President Gamal Abdel Nasser in Cairo, 4 March 1968.

 

[Shwari]

AP Archive:

Julius Nyerere awarded honorary degree at Cairo University gives speech.
10 April 1967.


1. Exterior Cairo University

2. President Julius Nyerere greeting Dr Mohamed Ahmed Soliman, Rector of Cairo University, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt in background

3. Nasser watches as Nyerere greets professors

4. Nyerere and Nasser enter hall onto balcony (pan right)

5. Audience applauding

6. Entry of professors, pan left to mcu audience applauding

7. Mrs. Nyerere and Mrs. Nasser look down from balcony

8. Varsity Rector addresses audience

9. Audience applauding

10. Nyerere moves to centre of rostrum where he is robed by the rector and by the Minister Of Higher Education, Ezzat Salama

11. Salama presents plaque as Nyerere robing nearly complete

12. Students in audience

13. Nyerere speaking

14. Women students in audience

15. Mrs. Nyerere and Mrs. Nasser watch from balcony.

 

[Shwari]

Saturday, 24 September 1966

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser on his arrival, the island of Zanzibar.

He flew in from Dar-es-Salaam, the (then) capital city of Tanzania where he had held talks with President Julius Nyerere. In Zanzibar, President Nasser met with Vice President Abeid Karume. He later flew back to the mainland for further talks with President Nyerere.


Source: Reuters News Archive.

 

[Shwari]

AP Archive

25 March 1977 – Arrival of Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny In Dar-Es-Salaam. Podgorny and Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere greeting Tanzanian and Soviet Officials.

 

[Shwari]

20 January 1970 - Tito visit to Tanzania

 

[Shwari]

AP Archive

23 March 1981 – President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, arrives for a week's visit to Japan.

 

[Shwari]

AP Archive

25 June 1968 – President Julius Nyerere visits China to a warm welcome in Peking. He is welcomed by Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, Kang Shang....

 

[Shwari]

AP Archive

4 September 1978 – President Siaka Stevens of Sierra Leone was greeted on arrival at Dar es Salaam airport by President Julius Nyerere.

 

[Shwari]

AP Archive

Haile Selassie visiting Tanzania

17 Jun 1964 – Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie with President of Tanzania Julius Nyerere in Dar es Salaam.

 

[Shwari]

Dr Nkrumah and Emperor Haile Selassie - 1958​

In his palace, at Addis Ababa, His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie is host to Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the Prime Minister of Ghana. Abyssinia was first of the African States being visited by Dr Nkrumah. The Emperor invested him was a decoration.

 

[Shwari]

Saturday, July 22nd 1978 – Footage of President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania arriving in Addis Ababa for a state visit to Ethiopia. He was met by the Ethiopian Head of State Lt. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam.

Source: Reuters News Archive.