00:01
On the night of January 12, 1964 a band of some 300 people violently seized the Island
of Unguja in what became known as the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964.
This group was ostensibly led by a little known man named John Okello, who had lived
on Pemba Island, having come to the Islands some years earlier from Uganda.
The elected government of Zanzibar was overthrown and the Sultan deposed in this violent revolution.
This act reversed two hundred years of Arab dominance of the political and economic life
of Zanzibar and ensured that, contrary to British policy during colonial rule, the islands
would be primarily African in nature rather than Arab.
It did however have a dark side as it is estimated that up to 20000 people may have been killed
during the process.
This is the story about Zanzibar’s Bloody Revolution of January 1964.
00:59
To understand the Zanzibari Revolution, one must first understand Zanzibari history.
Some 35 km off the East African coast, Zanzibar consists of two main islands, Unguja also
known as Zanzibar Island and Pemba, and a number of smaller adjacent islands.
Its majority-Muslim population is dominated by an African community with sizeable Arab
and Asian minorities.
The strategic location of Zanzibar, in the Indian Ocean helped to create a historically
diverse, cosmopolitan society.
Trade from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East converged on the islands, bringing with it
a multitude of influences.
The Portuguese arrived at the end of the fifteenth century and dominated East Africa sea trade,
until the Sultanate of Oman in southern Arabia ousted the Portuguese from control of the
seas north of Mozambique in 1729.
The height of Omani power in this territory would come during the reign of Sultan Seyyid
Said during the 1830's and 1840's as he shifted his seat of power from Oman itself to Zanzibar
City, marking the Sultanate as being African-focused rather than Arabic-based.
The Sultan’s decision to relocate his capital in Zanzibar, however, led to the emigration
of thousands of Omanis and other Arabs to the islands.
Many but not all of them intermarried with the indigenous African population.
The islands’ African and Arab populations were said to have lived in “peaceful co-existence,”
that is until the introduction of Omani Arab rule, which helped turn Zanzibar into an epicenter
of the East African slave trade.
Thus the Sultan and other Arabs, became slaveholders of other African locals and African people
brought in from the mainland of East Africa…
The subsequent development of a plantation system – underpinned by an Arab landowning
class and an African labouring class – deeply affected the relations of production on the
island, as Zanzibar operated as a slave society.
During the rule of the Sultanate of Oman, Zanzibar became the world's leading producer
of cloves.
Cloves had been introduced into Zanzibar early in the nineteenth century and the Sultan Seyyid
Said encouraged Arabs to cultivate clove trees in both Zanzibar Island and Pemba, and the
spice had become a valuable export commodity in the second half of the century.
These cloves however relied on slave labor.
After a series of incursions by the Germans and the French in the European “scramble
for Africa”, British colonial influence arrived in 1890.
While not formally a colony, Zanzibar was by the mid-20th century a British protectorate.
In 1897 by which time Zanzibar was by then a British protectorate, the legal status of
slavery was abolished.
Slaves were replaced by itinerant laborers, mainly Africans from the mainland, who were
hired seasonally to pick the cloves……
Now when Zanzibar became a British protectorate in 1890, British rule “accentuated” the
state’s “major ethnic divisions” that were already existent in the area.
The British administration maintained and sometimes worsened this prejudice by grouping
people into solely “ethnic compartments,” preserving a societal structure that favored
Omani Arabs over Africans.
Many historians have blamed British divide-and-rule tactics as being responsible for the increase
in racial animosity on the islands.
Prior to the 1964 revolution there were roughly 50,000 Arabs resident in Zanzibar compared
to 230,000 ‘mainland’ Africans and Shirazis.
People of mixed African-Persian ancestry were known as Shirazi.
There was also a community of around 20 000 Asians.
Land, wealth and political power remained concentrated in Arab hands, although the Asian
community was prominent in business and trade.
And by the 1950s a political storm was brewing in the territory, as anti-colonialism spread
across Africa.
Subsequently, political parties were formed and the major parties that emerged were primarily
organised along ethnic lines.
The first party was the mainly Arab Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), whose political program
was modeled on the Marxist/Pan-Arabist regime in Egypt.
In 1957 the more moderate Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) was founded; with their leader being
Sheikh Abeid Karume.
Subsequently the Zanzibar and Pemba Peoples’ Party (ZPPP) splintered off from the ASP.
The elections of January 1961 produced a deadlock, since, of the 22 seats, ASP and ZNP each occupied
11 seats.
The British then enacted a new seat in Pemba and fresh elections were held in June 1961
with the ZNP and ZPPP forming an election coalition.
Favored by the voting system, this coalition won 13 seats and the ASP only 10, even though
the ASP had the most votes.
The ASP alleged that there had been electoral fraud.
Turmoil ensued leaving 68 people dead.
In the pre-independence elections of July 1963, the Arab dominated Zanzibar National
Party and their allies in the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party gained a slender majority
of seats.
Prior to the elections, the ZNP had suffered a minor set-back when a group of young militants
under the leadership of Abdulahman Mohammed Babu pulled out of the ZNP to form the Umma
Party.
However, the radical left-wing Umma party, formed just before the election, did not field
any candidates.
The Afro-Shirazi Party polled over 54 per cent of the vote but, due to the arrangement
of constituencies, gained only 13 out of the 31 seats in the National Assembly.
For many Africans, these election results of 1963 appeared to rule out constitutional
means of addressing the existing social, political and economic imbalances within Zanzibar society
and they also stood in contrast to the movement towards Uhuru (freedom) in mainland East Africa.
On December 10, 1963, Zanzibar received formal independence from Britain and became a constitutional
monarchy under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.
However the event was met with tension and only limited celebration.
Half of Zanzibar’s population “did not regard it as a significant day;” rather
the territory sat ripe for revolt.
In the aftermath of independence, the government exacerbated ill feeling amongst the masses
by initiating legislation designed to limit the activities of the press and opposition
groups as well as replacing existing members of the police and bureaucracy with personnel
known to support the party.
In the eyes of revolutionaries, not only had the ZNP stolen the government that the ASP
deserved, it was also systematically outlawing opposition, a move that made a revolution
necessary.
In addition to all of this, African police officers of mainland origin were dismissed.
Rather foolishly, the government dismissed the policemen but as a cost cutting measure
it did not pay for their immediate repatriation.
This left in Zanzibar a group of men with paramilitary training, an intimate knowledge
of police procedures and a grievance against the government.
This precarious situation would finally explode on the morning of January 12, 1964.
This would be in the form of an armed insurrection led by Ugandan ASP member John Okello later
dubbed the "Field Marshal of Zanzibar and Pemba".
08:18
Described as a very charming individual, yet very radical individual, John Okello was born
in the Lango district found in the then Uganda Protectorate in 1937.
At the age of fifteen, he left and began his own journey and found work in several places
within East Africa.
At different times, John Okello worked as a clerk, a servant, a gardener, and did a
bunch of other odd work while traveling around East Africa, living at different times in
Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika.
John Okello was arrested in Nairobi, Kenya on a charge of rape and imprisoned for two
years.
At the time, Kenya was a British Colony and so this ordeal left him with a deep hatred
for the British.
In 1959, Okello left for the island of Pemba, where he tried to find work in one of the
fields.
He would join Sheikh Abeid Karume’s Afro-Shirazi Party.
While there, John Okello developed a reputation as a very vocal and racial anti-colonialist.
As part of his rhetoric, John Okello always used to rebuke British colonial powers, people
from the South of Asia particularly from the subcontinent of India that monopolized the
commercial life of Zanzibar.
Okello also used to rebuke people of Arabic ethnicity who dominated the political life
of the Zanzibar Sultanate.
John Okello left for Zanzibar Island in 1963, where he contacted leaders of the Afro-Shirazi
Youth Community, an Afro-Shirazi Party youth organization.
On Zanzibar Island, John Okello was a member of the Painting Association.
As a painter, the job offered him a modest salary and allowed him to travel around the
island, allegedly giving him chances to give speeches at the union branches.
In reality it was his way to organize a coup to overthrow the sultan.
In his free time, he formed a small army of determined African patriots and this army
was required to adhere to John Okello’s strict rules such as abstinence from sex and
no alcohol.
John Okello, was also a very religious man and he believed that he had been instructed
in his dreams by God to break the Arab colonialism and build the revolutionary government of
Zanzibar and Pemba.
10:29
Zanzibar’s revolution began at around 0300am on 12 January 1964.
The exact details of the planning and conduct of the uprising are difficult to discern with
any accuracy.
The official account of the revolution, published on the first anniversary, claims that the
operation was planned and led by the leader of the Afro-Shirazi Party, Abeid Karume.
The Zanzibar authorities have always maintained that John Okello took no part in the planning
of the revolution.
They go on to say It was decided that for security reasons the Sheikh should be outside
Zanzibar when the revolution took place and he went to Dar es Salaam in Tanganyika.
The jury is still out on this version of events…The most accepted version of events surrounding
the revolution is that planning seems to have involved radical members of the Afro-Shirazi
Youth League in association with John Okello…
A day prior the launch of the coup, John Okello had instructed his forces to murder all Arabs
ranging between 18 to 25 years of age, but skip women who were pregnant and old, plus
give mercy to virgins when it came to raping.
And so on this fateful day, John Okello and his followers launched an assault on the principal
police arsenal and barracks at Ziwani, just outside Zanzibar City.
Armed with “bows, arrows, spears and an assortment of machetes and automobile springs,”
Okello and his men swiftly took out two sentries and pilfered the modern guns from the armory.
They then pinned down scores of Sultanate police who had been asleep and unarmed upstairs.
Now, although they were poorly armed, John Okello and his men shocked the Zanzibar police
force with a sudden attack and seized power.
The revolutionaries were now the best-armed men in Zanzibar and by noon, a growing force
of between 200 and 600 were now fully in support of Okello.
This group took over control of the local radio station, airfield, and a second police
station before moving on to the Sultanate headquarters in Stone Town.
After marching triumphantly onto Stone Town, John Okello went on air on Radio Zanzibar
and announced the takeover of Zanzibar declaring himself Field Marshal of Pemba and Zanzibar
John Okello also ordered the Sultan to kill his own family and later commit suicide; otherwise,
Okello would have done it himself.
However, the Sultan had already prepared his place of refuge and later escaped to England
never to return.
The Sultan's forces made only one serious attempt to counter attack the rebels.
Their "flying squad" arrived on the scene about an hour after the defeat of the Ziwani
garrison.
These 75 or so men had only light duty firearms and were no match for the now heavily armed
Battalion of John Okello.
In an act akin to a genocide, John Okello and his men killed or imprisoned between a
thousand and 20,000 people designated Arab or Asian.
In addition to the killings, John Okello’s supporters committed thousands of rapes and
destroyed property and settlements…
Within a few weeks, one-third of the population had died or fled.
Following the targeted slaughter, thousands more were ushered into camps and later forcibly
deported.
The members of Babu’s Umma Party were initially not part of the revolt but quickly took control
and offered leadership.
However, the presence in Zanzibar immediately after the revolution of Umma supporters that
were trained in Cuba and wearing Cuban combat fatigues gave rise to the erroneous belief
that the revolution was a Cuban-style communist take-over.
This explanation fitted British and American preconceptions, giving rise to fear that Zanzibar
might become ‘an African Cuba under communist control’.
In addition to the loss of life, one of the most unfortunate outcomes of the 1964 Zanzibar
revolution, was that the country lost a large number of its best brains and much of its
skilled work-force.”
It has been said that many of the later failures in the development of revolutionary Zanzibar
were due to the mass exodus of intellectuals, professionals, and experts that occurred during
the revolution.
Abeid Karume and Babu were both not included in the whole coup process as they were in
Tanganyika, but later on went back to Zanzibar, where they got a warm reception by John Okello.
Immediately after the revolt, on 14 January, a Revolutionary Council was formed by the
ASP parties and the Umma Party as a transitional government, with Karume leading the council
as President and Babu serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Unfortunately for the hero John Okello, neither Karume nor Babu wanted to do anything to do
with him.
Okello appeared too weak to take on any role in the government of the new country and was
quietly politically sidelined by Karume, who allowed him to remain in the post of Chief
of Army Staff.
On 3 February 1964 as Zanzibar was returning to normal and Karume had been accepted, of
course, as president.
John Okello formed a military force, known as the Freedom Military Force (FMF), from
his supporters who were known for patrolling the streets and engaging in looting.
John Okello’s position, however, became increasingly precarious as his colleagues
began to question his dictatorial behavior, the excesses of terror, and, perhaps most
significant, his identity..
Remember he was a Ugandan.
By March a large part of his FMF faction had been disarmed by Karume supporters.
John Okello was barred from entering the country when he tried to return from a trip from the
mainland and was deported to Tanganyika.
John Okello was also deported to Kenya from Tanganyika.
He then left Kenya for Congo Kinshasa before relocating to Uganda during Amin’s first
year in power.
It is reported that he was seen with Amin before he disappeared till today.
It is also thought that Amin saw him as a threat and that’s why he eliminated him…
Meanwhile, this violence spilled out beyond the island and into neighboring Tanganyika,
which was also forging a new, independent identity apart from its colonial past.
After much consideration, President Julius Nyerere requested British support and on January
25, British commandos scattered the first battalion.
Other army units were likewise forced to surrender.
The entire affair revealed troubling insights into the fragile security of both Tanganyika
and Zanzibar…
As a result of all of this, negotiations between the two young states towards unification began
in earnest, and by April the two merged into the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
By the end of 1964, the name was shortened to the United Republic of Tanzania.
Following the union, the situation in Zanzibar would further deteriorate and spiral, as the
ASP reigned despotic rule over the islands, torturing and imprisoning any opposition figures,
including Umma Party members.
This might be a topic for another day.
Thank you all for tuning in, this has been Tatenda for African Biographics, until next
time, cheers, have a good one.