By William Shao
Was the Abeid Karume killing on April 7, 1972 an attempt to overthrow the first Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar? Was the Umma Party responsible for the killing as some government officials claim? Could Karume be deposed at that material time?

It is difficult to establish whether there was an organised plot to assassinate President Karume and overthrow his government or the assassins were simply acting out of their own personal vengeances against Karume.

Even when President Julius Nyerere sent investigators to Zanzibar, the team found out that the assassins had intended nothing more to happen. Even then, Zanzibari authorities announced that they had uncovered a farreaching plot “conceived and masterminded” by Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu. More than thousand people, including Babu, were arrested and detained.

Babu, Umma Party leader, was sentenced to death along with 34 other people and 23 others were acquitted for their alleged role in the 1972 assassination of the then Zanzibar President, Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume.

Nyerere freed Babu and 12 other prisoners who were held on the mainland in an amnesty to mark the 14th anniversary of the Union of Tanzanyika and Zanzibar in April 1978.

It would have been difficult to overthrow Karume, especially in 1972.  The defence of the Zanzibar regime was in the hands of the Union military forces. Deposing the Zanzibar government would, therefore, require at least tacit approval from mainland.

“Whether or not the motive was to overthrow the government, the assassins apparently acted out of both personal vengeance and civic concern to terminate political persecutions and economic hardships as well,” says Mohammed Ali Bakari in his book, The Democratisation Process in Zanzibar: a Retarded Transition.

Following Karume’s death, hundreds of people were arrested and detained. Twenty-four of the acused were “tried” and sentenced to death, 10 of them in absentia on Mainland Tanzania, including Abdulrahman Babu—the alleged head of the plot.

Twenty-nine others were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, and “five died in detention” according to Esmond Bradley Martin in his book, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution. Yet, according to historical facts, given the way the prosecution was handled, no conclusive evidence on the truth of the case is available.

Sheikh Mwinyi Aboud Jumbe, born in 1920 and a Makerere Diploma holder in education, was unexpectedly, on April 11, 1972, appointed to succeed Karume. He was not among the hard-core revolutionaries. His ascent to the presidency came as a surprise to hardliners—or liberators.

Jumbe was politically less entrenched than others. Lacking a strong base within the hard-core revolutionaries, Jumbe had to look for other means of cultivating a political base outside the Revolutionary Council.

The book The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: A Study in Political Integration by Martin Bailey asserts that in his earlier days in office, Jumbe’s administration ruled with an iron fist and clamped down on suspected dissidents and Karume’s assassins.

Summary executions of political “dissidents” continued under Jumbe. The so-called Mombasa Group, whose members had been sentenced to five years imprisonment in public by Karume, were killed after his death, according to Bakari.

The Mombasa Group included Salim Ahmed, Hemed Said, Fumba (Pemba boy), Said Ali, Mwanga Said, Ali Kassim, Mdonge, Mohammed Juma, Ahmada Mngazija and others.

Arbitrary arrests and confiscation of private property continued until the late 1970s. Between 1972 and 1981, about 52 confiscating orders were issued, according to Zanzibar-Oman Relations: A Historical Perspective by Ahmed A. Omar, published in 1996.

“Given his shaky political base in his early days in power,” reports Bakari, “one could hardly establish the extent of leeway at his disposal to take a relatively less acrimonious approach towards regime’s critics and dissenters.”

Had Jumbe taken that approach, he could presumably, on the one hand, broaden his political base and extend beyond the traditional supporters of the regime. On the other hand, however, he could certainly be considered an “internal dissident” by the hardcore revolutionaries, hence threatening his own position.

Instead of starting with a risky political initiativeor at least a gesture of mercy, Jumbe took a relatively different economic approach that would secure him initial consent from the masses and would not antagonise the liberators.

While he allowed, or perhaps reluctantly consented to, continued political repression, mass arrests and imprisonment of perceived dissidents as well as killings, in the economic sphere he started to release foreign currency for the purchase of food, medicine and other requirements.

At the same time, his government continued to finance development projects initiated during the Karume administration. Among the projects include the housing programme, road construction and expansion of Zanzibar Airport as well as the construction of factories for cigarettes, shoes, soft drinks, aluminium utensils and soap.

According to Esmond Bradley Martin, the government was accused of reckless expenditure, corruption and mismanagement of the entire economy. He adds: “The Jumbe administration had inherited a healthy foreign reserve of more than 25 million sterling pounds in 1972.

In the late 1970s, in spite of very favourable prices of cloves in the 1970s, only 7.3 million sterling pounds remained in the Norandy Bank in London.”

When all was said and done, Zanzibar was always going to live longer than Karume.

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites