Tanganyika

Northern Tanganyika's famed Olduvai Gorge has provided rich evidence of the area's prehistory, including fossil remains of some of humanity's earliest ancestors. The discoveries made by Dr. and Mrs. L.S.B. Leakey and others suggest that East Africa rather than Asia may have been the site of human origin.

Little is known of the history of Tanganyika's interior during the early centuries of the Christian era. The area is believed to have been inhabited originally by ethnic groups using a click-tongue language similar to that of southern Africa's Bushmen and Hottentots. Although remnants of these early tribes still exist, most were gradually displaced by Bantu farmers migrating from the west and south and by Nilotes and related northern peoples. Some of these groups had well-organized societies and controlled extensive areas by the time the Arab slavers and European explorers and missionaries penetrated the interior in the first half of the 19th century.

The coastal area, in contrast, first felt the impact of foreign influence as early as the eighth century, when monsoon winds brought the ships of Arab traders. By the 12th century, traders and immigrants came from as far away as Persia (now Iran) and India. They built a series of highly developed city and trading states along the coast, the principal one being Kilwa, a settlement of Persian origin that held ascendancy until the Portuguese destroyed it in the early 1500s.

The Portuguese navigator, Vasco da Gama, touched the East African coast in 1498 on his voyage to India. By 1506, the Portuguese claimed control over the entire coast. This control was nominal, however, for the Portuguese did not attempt to colonize the area or explore the interior. By the early 18th century, Arabs from Oman had assisted the indigenous coastal dwellers in driving out the Portuguese from the area north of the Ruvuma River. They established their own garrisons at Zanzibar, Pemba, and Kilwa and carried on a lucrative trade in slaves and ivory.

European exploration of Tanganyika's interior began in the mid-19th century. Two German missionaries reached Mt. Kilimanjaro in the 1840s. The British explorers, Richard Burton and John Speke, crossed the interior to Lake Tanganyika in 1857. David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary-explorer who crusaded against the slave trade, established his last mission at Ujiji, where he was "found" by Henry Morton Stanley, and Anglo-American journalist-explorer, who had been commissioned by the New York Herald to locate him.

German colonial interests were first advanced in 1884. Karl Peters, who formed the Society for German Colonization, concluded a series of treaties by which tribal chiefs in the interior accepted German protection. Prince Otto von Bismarck's government backed Peters in the subsequent establishment of the German East Africa Company. In 1886 and 1890, Anglo-German agreements were negotiated that delineated the British and German spheres of influence in the interior of East Africa and along the coastal strip previously claimed by the Omani sultan of Zanzibar. In 1891, the German government took over direct administration of the territory from the German East African Company and appointed a governor with headquarters at Dar es Salaam.

Although the German colonial administration brought cash crops, railroads, and roads to Tanganyika, its harsh actions provoked African resistance, culminating in the Maji Maji rebellion of 1905-07. The rebellion, which temporarily united a number of southern tribes and ended only after an estimated 120,000 Africans had died from fighting or starvation, is considered by Tanzanians today to have been one of the first stirrings of nationalism.

German colonial domination of Tanganyika ended with World War I. Control of most of the territory passed to the United Kingdom, under a League of Nations mandate. After World War II, Tanganyika became a UN trust territory also administered by the United Kingdom. In the following years, Tanganyika moved gradually towards self-government and independence. In 1954, Julius K. Nyerere, a school teacher who was then one of two Tanganyikans educated abroad at the university level, organized a political party, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). TANU-supported candidates were victorious in the Legislative Council elections of September 1958 and February 1959. In December 1959, the United Kingdom agreed to the establishment of internal self-government following general elections to be held in August 1960. Nyerere was named chief minister of the subsequent government.

In May 1961, Tanganyika became autonomous, and Nyerere became prime minister under a new constitution. Full independence was achieved on December 9, 1961. Mr. Nyerere was elected president when Tanganyika became a republic within the Commonwealth on the Nations 1 year after independence. On April 26, 1964, Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to formed the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, renamed the United Republic of Tanzania on October 29.

TANU and the Afro-Shirazi Party of Zanzibar were merged into a signal party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) (Revolutionary Party), on February 5, 1977. On April 26, 1977, the union of the two parties was ratified in a new constitution. The merger was reinforced by principles enunciated in the 1982 union constitution and reaffirmed in the constitution of 1984.

Zanzibar

An early Arab/Persian trading center, Zanzibar fell under Portuguese domination in the 16th and early 17th centuries but was retaken by Omani Arabs in the early 18th century. The height of Arab rule came during the reign of Sultan Seyyid Said (1804- 56). He encouraged the development of clove plantations, using the forced labor of the island's African population. Zanzibar also became the base for the Arab slavers whose raids depopulated much of the Tanganyikan interior. By 1840, Said had transferred his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar and established a ruling Arab elite. The island's commerce fell increasingly into the hands of traders from the Indian subcontinent whom Said encouraged to settle on the island.

Zanzibar's spices attracted ships from as far away as the United States. A U.S. consulate was established on the island in 1837. The United Kingdom's early interest in Zanzibar was motivated by commerce and British determination to end the slave trade. In 1822, the British signed the first of a series of treaties with Sultan Said to curb this trade, but not until 1876 was the sale of slaves finally prohibited.

In carrying out its policies, the United Kingdom gained a supremacy that was formally recognized in the Anglo-German agreement of 1890, making Zanzibar and Pemba a British protectorate. British rule through the Sultan remained largely unchanged from the late 19th century until after World War II.

Zanzibar's political development began in earnest after 1956, when provision was first made for the election of six nongovernment members to the Legislative Council. Two parties were formed: the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), representing the dominant Arab and Arabized minority, and the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), led by Abeid Karume and representing the Shirazis and the African majority.

The first elections were held in July 1957, and the ASP won three of the six elected seats, with the remainder going to independents. The ZNP polled only a small percentage of the total votes. Four Arabs and two Asians were appointed to the government seats on the Legislative Council. Following the election the ASP split; some of its Shirazi supporters left to form the Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party (ZPPP). The January 1961 election resulted in a deadlock between the ASP and a ZNP-ZPPP coalition.

The elections that followed the granting of self-government in June 1963 produced similar results. Zanzibar received its independence from the United Kingdom on December 19, 1963, as a constitutional monarchy under the sultan. On January 12, 1964, the African majority revolted against the sultan, and a new government was formed with the ASP leader, Abeid Karume, as president of Zanzibar and chairman of the Revolutionary Council. Under the terms of its political union with Tanganyika in April 1964, the Zanzibar Government retained considerable local autonomy.

Abeid Karume was named first vice president of the union government, a post he held until his assassination in April 1972. Aboud Jumbe, a fellow member of the ASP and the Revolutionary Council, was appointed to succeed Karume. In 1981, 32 persons were selected to serve in the Zanzibar House of Representatives. The election marked the first poll since the 1964 revolution. In 1984, Jumbe resigned and was replaced by Ali Hassan Mwinyi as both President of Zanzibar and First Vice President of Tanzania. In the 1985 election, Mwinyi was elected President of the United Republic of Tanzania. Idris Wakil was elected as President of Zanzibar and Second Vice President of Tanzania.

Political Conditions

Julius Nyerere, who had served as president since the Tanzanian union was established in 1964, did not stand for reelection in 1985. In his place, union vice president and president of Zanzibar, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, was chosen by the CCM to run for president. Idris Wakil, speaker of the Zanzibar House of Representatives, was chosen to run for president of Zanzibar and ex officio second vice president of the union. Under Tanzania's one-party system, no other candidates were allowed to run in the October 1985 elections, and voters could only approve or disapproved of the sole candidate. Mwinyi was approved overwhelmingly, but Wakil, who ran only on Zanzibar in a separate election, received only a relatively small majority. Mwinyi subsequently chose Joseph Warioba as first vice president and prime minister. (Under the Tanzanian constitution the president and first vice president cannot both be from either the mainland or Zanzibar.)

Nyerere retains significant power through his position as Chairman of the CCM, which was granted political supremacy over the government by the constitution of 1977. Nyerere's term as CCM chairman runs until 1987. The CCM is, in theory, the primary source of policy in the social, political, and economic fields. The CCM provides nearly all top governments leaders and plays a leading role in the government scheme of nation-building. The party's control structure is closely interwoven with the government's.

Tanzania has sought to achieve political and economic development within an egalitarian framework. Since 1962, Nyerere has used the Kiswahili word ujamaa (familyhood) to describe the type of communal cooperation his government seeks to foster. Tanzanian goals were set forth on more conventional socialist terms in the TANU constitution and reaffirmed in February 1967 in a party document, the Arusha Declaration. The declaration, which enunciated the principles of "socialism and self-reliance," asked the government to consolidate its control over the means of production, prepare development plans that Tanzania could carry out without depending on foreign assistance, and place greater emphasis on improving rural living standards.

To ensure consistency between precept and practice, the declaration prescribed a code of conduct for party and government leaders. Among the code's prohibitions were receipt of more than one salary, directorships in private firms, or ownership of rental properties or shares in any company. Ministerial and civil service salaries had been reduced earlier in a move toward the more equitable distribution of income.

Shortly after the Arusha Declaration, Nyerere announced the full or partial nationalization--with compensation--of various private interests, including all commercial banks; a number of food-processing, manufacturing, and trading firms; and some of Tanzania's leading sisal estates. On the third anniversary of the declaration, the president nationalized Tanzania's privately owned, English-language newspaper and began transferring the remaining private import-export firms and all wholesale businesses to the public sector. In 1971, the government nationalized all rental property valued at more than $14,000. On Zanzibar, which moved more rapidly toward public ownership, government control of the commercial sector is virtually complete, while production in agriculture and fishing remain largely in private hands.

The CCM became the principal instrument for the political mobilization of mainland Tanzania's population. Nyerere envisioned the party as a "two-way street" for the flow of ideas and policy directives between the village level and the government. However, in early 1986 Nyerere admitted that the party was moribund, particularly at local levels, and began a campaign to inject new life into the CCM.

Cooperatives, which once numbered more than 2,000 were abolished in 1972. In an effort to stimulate agricultural production, they were reapproved in 1982 and began operating again on July 1, 1983, as a means of more efficient distribution of inputs and collection of goods in Tanzania's decentralized markets. The national education system was also revamped to provide basic agricultural training for the many primary school-aged children who are unable to continue their education.

Public participation in mainland Tanzania's political development has also been encouraged through the electoral process. In the most recent general elections, held in October 1985, about 75% of the registered voters went to the polls. A number of incumbent members were defeated, including several former ministers.

Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, July 1986.