The Sultanate of Zanzibar was a British Protectorate between 1890 and 1963. Britain ended Zanzibar’s protectorate status amidst growing political tensions within the multi-racial Zanzibari society. This ultimately saw the overthrowing of the Sultan in 1964 led by the revolutionary forces of John Okello.

The Times reported the following on the developing events in Zanzibar:

“ARABS IN ZANZIBAR ARMS HUNT

–

SULTAN BANNED FOR LIFE

–

SURRENDER CALL BY ‘FIELD MARSHAL’

–

RECOGNITION BY KENYA

As hundreds of Arab men and youths in Zanzibar were rounded up at gunpoint by the new revolutionary regime and police were combing houses for arms, a ‘Field Marshal’ broadcast in Swahili over Zanzibar radio calling for opponents of the revolution to surrender. He instructed the police not to loot but only to search for arms, and told Arabs that if they attempted to hold meetings they would be shot.

The new Government has banished the island’s Sultan for life. In a radio broadcast the rebels declared that he had been guilty of political crimes.

Sultan Seyyid Jamshid bin Abdulla, who was refused permission by the Kenya Government to land at Mombasa, sailed for an unknown destination, a British High Commission spokesman said in Nairobi tonight. The spokesman said he knew nothing of reports that Sir Geoffrey de Freitas, the British High Commissioner in Kenya, had been trying to arrange the transfer of the Sultan to a British warship.

The ‘Field Marshal’ on Zanzibar radio identified himself as John Okello. He is believed to have been a policeman in Zanzibar before the revolt and to have led 600 insurgents in seizing power in what appears to have been a racially inspired black versus Arab revolt. In the broadcast tonight the rebel radio said that the ‘Field Marhsal’s’ Government was in control of the situation.

COMMUNIST LINKS

The Kenya Cabinet decided today to recognize the new Zanzibar Government led by President Shaik Abeid Karume. A statement after the meeting said the Kenya Government was confident that the new Zanzibar Government had majority support and added: ‘The Government is totally against foreign interference in what is entirely an internal matter in a sovereign state.’

The United States Charge d’Affaires in Zanzibar, Mr. Fritz Picard, is seeking permission of the new Government to evacuate American citizens. An information service official in Nairobi said the plan was to remove 63 American citizens to Dar-es-Salaam in the destroyer Manley.

A spokesman for the British High Commission said the British survey ship Owen was docked in Zanzibar. So far no reports had been made of British subjects being molested. It appeared that the assurance given by the Afro-Shirazis that British life and property would be respected had been honoured.

Most of Zanzibar’s new leaders have communist connexions and can be expected to reflect the black African nationalist viewpoint in contrast to the previous Arab leadership of the island’s estimated 310,000 people, of whom less than a third are Arab.

3 YEARS IN BRITAIN

The new Prime Minister, Abdullah Kassim Hanga, studied law and economics in Moscow after spending three years in Britain. A former deputy general secretary of the Afro-Shirazi Party, he has advocated a one-party system and accused Britain of supporting Arab colonialism in the island.

The new Foreign Minister is Shaikh Abdul Rahman, known as ‘Babu’ (father). When he came out of prison last year after serving a sentence for sedition he announced his resignation as secretary general of the Zanzibar Nationalist Party, declaring himself disillusioned with the leadership, and formed the Umma Party, which was later banned.

President Karume, who was leader of the Afro-Shirazi Party in the island’s parliament, has frequently attacked alleged Government extravagance and reluctance to overthrow colonialism.

NAIROBI, Jan. 13.–The Uganda Government has also decided to recongize the new regime, the Kenya Government information service announced in Nairobi.

Mr. Obote, Prime Minister of Uganda, arrived here today and President Nyerere of Tanganyika is expected tomorrow. They will presumbly discuss Zanzibar with Mr. Kenyatta.

Zanzibar radio, monitored in Nairobi, announced that the island was under martial law.

Mr J. M. Sullivan, the police commissioner, has been replaced by a Tanganyikan, Commissioner Kisasi, the radio announced. Mr Sullivan who is on board the Sultan’s ship, Seyyid Khalifa, had been given until this morning to surrender by the rebels. No one was allowed on board when the ship arrived in Mombasa. Among those on board are the Sultan with a reported retinue of 29, and 42 policemen, three of them Europeans (including Mr. Sullivan), and 39 refugees.”

Source: ‘Arabs Held in Zanzibar Arms Hunt’, The Times, 14 Jan 1964, p. 8