Socio-political tensions in Zanzibar erupted into an outright revolution against the Sultan of Zanzibar. Revolutionary forces led by John Okello overthrew the Sultan and Abeid Karume of the Afro-Shirazi Party was made president.

President Nyerere of Tanganyika and President Karume of Zanzibar led the initiative to form a political union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar.  Tanzania was created as a result on 29 October 1964.

The Times reported on developments in the following article:

“TANGANYIKA AND ZANZIBAR UNITE IN ONE STATE

NAIROBI, APRIL 23

Tanganyika and Zanzibar are to become one state, under an Act of Union signed by the Presidents of the two republics and announced in Dar-es-Salaam today. The announcement follows the visit made unexpectedly to Zanzibar yesterday by President Nyerere of Tanganyika.

Accompanied by his Minister for External Affairs, Mr. Oscar Kambona, and Minister for Home Affairs, Mr. Job Lusinde, Mr. Nyerere held talks lasting two hours with President Abeid Karume. The Zanzibar Foreign Minister, Shaikh Muhammad Abdul Rahman (‘Babu’) is out of the country, and was today reported to be in Pakistan on his way back from trade talks in Indonesia. The timing of the announcement in his absence has led to speculation that the merger is designed to save Zanzibar, and the reputedly moderate Mr. Karume, from being taken over completely by the communist-sympathizing group within the Government.

LEFT-WING LEANINGS

Babu, until now the island’s strong man has decided left-wing leanings, and before coming to power was the New China news agency representative in Zanzibar and ran a bookstall selling communist tracts. It was generally thought that he was making use of Mr. Karume’s popularity as a nationalist leader. Today’s announcement is the first indication that Mr. Karume might have become disenchanted with his role.

The news has been received with surprise in Kenya Government circles; with five senior Ministers out of the country no comment was forthcoming. The situation is unlikely to be clarified until Babu’s return, and until then doubt remains about who is swallowing whom. No details of the merger were given in today’s announcement, which said only that the Act of Union was signed by the two Presidents in Zanzibar yesterday, and that the two states would become one. Details, it said would be given to the Tanganyika National Assembly tomorrow, when it meets in emergency session to ratify the agreement.

President Karume said in a telephone conversation with Dar-es-Salaam this afternoon that the Zanzibar Revolutionary Council ratified the union on Tuesday. This lends strength to the suspicion that it was rushed through in Babu’s absence. Certainly it is being interpreted hopefully in Zanzibar, where it is seen as spelling the end of Babu’s rule and the bolstering of the more moderate element.

Western observers here are taking hopeful view of the developments, although some very experienced officials fear that Zanzibar may yet prove a communist Trojan horse within the unified state.

President Nyerere has long favoured closer union between the two countries, and the intervention of his Tanganyika African National Union in the Zanzibar elections formerly proved an embarrasment to Mr. Karume, who lost to Shaikh Ali Muhsin’s Zanzibar Nationalist Party, which was supported by the island’s Arabs. The January coup was first hailed as replacing alien Arab rule by the African rule of Mr. Karume’s Afro-Shirazis, but with Babu’s emergence as the real ruler there has been a growing current of discontent at the realization that one form of Arab rule had been replaced by another.

–

FULL SUPPORT FOR PRES. NYERERE

It has been known in the Commonwealth Relations Office for nearly two weeks that something was in the wind between the mainland East African territories and Zanzibar. It was noted that while all the other Commonwealth heads of government had replied in the affirmative to the invitation to the London conference, President Karume of Zanzibar did not answer.

Significance is placed on two points: the absence of the Zanzibar Foreign Minister, Shaikh Muhammad Abdul Rahman Babu, on a mission to Indonesia and Pakistan until Sunday; and the presence with President Nyerere in Zanzibar of two of his Ministers. It is clear that President Nyerere has full support for his move to bring Zanzibar into Tanganyika; and President Karume, an African, has signed the ‘articles of union’ while his influential left-wing Foreign Minister is away.

USE OF POLICE

Until tonight, however, it will not be known exactly what sort of union is envisaged–a complete unitary state or something more like the Ghana-Guinea union.

It is known that the steady decline of law and order in Zanzibar has been worrying Kenya as well as Tanganyika; under a unitary government, however, it would be possible to use the 300 Tanganyika police still on the island to repress the growing thuggery in Zanzibar and Pemba. President Karume may well feel that this could be a threat to himself at some stage; and, having got rid of ‘Field Marhsal’ Okello, he may feel that a new regime is needed to reduce the ambitions of Shaikh Babu and his supporters to reasonable proportions.

If developments take such a turn, there will be considerable relief in Whitehall–and in Dar-es-Salaam–though there may be elements in Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana who will dislike it.”

Source: ‘Tanganyika and Zanzibar Unite in One State’ The Times, 23 Apr 1964