[wanabidii] Tough Times For Nyerere - Episode A

From: annar cassam <acassam@hotmail.com>
To: chambi chachage <chambi78@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2013 1:48 PM
Subject: 1964-65:Tough times for Mwalimu

Chambi,having read  Maggid Mjengwa's emails about the Swedish book on TZ,

here are a few clarifications concerning the episodes involving US diplomats.

EPISODE A.

1 1964 was a year of great domestic turbulence for TZ( the ZZ revolution, the Army Mutiny) 

and for its regional neighbourhood due to the destabilisation of the Congo after the 

assassination of Lumumba and the intervention of the US and Belgium.

In June 1964, the last of the UN peacekeeping troops left the Congo and in July, 

the Congolese stooge President, Kasavubu, appointed Tshombe as Prime Minister.

Tshombe immediately began to recruit white mercenaries from S.Africa, Rhodesia and Belgium

and turned to the US and Belgium on the grounds that the Chinese were backing the rebels.

The US unhesitatingly provided planes, trucks and arms and began recruiting pilots and other 

skilled mercenaries inside the US. The Belgians did the same in their part of the world. African 

leaders, particularly Mwalimu, were very humiliated and infuriated at this replay of colonial

control in Africa They also saw a parallel with US military intervention and manipulation in Vietnam

which was on the increase at the same time. The final insult to Africa came when Tshombe, backed

by the US and the West, rejected the OAU's mediation offer to negotiate in good faith between his

government and the rebels.

2.  November 1964: Into this highly charged anti-US ambience, arrives Andrew Tibandebage, TZ ambassador

 to the Congo, and hands over several photocopied documents "purporting to be letters from an official of the US

embassy in  Leopoldville to a mercenary offering him financial support to travel to S.Africa and enlist

others in a Portuguese-supported plot to overthrow Nyerere and his government."* Mwalimu,traveling out of Dar,

 passed these documents to his Foreign Minister, Oscar Kambona, with instructions to make the matter public. K.

spoke out loudly , at first accusing "certain Western powers " of plotting to topple the TZ leadership but 

when the TANU paper the Nationalist printed the letters in full, he went on to name US imperialism

in person. All hell broke lose with anti-US marches  and demonstrations all over the country.

3:The US ambassador in Dar immediately reacted and denounced the letters as forgeries which he could prove.

Mwalimu returned to Dar to face a very excited town ready to demonstrate for him. He decided to diffuse

the atmosphere by speaking at Jangwani and giving a long background lecture on why he and Kambona had

been ready to believe in the US plot theory. He referred to the fear the West had of communism which 

made them suspicious of ZZ after the revolution; he explained that the West did not like TZ's commitment

to Frelimo and its struggle against Portuguese colonialism;he remembered the fact that Portugal's 

Foreign Minister had very recently threatened to attack TZ; he bitterly criticised the African regimes in the

Congo and Malawi for falling into the arms of the enemies of Africa. And then, on top of all this, Mwalimu

continued, we get this news about a plot...what are we supposed to do, we are only human after all.So we

cried out loud and clear. Now, if this news is not true, he said, then this will be the end of the whole thing and

we will be very happy. He also spoke of having talked to the US ambassador who had said that the whole thing

was a complete falshood and that he had the proof. The ambassador was in fact ready with  a range of factual

evidence which pointed to a forgery.

4. On independence day, Dec 9 1964, Mwalimu announced he had accepted the US explanation that the letters

were forged and that consequently, the matter was  now over for the TZ government.

"It was hardly a full apology but it was all the US ambassador was able to get, at least publicly. Nyerere, in private

conversation with the ambassador, is alleged to have "all but" said that he did not believe the plot but that 

he could not openly say so without having to disown Kambona."*

 *Source and quotes from The Critical Phase in Tanzania 1945-68:Nyerere and the Emergence of a Socialist

Society by CRANFORD PRATT (First Vice Chancellor, University of Dar es Salaam).

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Episode B to follow.

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