Coup Topples Zanzibar Govt.

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30337, 13 January 1964, Page 11

Coup Topples Zanzibar Govt.

(N .Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

ZANZIBAR, January 12. Gunmen early today took over all but one of the capital city’s police stations and it was later reported by a United States Embassy source in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanganyika, that telephoned information from Zanzibar said the newly-independent island’s Government had collapsed after heavy fighting.

In London a Commonwealth Office spokesman said the Government of Zanzibar had asked Britain for aid and the request was being considered. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said later: “We are not planning to move any troops to Zanzibar at the moment.”

A British Army spokesman in Nairobi said: “We are watching the situation closely and if required can move in rapidly. At the moment, however, w’e are making no move but are awaiting instructions.” Diplomatic sources in Nairobi pointed out that as Kenya is now independent, movement of troops to Zanzibar would require Kenya’s assent. Other sources said instructions for any such moves would have to come first from London. First reports said the town was awakened by rifle fire this morning. The unknown band took over police headquarters. barracks, vehicles and ammunition. AH personnel in the barracks are reported to be held captive. Gangs of armed men were patrolling the streets firing intermittent volleys from rifles and automatic weapons. Reuter said. The first casualties came when 12 seriously wounded men were brought into Zanzibar hospital, which issued a call for blood donors. It is believed that a num-

ber of politicians are being held prisoner. The fate of Government Ministers is not known. Heavy firing was heard outside the home of the Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohamed Shamte Hamad. About 300 British residents and 40 American families are awaiting evacuation from the island. American nationals stationed on Zanzibar will be evacuated. Rebel forces were believed to have taken over the Zanzibar airport, an American Embassy source in Dar-es-Salaam said after telephone contact with the island. A number of people had been killed and wounded but the source believed the casualties did not include Europeans. “It appears that the, Europeans have been left strictly alone,” the source said. In Nairobi, a British High Commission spokesman said the British High Commissioner in Zanzibar had instructed all British residents there to stay off the streets “We understand the rebels have told Europeans in Zanzibar they are not against them,” the spokesman in Nairobi said. The last political violence in Zanzibar was in postelection riots in June, 1961. when 68 people were killed and some 900 injured over several days. An official inquiry later reported that the cause of the disturbances had been racial animosity between the African majority and Arab minority. Of the 68 killed, 64 were Arabs.

The riots started after a narrow victory at the polls by the Arab-dominated coalition of the Zanzibar Nationalist Party and the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party—the coalition ruling the island. The June, 1961, elections were the result of a deadlock at polling the previous January when the present Opposition—and predominantly African—Afro-Shirazi Party, had won 10 seats against the coalition’s 12 in the 22-member Legislative Council. In the June elections the A.S.P. again won 10 seats while the coalition won 13 in the enlarged pouncil. In the pre-independence

elections last July the coalition won 18 seats and the A.S.P. 13 in a Legislative Council that had been further enlarged. A third party emerged shortly before the elections when Sheikh Abo-ul Rahmen Mohamed Babu resigned the secretary-generalship of the Zanzibar Nationalist Party to form the Left-wing Umma Party, which has now been banned. The island became independent within the Commonwealth just before Christmas. ’ The Government on January 4 outlawed the country’s youngest political party, the Umma Party, after its refusal to register under recent legislation.