Vol. 2, No. 4 January 24, 1964 of, ene daboe ee
REVOLUTION IN ZANZIBAR
On December 10, to the accompaniment of a volley of rifle fire and he boom of guns over the harbor, Britain's Prince Philip formally handed over independence to Zanzibar, ending its 73-year-old status as a British protectorate. The British Union Jack was hauled cown and the new flag went up, red with two golden cloves in a green circle. Zanzi-~ bar, the small island that provides most of the worldts supply of cloves, had become the youngest and smallest member of the British Commonwealth,
On January 12 the government which had played host to Prince Philip was toppled by an uprising. Sultan Seyyid Jamshid bin Abdulla and Prime Minister Sheik Hamadi fled the island aboard the Sultan's yacht.
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Caught by surprise at the sudden overturn, the chancellories of the West could only mutter insinuations about "Castroism™ and "Maoism,"
More solid information about what happened has been provided by Jacques Vergts, editor of the monthly magazine Révolution. In the January 16 issue of the Paris weekly France Observateur, he proudly cells attention to the fact that one of the leaders of the revolt, now a top figure in the new government of Zanzibar, is Mohamed Babu, a member of the editorial board of Révolution.
Révolution, "barely three months ago. . . to discuss the development of the review with us..." Today he “has assumed the duties of Minister of the Interior and of Defense in the revolutionary government,"
"In this island of around 400,000 inhabitants," continues Vergés, "which now appears as a hope for all of eastern Africa, are concentrated the grave ‘problems for which the African peoples impatiently await solution, The conquest of independence, of national dignity opens the struggle against undéernourishment, against unemployment, the privileges held by a minority, against monopoly of the land. In all these former colonies, no durable solution of these problems is conceivable without overturning from top to bottom the économic and social structures, - -
"after independence was granted last month, the island of Zanzibar was saddled with the regime of a constitutional monarchy which rested on a minority of landlords and the protection of British imperialism, This landholding aristocracy in power undertook to repress the opposition parties. The Umma [people] party was declared illegal. Its leader, Comrade Mohamed Babu, was actively sought for 'subversive activities,!
‘Why was the Umma party the major target of the old feudal power? Because, of all the parties on the island, it possessed the clearest and most precise program, demanding, among other things, an agrarian reform and struggle against the land owners. Born from a split in the Zanzibar Nationalist party, which had a base in certain sectors of the peasantry, in the Arab intelligentsia, in important sectors of the working class and the petty bourgeoisie of the towns, it became a political force whose influence was preponderant in the powerful trade unions of the island, While the Zanzibar Nationalist party became, after the split, a party of feudalists and was deserted by the masses, the Umma party reinforced its positions, concluding alliances with the Afro- Shirazi party, which was based on the African majority of the population, and which plunged into the struggle for an independence that. would not be nominal nor confiscated by a few privileged leyers. ...
"Under the leadership of Mohamed Babu, the most militant and poocular cadres of the Zanzibar Nationelist party left it to form the Umma party on the basis of a resolutely antifeudal and anti-imperialist program, The Umma party was the first to advocate amid a population of Muslim tradition, the equality of men and women, the abolition of
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the veil, and founded the first popular associations of women, If it is able today to share the fruits of victory with the Afro-Shirazi party, it is because it was able to root itself in the masses as an independent political organization struggling for its own democratic and anti-imperialist program. It is also the revolutionary party capable of understanding the importance of the democratic revolution in Zanzibar and of integrating that revolution in the context of the class struggle on an African and world scale. ...
"In Zanzibar, the 'constitutional! road was tried many times by all the parties including the Umma party. But the elections were organized in such a way that the Afro-Shirazi party and the Umma party were fraudulently defeated each time to the benefit of the Zanzibar Nationalist party and the Zanzibar and Pemba Peoplets party, both of which are dominated by the land owners, masters of the big, clove plantations (80% of the world's production), and submissive to the interests of imperialism, It could be said, from this point of view, that the, people of Zanzibar, even before independence was granted, had suffered the experience of neocolonialism. The possibilities of peace-~ ful development of the revolution being exhausted, it was necessary to prepare the people for ‘criticism by arms'; namely, the conquest of power along the road of armed insurrection. How can one not compare the example of Zanzibar with that, for example, of Venezuela where American imperialism authorizes elections only to place its agents in power and thus be able to continue to rule through intermediaries?
. "a revolution cannot occur, on the other hand, without the support of the masses, without rallying the population as a whole, above all the poor peasantry, around democratic objectives. One of the secrets -of the strength and influence of the Umma party resides in its capacity to overcome opposition between races, between Arabs and Africans, and to pose the national-democratic problem on the level of the class struggle. ...
"The popular revolution in Zanzibar is a hope for all those who still live under the yoke of colonial domination, The conquest of real national independence is ea possibility that is transformed into reality by the uninterrupted mobilization of the masses, by the existence and the action of a strong revolutionary party that has assimi~ lated to the bottom the relations that dialectically unite the demo= cratic stage and the socialist stage, and that is able to conclude alliances without making concessions in principles and consolidating its authority within the national movement,
"The foreign press has stressed the fact that the island of Zanzibar is only a few dozen kilometers from the coast of east Africa. But it is not by distance that one measures the repercussions of the popular revolution of Zanzibar on the other countries of Africa, Zanzibar can, by its radiance and the depth of its sociel transforma~ . tions, become an example for the peoples of Africa. It is because of this that it is threatened and that pressure is already being placed on it. Solidarity with the populer revolution of Zanzibar{t This must be the slogan of all the democrats the world over,"
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