Abeid Karume

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Abeid Amani Karume
عبيد أماني كرومي
Sultan of Zanzibar)
Succeeded byPosition Abolished (Julius Nyerere As President of Tanzania)
Personal details
Born(1905-08-04)4 August 1905
Amani
Ali
This article is part of a series about
Abeid Karume

President of Zanzibar

1964-1972

Government

legacy

Abeid Amani Karume (4 August 1905

Tanganyika as president of the new country. He was the father of Zanzibar's former president, Amani Abeid Karume
.

Early career

Allegedly born at the village of

Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi. Karume developed an apparatus of control through the expansion of the Afro-Shirazi Party and its relations with the Tanganyika African National Union
party.

Revolution in Zanzibar

Main article: Zanzibar Revolution

On 10 December 1963, the

Zanzibar National Party (ZNP) and Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party won the elections. The Sultan was a constitutional monarch.[3] Initial elections gave government control to the ZNP. Karume was willing to work within the electoral framework of the new government, and actually informed a British police officer of the revolutionary plot set to take place in January.[4]

Karume was not in Zanzibar on 12 January 1964, the night of the revolution, and was instead on the African mainland. The instigator of the rebellion was a previously unknown Ugandan,

Arab Slave Trade
, most significantly, had resulted in a strong resentment among the majority African population.

Power struggle

Having taken control of the island, John Okello invited Abeid Karume back to the island to assume the title of President of the

Abdulrahman Mohammad Babu, who was appointed to the Revolutionary Council. John Okello reserved for himself the title of "Field Marshal", a position with undefined power. What followed was a three-month-long internal struggle for power.[5]

Karume used his political skills to align the leaders of neighboring African countries against Okello and invited Tanganyikan police officers into Zanzibar to maintain order. As soon as Okello took a trip out of the country, Karume declared him an "enemy of the state" and did not allow him to return. Given the presence of Tanganyikan police and the absence of their leader, Okello's gangs of followers did not offer any resistance.

Karume's second important political move came when he agreed to form a union with the Tanganyikan president Julius Nyerere in April 1964. The union ensured that the new country, to be called Tanzania, would not align itself with the Soviet Union and communist bloc, as A.M. Babu had advocated. Given the new legitimacy of Karume's government (now solidly backed up by mainland Tanganyika), Karume marginalized Babu to the point of irrelevance. The Marxist leader was eventually forced to flee Tanzania after being charged with masterminding the assassination of Karume in 1972.[6] As a result, Karume was rewarded with the post of First Vice-President.[7]

Personal life

In 1970, four young Persian girls refused to marry the 64-year old Karume. As a result, he ordered the arrest of 10 of their male relatives for "hindering the implementation of mixed marriages."[8] He threatened to deport these men and dozens of other members of the Persian Ithnasheri sect to which they belonged. Because of Tanzanian President Nyerere's pressure, Karume eventually dropped the charges.[8] However, a few months later, the 4 different Persian girls were forced to marry members of his Revolutionary Council and 11 of the girls' relatives afterwards were ordered by a judge to be imprisoned and flogged.[8][9]

Karume remarked on the situation: "In colonial times the Arabs took African concubines without bothering to marry them. Now that we are in power, the shoe is on the other foot."[8]

Karume on Tanzania 200 shillings

Assassination and legacy

Karume was assassinated in April 1972 in Zanzibar Town. Four gunmen shot him dead as he played

bao at the headquarters of the Afro-Shirazi Party. Reprisals followed against people suspected to have been opposed to Karume's regime.[10] During his tenure he was able to nationalize land owned by Arabs and Indians and re-distribute the land among the poor majority Zanzibaris. He also established a system of free education and health services for all Zanzibaris regardless their race, color or ethnicity. Apart from that, he engaged in construction of many houses available to the people of Zanzibar a very affordable rents. Amani Abeid Karume, Abeid's son, was elected two times as the president of Zanzibar, in 2000 and 2005 by a popular majority and handed over power in late 2010 to his successor Ali Mohamed Shein
.

See also

References

Media related to Abeid Karume at Wikimedia Commons

  1. ^ Uwechue, Raph (1991). Makers of Modern Africa. Africa Journal Limited.
  2. OCLC 58791298
    .
  3. ISBN 9780852550809
    .
  4. ISBN 9780813342689
    .
  5. ^ Okello, John (1967). Revolution in Zanzibar. East African Pub. House.
  6. ISBN 9781596820050
    .
  7. doi:10.2174/1874914301003010030
    .
  8. ^
    OCLC 58791298
    .
  9. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 11 December 2022.
  10. ^ "Tanzania: Prisoners of conscience face treason trial in Zanzibar". Amnesty International. 27 January 2000.
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