Zanzibar Revolution Totally Explained

Everything about the Zanzibar Revolution totally explained

The Zanzibar Revolution of January 12, 1964, was the communist rebellion that overthrew Zanzibar's newly independent elected government of December 1963 and the constitutional monarch, Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah, and led to the proclamation of Zanzibar as a People's Republic, and three months later, to Zanzibar's uniting with Tanganyika to form Tanzania.

Events

The revolution was carried out in three hours by some 300-600 armed Black Africans (claiming in their radio broadcast to be 99,099,000 in strength) under the leadership of "Field Marshal" John Okello. Okello was a little known man, who had lived on Pemba Island, having come to the islands some years earlier from Uganda or Kenya. After the rebels quickly disarmed surprised Zanzibar police and seized the key buildings in Stone Town, the Sultan was ordered by Okello to commit suicide but managed to flee to Great Britain with his family and ministers.
The coup d'état led to the poorly-known genocide of between 5,000 and 12,000 members of the Arab and Asian ethnic minorities, which had been living in Zanzibar for centuries, between 1800s and 1900s. The Italian filmmaker Gualtiero Jacopetti and his crew shot (from a plane and a helicopter) footage of the operations as they took place, during the filming of his documentary Africa Addio, which premiered in 1966 and represents the only existing document of the January 1964 mass murders in Zanzibar.
Thousands more Indian and Arab peoples fled in fear of their lives, and their property was confiscated on behalf of the state. Ethnic violence and the expulsion were repeated themes in East Africa, the most prominent example being the expulsion of Indians in Uganda in 1972 by Idi Amin.

Key figures

Sultanate

Sultan: Sayyid Sir Jamshid bin Abdullah of Zanzibar
Prime Minister: Sheikh Muhammad Shamte Hamadi
Foreign Minister: Sheikh Ali Muhsin al-Barwani

People's Republic

President: Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume

Vice President: Abdullah Kassim Hanga

Foreign Minister: Sheikh Abdulrahman Muhammad Babu

Field Marshal: John Okello

References and notes

Further Information

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