Zanzibar: African Cuba?

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Zanzibar's slide into the Communist camp has been watched with dismay but little action from Washington and London. Though the British publicly pooh-pooh the suggestion that tiny Zanzibar (pop. 315,000) is becoming an African Cuba, they alerted mainland East African governments to the danger of subversion. When the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, William Attwood, chimed in with a similar warning that Zanzibar should be "a source of concern to Africans," the Revolutionary Council took umbrage. Last week it peremptorily demanded the removal of a $3,000,000 U.S. space-tracking station, one of 16 strung around the world to communicate with orbiting U.S. astronauts. Washington fatalistically agreed to dismantle the station, then stood by quietly as 5,000 Zanzibaris—egged on by Russian sailors—coursed through the capital carrying signs that read, "Go Home Yank." But at the same time, a U.S. Navy task force, known as the "Concord Squadron" and headed by the attack carrier Bon Homme Richard, steamed into the Indian Ocean—merely on a good-will mission, the Pentagon pointed out. Still, all that heavy-caliber good will might have a sobering effect on the region.

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