In their maroon tarbooshes and crisp khakis, the King's African Rifles stood tough and tall in the front rank of Britain's far-flung battle line. Whether the enemy was a spear-swinging Somali shifta or a Japanese marine behind a clattering Nambu machine gun, the well-disciplined askaris of the K.A.R. could be counted on to attack as ordered. Last week, from the headwaters of the Nile to the beaches of the Indian Ocean, the Rifles were barking again. But this time their muzzles were trained on British troops and their own recently independent governments.
The chain of army mutinies that rocked East Africa like an earthquake had its epicenter in Zanzibar, where bloody revolution sent shock waves rumbling up and down the Great Rift. Before the aftershocks subsided, the British Commonwealth governments of Tanganyika, Uganda and Kenya had been severely shaken.
Anarchy's Victory. The first mutiny erupted in Tanganyika's capital of Dar es Salaam, and gunfire rattled through that humid "Haven of Peace" for the first time since German gunboats held target practice there during World War I, when Tanganyika was part of German East Africa. Before it died away, at least 20 Tanganyikans were dead, whole blocks of the Arab and Indian quarters lay in ruins, and President Julius Nyerere's government—once considered East Africa's most stable—had been seriously discountenanced. The mutiny was made possible by Nyerere's decision to send 300 crack Tanganyikan cops to Zanzibar to help restore order there. No sooner had they left than the 1,600 African enlisted men of the Tanganyika Rifles rose with machine guns, mortars and grenades, arrested their British officers and noncoms, then defied their commander in chief to do something about it.
The rising grew out of a "misunderstanding." Five weeks ago, Nyerere put an end to the national policy of Africanization, under which black Tanganyikans were given government job preference over Europeans, Arabs and Asians. To the African troops, this sounded as if Nyerere was welshing on his promise to send British officers home later this year and put black officers in charge. They also wanted their basic pay increased from $14.84 a month to $36.40—roughly the equivalent of what dockworkers were making in Dar es Salaam.
Months, Even Years. Mutinous troops from the Colito barracks outside Dar quickly grabbed key points in the city, and as rioters raged through the streets, Nyerere went into hiding. Fearing a coup, he dispersed his Cabinet to prevent arrest, sent Defense and External Affairs Minister Oscar Kambona, a hard-working leftist, to negotiate with the mutineers. Kambona got the troops back to their barracks only by sending the British officers and men out of the country and promising to look into the pay question. But it was a victory for anarchy, and no one was more aware of that fact than Nyerere. He emerged nervous and shamefaced at midweek to tour his torn capital, found himself unable even to reprimand his cocky army for fear of a new revolt. The mustachioed, mild-mannered ex-schoolteacher had been proud that in the 17-year-struggle for Tanganyikan independence not a single life had been lost. Now he said sadly: "It will take months and even years to erase from the mind of the world what it has heard about the events this week."