by Guy Arnold
THE ARMY MUTINIES
The January 1964 army mutinies in Tanganyika, Uganda and Kenya (see chapter four above) were inept affairs although only the intervention of British troops prevented the revolts overturning the governments of Kenya and Uganda. The British intervention in its three former colonies raises the question as to why Britain did not intervene in Zanzibar whose Prime Minister Sheikh Muhammad Shamte also appealed for help. The answer to this question concerned the British assessment of its interests in the region. The British government must, by then, have realized its mistake in handing over power to the Arab minority in Zanzibar although it must also have been wilfully dense to do so in the first place. Apart from that, however, British intervention in Zanzibar would have meant overturning a revolution while in Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda it only meant coming to the assistance of the legitimate governments and restoring order on their behalves. The mutinies had a traumatic if different impact in the three countries. ‘Neither could the newly independent governments afford, as Nyerere put it, the national humiliation of using outside forces to suppress their own people. Kenyatta was not quite so reluctant as his neighbours to accept outside help and in March 1964 he signed a defence agreement with Britain.’5 Undoubtedly, Nyerere felt most deeply the double humiliation of the new state being held to ransom by its mutinous army and then the need to ask the ex-imperial power to come to the rescue. As he responded to these events in a radio broadcast, Nyerere said: ‘I call on all members of the TANU Youth League, wherever they are, to go to the local TANU office and enrol themselves. From this group we shall try to build a nucleus of a new army for the Republic of Tanganyika.’6
Ali Mazrui, an acute observer of the East African scene, said of the mutinies, ‘The new states of Africa have virtually the same basis for military troubles as they have for political troubles – they are no longer adequately tribal and are not yet fully national. Their armed forces are inspired neither by the dedication of tribal warriors nor by the patriotism which comes with a long-established national consciousness.’7 As he went on to say, the great irony of the East African mutinies, which were principally about pay and conditions, was that the new nationalist governments in East Africa were driven to seek the aid of former imperial troops to force their own troops into submitting to African rule. Assumptions about Africa at this time centred upon independence as though the achievement of it would solve all other problems. In fact it created as many as it solved. The idea of loyalty to the African governments in East Africa was invoked at the time of the mutinies; this demand raised an even greater question that would dominate political thought for years to come, that of the one-party state versus the multiparty state. The multiparty system that much of Africa was abandoning at the time provides the basis for a distinction between loyalty to the government and loyalty to the country. The single-party system, on the other hand, does not provide room for manoeuvre on this question of loyalty. It was one thing for Nyerere to call upon TANU youth to enrol in a new army that would secure the future of the state but what would happen when a political alternative to TANU appeared?
Unlike both Kenyatta and Obote, who regarded the mutinies as dangerous political problems to be solved by whatever means lay to hand, which meant British military assistance, Nyerere clearly felt obliged to explain his action in calling upon Britain for support to Africa as a whole. He summoned an OAU meeting, which convened in Dar es Salaam on 12 February when some 200 delegates from 28 countries came to discuss the implications of asking British troops to intervene. As Nyerere explained:
Our national humiliation arises from the necessity of having non-Tanganyikan troops do our work for us; it is not very much affected by their nationality. But the presence of troops from a country deeply involved in the world’s Cold War conflicts has serious implications in the context of African nationalism, and our common policies of non-alignment, because these policies may depend not only on remaining outside such conflicts but also on being seen to remain outside them.8
Here speaks the Mwalimu, almost certainly over the heads of many in his audience who would have taken the more practical view that the means were less important than the fact that the mutinies had been put down. Obote officially dissociated himself from the resolution on the East African mutinies that was then passed by the OAU Foreign Ministers and criticized Nyerere for calling the conference at all. And as the delegates made plain, the OAU was not prepared to accept any automatic responsibility for interventions in such situations. Kenyatta had stated on 7 February that the calling in of extra British troops (there were already some stationed in Kenya) had not embarrassed him or his government. Only Nyerere of the three East African leaders felt the need for public soul-searching
FEDERATION AND AN EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY
In June 1960, prior to independence, Nyerere delivered a paper that was later accepted at the October meeting in Mbale, Uganda, of the Pan African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa (PAFMECA). In it he said: ‘The unity and freedom movements should be combined, and the East African territories achieve independence as one unit at the earliest possible moment. This means a Federation of the Territories now administered separately.’9 Having pointed out that Tanganyika was closer to independence than the other two territories, Nyerere then said:
I also believe that the attainment of complete independence by Tanganyika alone would complicate the establishment of a new political unit. If the British Government is willing to amend their timetable for the constitutional changes of the other territories and then these territories expressed a desire for Federation, I would be willing to ask the people of Tanganyika to join that Federation with the others.
The hope did not materialize. On 5 June 1963 in Nairobi Kenyatta, Nyerere and Obote issued a statement: ‘We, the leaders of the people and governments of East Africa assembled in Nairobi on 5 June 1963, pledge ourselves to the political Federation of East Africa.’ At the end of that June Kenyatta addressed a mass rally at the Clock Tower, Kampala, at which he said: ‘Uganda’s kings and hereditary rulers should not have any fears about a Federation of East Africa because there will be room in the federation for everyone.’10 These apparently unequivocal calls for federation became more cautious in 1964. Replying to a delegation of representatives of the KANU and TANU Parliamentary Groups in May, Nyerere said: ‘We must also be quite clear about one thing. Once a federation has been established, it is established for all time. It can move for greater unity but it cannot disintegrate. There can be no question of dissolution in relation to a federation of East Africa, which is freely established by the will of the people. The federation will become the sovereign unity which has to be defended at all costs, just as our separate countries are now the units to which all citizens owe allegiance.’11 The strength of Nyerere’s statement suggests that doubts were growing on the part of his audience. In the same month Uganda refused to be pressured by Kenya and Tanzania to proceed with federation. ‘Kenya and Tanganyika backbenchers were trying to push the East African leaders into federation before many important issues had been settled. If Tanganyika and Kenya wished to go ahead and federate now, Uganda would wish them well, but would not be forced into any hasty union.’12 Pressures against federation mounted in all three countries and gradually it fell off the political agenda. Instead the possibilities of an East African Community (EAC) moved centre stage.
In 1948 Britain had established the East Africa High Commission to co-ordinate activities in the three territories. In 1961 the Commission was replaced by the East African Common Services Organization (EACSO). At least by the beginning of the 1960s the groundwork for operating a successful common market existed when the three countries became independent and conditions were about as favourable as could be expected. Yet, between 1961 and 1967 Tanzania and Uganda complained that a majority of the economic benefits of EACSO went to Kenya, which had a more advanced infrastructure than its two partners and a better developed industrial base. The majority of investment was
in Kenya, mainly in Nairobi and Mombasa, with cement, tobacco products, brewing, textiles, food processing and petroleum refining the main components of the sector. Furthermore, the investment policies of the three were very different. Kenya hoped to attract significant inflows of investment capital and passed regulations to attract them. On the other hand, the Uganda development programme, Work for Progress, placed little emphasis upon foreign private investment except for the partial reinvestment of profits. Instead, private domestic firms were expected to provide the means of expansion. Tanzania, meanwhile, was pursuing a definite socialist policy that included taking control of foreign companies so that no inward flow of investment was expected. ‘By the mid-1960s, net gains from the East African economic union (or quasi-union, since agriculture and economic planning had never been integrated) approached £17 million a year; but this represented under 2 per cent of the combined domestic product of the three countries. Half of the net gain represented economies on joint services; rather less derived from the creation of a common market for industry and partially for agriculture.’13 A number of factors worked against closer economic co-operation: there was no formal structure to control and direct the common market; there was little harmonization of import, income and excise taxes and monetary and exchange control; the gains were unevenly divided – and this was the crux of the problem – with Kenya making substantial gains while the other two faced losses; and in any case the total gains were too small to allow fiscal redistribution or relocation of production to ensure net gains for each state. As a result Tanzania, a net loser, initiated moves to reform the EACSO and warned that without them it might have to safeguard its future development by partial or total withdrawal. As a result of these imbalances the three members entered into the Kampala Agreement of 1964 (amended at Mbale in 1965), which provided for industrial relocation of certain industries such as beer, shoes, cement; agreed quotas to protect new industries in Uganda and Tanzania from Kenyan competition; and agreed the allocation of a few new industries designed to cater for the overall East African market. By mid-1965 Nyerere was warning that speedy political union was no longer in prospect and that if economic union was to continue major institutional reforms were necessary at once. At the same time it had come to be realized that economic union was as much political as it was economic.
A Commission on East African co-operation was established with three senior ministers from each country under the chairmanship of Professor Kjeld Philip (a former Finance Minister of Denmark) from the United Nations. It reported in May 1966 and its recommendations formed the basis of the June 1967 Treaty. The smallness of the actual East African market was always a matter of concern; it would, for example, remain smaller than was necessary to create certain critical industrial complexes and it would be more likely to succeed if it formed the core of a wider economic union. An important innovation of the 1967 Treaty was the restitution of a transfer tax. This allowed Tanzania and Uganda, under certain conditions, to tax imports of manufactures from Kenya so as to protect their own infant industries. When the East African Community (EAC) was formed in 1967 an attempt to rectify the imbalance between Kenya and the other two members was made by channelling a greater proportion of community revenues to Tanzania and Uganda.
The EAC comprising Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda was formally established on 6 June 1967. Its object was to strengthen economic, trade and industrial ties between the three countries. Like other similar ‘communities’ in Africa or elsewhere, its provisions were unexceptionable. These included a common excise tariff, no internal tariffs and the establishment of an East African Development Bank (EADB). Its main organs were the Common Market Council, the Common Market Tribunal, the Secretariat and the East African Authority (consisting of the three heads of state), which was the ultimate authority of the EAC. Other aspects of the EAC were five councils, an East African Legislative Assembly, a General Fund, the East African Railways Corporation, the East African Harbours Corporation, the East African Posts and Telecommunications Corporation and the East African Airways Corporation. The EAC headquarters were sited in Arusha, the Railways at Nairobi, Harbours at Dar es Salaam, Posts and Telecommunications at Kampala.
From 1967 to 1976 Kenya enjoyed a trade surplus with its two partners. In 1977 the EAC ceased to exist. It foundered over political questions and these were sparked off by the coup that ousted Obote and brought Idi Amin to power in Uganda at the beginning of 1971. Perhaps, however, the EAC really failed because the time was not ripe. It had been launched when pressures for both unity and regional markets were very strong, yet, as its three members discovered, each had its own distinct approach to development and each faced different political problems and, apart from anything else, these differences were reflected in the three men – Kenyatta, Nyerere and Obote – who brought the EAC into being, while Nyerere refused even to meet with Amin when the latter replaced Obote.
KENYA
Kenya became independent on 12 December 1963 with Kenyatta as Prime Minister. A year later a new constitution to make Kenya a republic had replaced the complex regional independence constitution while the opposition party KADU had dissolved itself, its members crossing the floor of the House to join the ranks of the ruling KANU and turn the country into a de facto one-party state. Ronald Ngala, KADU’s leader, had at first resisted the disintegration of his party but the trend was against him; already in early 1964 members of KADU had begun to cross over and join the government side of the Assembly and by April it was clear that KADU was dying: by then there were 102 KANU members to 23 KADU in the House of Representatives. Tom Mboya, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, addressing the Nyanza Regional Assembly at Kisumu, said that the ‘opposition mentality’ must be ended. ‘There was one Central Government to whom all owe loyalty and the country was being run by this government and not by the political party that put it in power.’14 This was the reverse of the approach that elevated party above government but it would have the same effect as far as Kenyatta was concerned and soon he was able to act in a genuine sense as a national leader, making nonsense of the argument that he led only a Kikuyu–Luo alliance, and though two of his most prominent ministers, Odinga and Mboya, were Luo, other ministers included a Kamba, a Kisii and a Margoli.
Recognizing the inevitable, on 10 November 1964 Ronald Ngala announced the dissolution of KADU and amid scenes of jubilation was carried shoulder high across the Assembly. He told the Assembly: ‘I have a full mandate to declare today that the official Opposition is dissolved. KADU is joining the government under the leadership of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and the Opposition today will vote with the government for the new Constitution in the Senate.’ Kenyatta replied: ‘I welcome our brothers wholeheartedly… I regard this day as a great day, not for KANU but for the people of Kenya.’ Asked later to explain his change of heart, Ngala said: ‘This is one of the times when we must be prepared to sacrifice our political dignity for the peace and harmony of Kenya.’ Early in 1965, after Kenya had become a republic, there was a debate in the House of Commons in London in which tributes were paid to the way in which during the preceding three years Kenyatta had transformed the atmosphere in Kenya from one of disunity and despondency into one of buoyancy and unity. The necessary corollary to becoming a one-party state is that while official opposition is banned, opposition will instead be found within the ranks of the ruling party and this was to happen soon enough in Kenya. Nonetheless, during the period 1965–66 when Kenya was a de facto one-party state there was a great deal of open debate, both in Parliament and in the country; but in 1966, after the Kenya People’s Union (KPU) was formed there followed reduced candour in public debate while challenges to government policy became less effective.