Tanzania has long enjoyed a reputation as a peaceful country. In contrast to most of its neighbours, this east African nation of 67 million people has largely avoided large-scale violence within its borders.
That didn’t seem likely in the early years after independence from Britain in December 1961. A little over two years into independence – in January 1964 – the founding president, Julius Nyerere, faced two political crises. The first started on 12 January 1964 in the form of the Zanzibar Revolution. Weeks of violence and destruction by Afro-Shirazi Party members followed. As many as 16,000 Zanzibaris were killed or forced into exile.
Then the country’s military, the Tanganyika Rifles, mutinied. Its soldiers were incensed over inadequate pay, loss of privileges, and poor prospects for upward mobility. A rattled Nyerere needed British military support to quell the mutiny. He ordered the arrests of its leaders, and effectively dismantled the entire force.
