KUULIWA KWA MZEE ABEDI AMANI KARUME

                                          

      MZEE KARUME

HILI NDIO KABURI LA MZEE KARUME

AKIOMBEWA DUWA NA MASHEKHE NA MARAISI

NA MAWAZIRI NA WAUMINI NA DUNGU NA JAMAA.

There were sixteen attempts to overthrow the first Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar before its President, the late Abeid Amani Karume, was killed on April 7, 1972. It was the vanguard sect of the UMMA party which was responsible for the killing, says Ali Haji Pandu, the judge who presided over the murder case and former Zanzibar Chief Justice between 1970 and 1978. According to Mr Pandu, the original plan was not to kill President Karume but to arrest him and take him to Radio Zanzibar where he was to be forced to announce the UMMA party’s choice as the new leader of the isles. There were three men sent to arrest Karume, of whom one man, Humudi, who pumped nine bullets into Karume’s body, had his father killed by the government. “It came to be known later that Karume’s killer had always sought the opportunity to retaliate for his father’s killing. When they reached where Karume was, enthusiasm came to the man’s heart and instead of arresting him he chose to kill him ,” said Pandu. The mastermind of the plan to overthrow the government was Ali Mahfudh, the man in charge of the military in Zanzibar. He trained and managed the team that was set up to arrest Karume. When Mahfudh understood that Humudi had shot Karume he went awry and started swearing; and it was now obvious that his plan had failed. Mr Pandu recalls that the leadership of UMMA party completely fell apart after that and those involved in the plan started killing each other for fear of being betrayed and handed over to the authorities. Pandu says Karume was killed for political reasons. The UMMA party had for a long time sought to implement its communist ideas in Zanzibar but to no avail; the only solution was thus to seek to arrest Karume and overthrow his government. As a result of the killing, the Afro Shiraz Party became stronger, but some members of the military suffered discrimination as a result of the failure to overthrow Karume’s government. There were massive arrests following the trial, which Pandu says was one of the most trying periods of his legal career as 15 of the accused were his classmates whom he personally knew. Mohamed Shamte, one of the ZPPP leaders, says the day when Karume was killed was more than the day of Revolution itself. “People did not go out for three days, traders at the market fled, leaving everything in the open.” Shamte, also the eldest son of the first Zanzibar Chief Minister, Mohamed Shamte, says Zanzibar went to a complete standstill with farm produce rotting in the villages. Hassan Nassor Moyo, a member of the first cabinet of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar after the Revolution, says the day when Karume was killed he was on his way back home from his farm. When he came to the town at around five o’clock in evening he felt like something was not right, but he continued to drive back home. When he reached his house, his wife told him that his son had been bitten by a dog so he called a hospital and the nurse who answered suddenly dropped the phone. “I called for a second time, the same nurse picked up again and apologized, she told me that she dropped the phone because there was something big that had happened, without telling me what it was, she hanged up again.” Moyo who served as Minister for Justice in the first Union Government and later the Minister for Home Affairs says he decided to take his son to hospital instead. On his way there he saw people running from all over the place, when he entered the hospital he saw Thabit Kombo, the first ASP Secretary General being carried on a stretcher with his body full of blood. Thabit Kombo was with Karume when he was shot. “Trust me, until today if you ask me who took my son and drove my car back home after I learnt that Karume was killed I do not know,” says Moyo. Describing Karume, Moyo says he was the man who hated discrimination. With about 28 ethnic groups in the isles, Karume wanted all people united. He says to demonstrate his will, the first Revolutionary Council of Zanzibar was formed on basis of national unity, bringing in all political parties that existed at the time as well as Arabs who were overthrown through the Revolution. “The first secretary to the council Salum Rashid, was an Arab, belonging to the race whose regime was overthrown by us; others who were also Arabs but belonging to other political parties were also brought into the government and included Khamis Abdallah Ameir and Adulrahmani Babu,” he says. It was not a small thing to appoint an Arab as the secretary of the first Revolutionary Council just a few days after the Revolution, says Moyo. He adds that the council at the time was the government of Zanzibar and many secrets were discussed as Salum Rashid took notes. “As dangerous as the appointment of Salum Rashid was, Karume went ahead and gave him the job, but then how in the world could anyone have known whether what he heard and wrote ended in the room?” He says Karume took the risk for the sake of forming one Zanzibar. Karume wanted development for Zanzibaris, and one of the reasons that led to the Revolution to occur was discrimination and to make sure everybody in the country to have a better life in zanzibar.