Sunset looking out from Ras Shangani, Stone Town, Zanzibar Island

Zanzibar. January 1964

An Unreported Massacre by Bhadra Vadgama

 Coup d’etat was a phrase I thought belonged to European history, until it happened on the peaceful, multiracial, paradise island of Zanzibar, my place of birth.

It was Sunday, 12 January, 1964. Instead of driving, my father decided to take a leisurely walk along the seafront to his shop to complete some outstanding accounts even though it was a Sunday. He had hardly gone half a mile, when he met an African samaritan who greeted him in Arabic.

'Shikamo, bwana Kapadia!' He seemed to know my father.

'Mahraba!' replied my father in the normal polite practice of greeting among the local Africans and Arabs.

'You must go back home, it's not safe for you to be out today.'

'But why?' My father was confused as the streets seemed to be as quiet as always for a Sunday morning when offices and shops were normally closed.

'There is some trouble on the Island. An army led by someone who calls himself Field Marshall Okello has taken over the police station next to your shop.'

'Okello? That doesn't sound like a Swahili name to me.' Thought my father.

'He has come from Uganda, so the rumours go,' the man said, as if he had read my father's mind.

 My father returned home and told the family what he had heard. Everyone was relieved that he had come to no harm! Had he reached the shop, he would have definitely been killed by the mob.

Immediately, he switched on the radio to listen to the local station, only to hear that what the man in the street had said was true. The army had taken over the radio station and were declaring loudly that they had overthrown the local government which was predominantly made up of Arabs and a few Indians with the Sultan as their Constitutional Head. They declared themselves as the Peoples's Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba (Zanzibar's sister island). After that more and more announcements were made by the Revolutionary Government, threatening to kill anyone who disobeyed their orders.

I was at university in Uganda then, and shared the anxiety with all students from Zanzibar about the safety of our families. Our ears were glued to BBC World Service for Africa for presumably more accurate and reliable news.

All this was not only shocking but confusing for the people of Zanzibar as it had just received its Independence from the British a month ago. Originally both islands had been ruled by Omani Sultans since 1698, until the British intervened to stop the Slave Trade that thrived on the Islands and spread as far as Arabia, Persia, Egypt, India and the rest of the coast of East Africa. This intervention resulted in the British giving Zanzibar and Pemba the status of British Protectorate in 1890, and appointing a British Resident to govern the islands.

This description of the island by the explorer Richard Burton in 1856 sums up the natural beauty of this place which remained so for centuries. 

'Earth, sea and sky, all seemed wrapped in a soft and sensuous repose...The sea of purist sapphire, which had not parted with its blue rays to the atmosphere...lay looking...under a blaze of sunshine which touched every object with a dull burnish of gold. Adding to the beauty were the gleaming white minarets of mosques and the sultan's palaces in Stone Town, making the city appear from the distance to Westerners as an "Orientalist" fantasy brought to life."

In 1950s, my British English teacher had referred to Zanzibar as 'an enchanting name of an enchanting island'. She compared it with Tennyson's island of Lotus Eaters. She said our motto should have been 'No hurry, no worry.'

With such perception of this island, it was difficult to believe a riot, let alone a coup, could ever take place here. So why did it happen? Before the abolition of the Slave Trade, the Arabs of Zanzibar used to import thousands of slaves every year from the mainland of Africa to work on their clove and coconut plantations. Some were exported to Ottoman Empire, Persia and Egypt. (ed. Some were exported to the Americas).The slaves were treated with such shocking brutality that the legacy of hate finally culminated into this revolution, and only because of the intrusion from a non-Zanzibari African. 

Vivid descriptions of (violent) stories, by John Okello, who  (said he) had fought with the Mau Mau movement against the British in Kenya, were enough to incite severe vengeance among many Africans who were descendants of slaves. They joined Okello whole-heartedly in killing the Arabs. Overnight some 5,000 Arabs were picked up from their plantations in rural areas and driven into the sea and shot from behind. In the faint light of the tropical moon, they looked like ghosts in their normal long white loose garments and white caps. Their bodies were buried in mass graves in a remote part of the island. Fortunately, Okello had spared women and children. He didn't want to hurt Asians either, though some were caught in the fighting and killed. One Indian girl was hit and killed by a bullet as she looked out of her window to watch a riot below her house. Although most rioters were armed with machetes, Okello had managed to steal guns from local police stations with the help of some African policemen who were sacked by the new Government a month ago.

Although many British people were detained, none were killed in the fear of repercussion from the British Government. Most of the British and Americans were evacuated by the USA navy. The Sultan and his family and a paraphernalia of his loyal servants were helped to escape by the British Government.

My 13 year old youngest brother had gone to Mombasa in Kenya for a holiday with my aunt's family. He was so devastated to hear about the coup that he let his imagination run wild and thought his whole family would be massacred and he would become an orphan. 

Sobbing uncontrollably, he hugged my aunt and said, 'Please don't abandon me; if my family is killed you will adopt me and love me like your own son, won't you?' Remembering this incident, my brother still has shudders running down his spine.

 Two of my young cousins were out on a beach for an overnight stay, when their BBQ party was interrupted by a truck full of rebels, who took them away and locked them up for two days without water or food. One of them was made to drive his car, while the rebels shot at Arab houses randomly and killed many pedestrians.

We all lamented for the ruination of our beautiful and peaceful homeland by this unexpected bloody coup.