The Soldier and the State in East Africa: Some Theoretical Conclusions On the Army Mutinies of 1964

Abstract

HERE IS NOT the slightest chance that the forces of law and order in Tanganyika will mutiny. 1 were the words of Julius Nyerere. The occasion was mid-1960. Nyerere was about to become Chief Minister of an internally self-governing Tanganyika. Independence was not far off, and some people were seeking reassurance that events in the newly independent Congo would not be repeated in Tanganyika. Nyerere was emphatic in his answer: These things cannot happen here. First, we have a strong organisation, TANU. The Congo did not have that kind of organisation .... [And further] there is not the slightest chance that the forces of law and order in Tanganyika will mutiny. 2 Three-and-a-half years later Nyerere faced the worst crisis of his political career-a mutiny of his First Battalion, and then of his Second. The interval since then has been an opportunity for renewed reflection on those events of early 1964.