NYERERE!

Nyerere’s militancy benefited Africa Julius Nyerere with his top commanders in 1979 when he visited Tanzanian  troops during the war with Amin's Uganda. Mobhare Matinyi, Washington DC.   The Citizen, Tanzania     Thursday, 11 October 2012 22:04  On January 26, 1996, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, became the first recipient of the Mahatma Gandhi International Peace Prize awarded by the Government of India for the year 1995. Since then three prominent black icons have followed suit, Nelson Mandela in 2000, Coretta King in 2004, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2005. Two days after receiving the award in New Delhi, Nyerere met with Tanzanians at the residence of the Tanzanian High Commissioner to India, Ambassador Alfred Tandau. He surprised us that he had told Indian leaders that he was so grateful to have received the award because he did not at all deserve it. He clarified that likening him to Mahatma Gandhi was imbalance because he, Nyerere, supported armed struggles in Mozambique, Rhodesia, and elsewhere. Correctly, Gandhi, the man who willingly lived in abject poverty, preached the philosophy of peaceful struggle, thus, Nyerere thought that award recipients ought to have emulated that philosophy wholeheartedly. Undoubtedly, Nyerere was militant right from the beginning although the independence of Tanganyika made him president without bloodshed. In one incident on July 20, 1964 at the summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in Cairo, he underlined African problems in two fold; firstly, cleansing Africa of vestiges of colonial rule; and secondly, unity. Respectfully, in that speech he also testified how Tanganyika gave up its sovereignty to unite with Zanzibar. On the issue of colonial rule, Nyerere said at the time that at least the British accepted that they had colonies in Africa, so it was possible to talk to them, but the Portuguese didn’t accept the fact that they were colonizers who deserved to leave; they simply argued that Portugal extended to Africa in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea (Guinea Bissau). Nyerere said: “In the case of these three colonies, fine words will not do.” After elaborating a bit, Nyerere noted: “My plea here, therefore, is for action; action to free the Portuguese colonies.” Then later added: “Mr Chairman, we must act. We have the means to liberate Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea.” In effect, he was declaring a war leaving other cowards shocked. That was Nyerere in 1964, a few years after opening military training camps for Mozambican and South African freedom fighters in Tanzania. Fast forward to November 1978 after Ugandan madman Idi Amin made the terrible mistake of invading Tanzania, Nyerere sounded exactly the same. He declared: “We have the means to punish Amin; we have the reason; and we have the will to punish Amin.” The rest is history, but surely, on April 11, 1979, Tanzanian troops overthrew the delusional buffoon. On another occasion in 1978 before Tanzanian troops responded to Amin, Kenya offered to mediate, but instead Nyerere told them to close the port of Mombasa for Amin or else keep quiet. Several African leaders including the then Chairman of the OAU, Sudanese President Jaffery Nimeiry, flew to Dar es Salaam or sent their peace envoys to ask Nyerere to spare Amin, but he insisted that murderous Amin must be punished for what he had done unless he withdrew from Tanzania, pay for the damage and vow to never attack Tanzania. Perhaps more details about Nyerere’s militancy occurred between that 1964 summit and the 1978/79 war with Uganda. Tanzania under Nyerere trained freedom fighters from South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, and Zimbabwe, but more interestingly, is the fact that Nyerere sent Tanzanian troops to fight in some of these countries, particularly Mozambique. Tanzanian troops returned again to Mozambique to fight the RENAMO insurgency in the early 1980s. The two island states of Comoro and Seychelles were other places where Tanzanian troops fought successfully in 1975 and 1977 to help overthrown leaders stay in power, and additionally, conducted some type of clandestine missions in Burundi, Rwanda, Zambia and the former Zaire. Some authors like Simon Baynham in his book, Military Power and Politics in Black Africa, have given justice to what Nyerere did on the continent. At one time in the late 1960s he nearly fought with Malawi over the Lake Nyasa border dispute, but President Kamuzu Banda wisely smelled a rat. With neighbouring Kenya, nothing happened, but in the early 1980s Kenya was so worried that its government asked for military assistance from the United States as one retired US Air Force pilot narrated to me a while ago. No wonder that Kenyan scholar, Prof Ali Mazrui, said this after his death: “He gave Tanzanians a sense of national consciousness and a spirit of national purpose. One of the small countries in the world found itself to be one of the major actors on the world scene.” Yes, as we mark 13 years of his demise, we ought to remember the bravery of Nyerere despite his shortcomings in other areas. Source: The Citizen