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

• Author: Ali A. Mazrui,Donald Rothchild
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296702000106
• Published date: 01 March 1967
• Date: 01 March 1967
• Subject Matter: Articles

THE SOLDIER AND THE STATE IN EAST AFRICA:
SOME THEORETICAL CONCLUSIONS ON THE
ARMY MUTINIES OF 1964
ALI A. MAZRUI, University of East Africa, Makerere
and
DONALD ROTHCHILD, University of California, Davis,
and University of East Africa, Nairobi
HERE
IS NOT the slightest chance that the forces of law and order in
Tanganyika will mutiny.&dquo; 1 These were the words of Julius Nyerere. The
-JL 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: &dquo;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.&dquo; 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.
From the records of the courts-martial held in East Africa following the
mutinies one can compile evidence on immediate causes.3 But the purpose of this
paper is not to establish immediate causes. What is of broader comparative inter-
est is the complex of fundamental issues raised by such events. Army mutinies,
even when concerned with pay, have an importance that extends beyond the muti-
nies themselves. They have repercussions which always exceed the intentions of
the mutineers. And they raise questions about power and legitimacy in the political
systems in which they occur.
1

Inside East Africa (August/September 1960), 13-14.
2
Ibid. Considering the nature of the analysis, it would help clarity if we referred to Tangan-
yika and Zanzibar as distinct entities and avoid the joint name of "Tanzania" for our
purposes.
3
The actual chronology of events was of the following order: January 12, 1964, the Sultan’s
Government of Zanzibar was overthrown. January 17, Tanganyika police were sent to
Zanzibar to help restore order. January 20, the men of the First Battalion of the Tan-
ganyika Rifles stationed near Dar es Salaam mutinied — demanding higher pay and the
complete Africanization of the officer corps; President Nyerere’s whereabouts was un-
known to the public at large. January 21, the Second Battalion of the Tanganyika
Rifles stationed at Tabora also mutinied. Nyerere came out and broadcast to the nation.
Order was temporarily restored. January 23, Uganda’s Minister of Interior Felix
Onama was manhandled by two companies of the First Battalion of the Uganda Rifles
over the issue of increasing privates’ pay. The Uganda Government requested British
military assistance — and 450 British troops were sent from Nairobi. January 24, troops
of Kenya’s Eleventh Battalion mutinied at Lanet Camp near Nakuru. Units of the
Third Royal Force Artillery were called to restore order. January 25, British troops
broke up a sit-down strike of still-mutinous troops at Nakuru in Kenya. British troops
descended near Dar es Salaam and at Tabora and disarmed the Tanganyika mutineers
at the request of the Tanganyika Government. Three Africans were reported killed in
the engagement near Dar es Salaam.
82

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83
Among the issues which were raised by the army mutinies in East Africa were,
first, the nature of military loyalty to a newly invented state; secondly, the place of
the soldier in a governmental system involving popular leadership; and third, the
doctrine of nonintervention in the kinds of situations presented by contemporary
Africa. It is primarily these three broad issues which will be considered here.
PATRIOTISM IN UNIFORM
In most of the older countries of the world the armed forces are, in the final
analysis, the ultimate repository of patriotism. The traditions of the services over
generations amount to an accumulated loyalty, sometimes an exaggerated loyalty
-
to the state, to a supposed national interest or even a supposed national glory.
If we now turn to the place of the soldier in old tribal Africa a similar phe-
nomenon is discernible. &dquo;All young men between the ages of eighteen and forty
should form a warrior class ( anake ) , and be ready to defend the country, and that
the country should respect them and have pride in them.&dquo; This was one of the
principles of the traditional system of government of the Kikuyu as described by
Jomo Kenyatta in his book in 1938.~ As for the leaders of the warriors, these were
&dquo;men who had proved by their own actions their capability of leadership; had
shown bravery in wars, impartiality in justice, self-sacrifice and above all, discipline
in the group.&dquo; 5 In other words, the armed forces in tribal Africa tried to embody
in their different ranks some of the highest values admired by the tribe. And we
have already suggested that in a long-established developed state the armed forces
try to embody at least the basic virtue of loyalty to their country.
The new states in Africa have virtually the same basis for military troubles as
they do for political troubles -
they are no longer adequately tribal and are not
yet fully national. Their armed forces are inspired neither by the dedication of
tribal warriors nor by the patriotism which comes with a long-established national
consciousness.
Their role looks even more anomalous when it is remembered that the armed
forces in a new state are often inherited from the colonial regime. On January 26,
1964, Jomo Kenyatta issued a public rebuke of Kenya’s mutineers, firmly asserted
his Government’s authority, and went on to say: &dquo;During the colonial days the
men of the King’s African Rifles served the British Government loyally. Now that
we have our own African government the world and our own people are justified
in expecting even greater loyalty from the Kenya Army.&dquo; 6
If those soldiers had indeed been so loyal to the colonial regime there must
have been times when the Kenya soldiers and the Kenya nationalists were in
opposing camps. The immediate past history of the Kenya Army had certainly
not prepared the men for the role of being some ultimate repository of Kenya
nationalism before independence. It was truer to say of the military than of almost
any other group of the population that in them a tradition of loyalty to Kenya as
’ Facing Mount Kenya (London: Secker and Warburg, 1959 reprint), p. 188. The book was
first published in 1938.
5

Ibid., p. 200 (emphasis supplied).
6

East African Standard, January 27, 1964.

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84
a national unit under indigenous rule had just not grown yet. And this simple
factor was inevitably fraught with risk.
There is irony in this when we remember the role which ex-soldiers were sup-
posed to have played in the very birth of African nationalism. It has been said, for
example, that the 150,000 ex-servicemen throughout British West Africa after
World War II contributed to the general feeling of unrest, which remained un-
assuaged, if it was not stimulated, by the mild constitutional reforms of the mid-
1940’s. ~ In a country like Nigeria it was &dquo;not surprising to find ex-servicemen
among the more militant leaders of the nationalist movement during the postwar
period.&dquo; 8Perhaps it was fitting that in 1964 it should have been Nigerian soldiers
who took over from British troops in Tanganyika when Tanganyika’s own army
failed her.
In Kenya’s history, too, a whole chapter stands out with the title, &dquo;The Role
of the Ex-Soldier in Kenya’s Political History.&dquo; On one side we have the role of
Euro pean ex-servicemen in the conversion of Kenya into a country with white
settlers -
with all the political repercussions which that entailed. As far back as
the first world war the War Council of Kenya concerned itself not only with the
war and problems of conscription -
&dquo;in which East Africa led the way in the
Empire&dquo; -
but it sought to strengthen the European position in particular by
devising a Soldier Settlement Scheme for the postwar period.’
And at the end of the second world war the Kenya Government and the
British Government announced an agricultural settlement scheme for European
ex-soldiers released from the armed forces -
&dquo;men and women of pure European
descent, who were thus eligible to farm in the area reserved for Europeans in
Kenya, and whose war services a grateful country wished to recognise.&dquo; 1° What
emerges from this is the importance of &dquo;soldier settlers&dquo; as a factor in the land
question in Kenya’s history.ll
As for the role of the A f rican ex-serviceman in East Africa’s history, one Kenya
settler who served with Africans abroad has suggested that the first signs of nation-
alism in East Africa were discernible in the African askari and the questions he had
to ask after serving in South-East Asia. The askari was at last prompted to ask
why only Europeans were officers in the East African Army and why the food
scales were different as between white and black soldiers. As in West Africa, though
less dramatically, &dquo;the first real seeds of African nationalism were sown in the later
years of the war, when the African thus began to question the traditional differ-
ences between himself and the white man.&dquo; 12
~--
7
See Dennis Austin, West Africa and the Commonwealth (London: Penguin African...