History of Tanzania

The Tanzania such as it exists today is the fruit of fusion in 1964 of the State of ''' Zanzibar ''' and of the Tanganyika .

Contrary to the archipelago of Zanzibar whose history is relatively well-known for us, having been as of antiquity an important commercial center, one knows less things about the history of the interior of the grounds, in any case until the beginning of the XIXe century, time when started European explorations.

Prehistory

The famous throats of Olduvai, located in the North of current Tanzania, provide priceless traces of what was the prehistory of the area. One indeed found there remainders fossil of some of the most former ancestors of the mankind.

More generally, the various discoveries made in the valley of the rift suggest that the East Africa was the cradle of humanity.

Interior of the grounds (of the first times until the 18th century)

The area is supposed to be inhabited at the origin by tribes using a language with rattling of the mouth of the family linguistic khoïsane, similar to that of the Bushmen and Hottentots of South Africa. Although there remain traces of these original tribes, the majority were moved by populations Bantous migrating since the west and the south and by Nilote S and other people coming from north. The Bantous are supposed to be arrived in the area as of 5th or 4th century before JC.

Nilotic and para-nilotic ones are them arrived by successive waves, the first at the beginning of the first millenium before JC and the last ones towards the 18th century, in particular the Masaïs which migrated until the north of Tanzania as from the 15th century, encountering a certain number of ethnos groups already installed, like the Gogos or the Hehes.

Some of these African populations had reached an high level of organization and controlled broad territories when the European explorers and missionaries penetrated the interior of the country starting from the beginning of the 19th century.

The coastal region and the islands (Zanzibar, Pemba.) until 18th

Antiquity: first merchants

The coastal region, on the contrary, was subject to its first foreign influences as of the Antiquité.

Rhapta, old commercial town that one locates some share between the area of Tanga and the delta of the Rivière Rufiji, all in the south of the antique territory of the Azanie, was a commercial center familiar of the tradesmen of the Roman epoch in source in particular of Greece, of Egypt, Phénicie…

But it is with the merchants coming from the Arabic Péninsule, of the Persian Gulf and India that the relations were strongest. The ships, the famous Boutre S, pushed by the winds of monsoon, arrived to Zanzibar about December coming from the Indies and of the Arabic peninsula. In March - April, they set out again thanks to the trade winds blowing of south-east.

The tradesmen very early included/understood the interest which this African coast could present to be supplied out of gold, ivory, invaluable wood, skins, wax and also as slaves noirs.
The coastal region and the islands at the time are inhabited by tribes African Bantoues, and the interactions between these indigenous populations and the merchants Persian and Arab do not seem very hostile. A Greek handbook for the navigators dating from the beginning of our era, the Tour of the sea Érythrée , evokes already these merchants speaking the language local and married to African women.

City-States commercial (7th-15th century)

As from the 7th century, certain merchants become so familiar of the area whom they choose definitively to settle there, and found counters of trade. It should be also said that the tensions which emerge in the Muslim world incipient to know which must succeed the prophet Mohammed push some to leave to find refuge in other regions.

Thus one thinks that, towards 950, Ali ibn Hassan, sultan of Shiraz, a small town of Perse of the south, flees his country accompanied by his family and following, to join the coastal strip of East Africa and his islands.

Other waves of migrants arrive at the 11th century, mainly coming from the Arabic peninsula.

For these various immigrants speaking Arabic, the ground where they unload is “Zenji-bar”, literally the ground of the blacks into Persan, from where the possible origin of the name Zanzibar.

On the coast and the islands, these new populations mix culturally and sociologiquement with the African autochtones. It is the birth of the Culture swahilie, interbreeding of the African traditions and the beliefs arabo-Moslem woman. The languages swahilies, resulting from this interbreeding and based on a linguistic structure bantoue enriched by many contributions of Arab, are with the image of this cultural mixture.

City-States commercial are rested by the Arab migrants: Lamu, Paste, Pemba, Zanzibar, Malindi, Mombasa, Sofala. Shirazis Persians settle with Kilwa which become the center of the most flourishing trade of the area at 11th and especially at the 14th century, partly thanks to the ivory trade of elephants and hippopotamuses, and mainly thanks to gold coming from the mines of Sofala, in current the Mozambique, and bound for Europe and of the Islamic world. Kilwa is at that time described as being one of the cities most elegantly built world. The island of Zanzibar also thrives. Commercial caravans penetrate more and more deeply the earths to the big lakes to recover the invaluable goods which are reforwarded towards the Middle East.

But these cities are made competition and quarrel. They do not oppose an united front when the first Europeans arrive on the coast at the end of the 15th century.

The Portuguese interlude (1498 - 1729)

In 1498, Portuguese Vasco de Gama, on its tour which leads it in India after having passed the Cape of Good Hope, skirts the East-African coast and meets an important hostility in this relationship with the notable ones and commercial Arabic. The explorer and those which accompany it return as account as certain city-States swahilies (Kilwa, Mombasa, Lamu, etc) are devoted to important and apparently profitable trade of gold.

In 1502, Vasco de Gama returns in the area, this time at the head of a fleet of a score of ships equipped well. He and Ruy Lourenco Ravasco threaten the sheiks of Kilwa, Zanzibar and Brava destruction if an annual gold tribute is not versed to the King of the Portugal. Arabic does not yield and it is by the force that the Portuguese will impose their domination. The Portuguese do not hesitate to show a great brutality to frighten and put at the step the local populations. Kilwa, the city more in the south, falls the first in 1502 and is completely destroyed, followed Zanzibar in 1503, then other cities more in north (Mombasa, Lamu.). Only Mogadiscio in the north of the coast escapes the Portuguese. After ten year of confrontations, which take sometimes accents of holy war between Chrétienté and Islam, the Portuguese can be satisfied to have taken the control of largest the part of the coastal strip and the islands, putting the hand on the sea routes with India and the East and on the trade of the gold which interests them so much. Zanzibar is then the principal commercial warehouse of Eastern Africa.

However, especially as from the 17th century, the Portuguese had evil to assume militarily and politically their conquest. Not very many and hated local populations, they must face the growing opposition of the Swahili S, themselves more and more strongly supported by Arabic of the sultanate of Oman, located at the north on the side swahilie. In 1587, the massacre of the Portuguese of the island of Pemba was the first alarm for the European occupants.

In 1698, the Imam of Mascate in Oman, Seif Bin Sultan, encourages Arabic to revolt, assembles an army of 3000 men, and manages to take again Mombasa with the Portuguese, then Kilwa and Pemba the following year. The Portuguese try various counter-offensives, even briefly take again Mombasa, but are definitively expelled of the coast swahilie in 1729, and take refuge more in the south with the Mozambique.

From 1729 until the middle of the 19th century

Domination of the Omani sultans

They are thus the Arabs of the sultanate of Oman who control from now on the area. For the cities of the coast, after having undergone the domination of the Portuguese, it is not easy to become the vassal ones of a sultan located at more than 3000 km at north, at the end of the Persian Gulf. Some, such as for example Mombasa where reign the powerful family Mazrui, have even temptation to call upon the former occupants, the Portuguese, to get rid of the Arab invader. Especially that, in Oman, the mode is weakened by fights of succession between dynasties for the recovery of the throne.

On the economic plan, the 18th century rather signs a decline for the area, even if the lucrative trade of black slaves, which has existed for approximately a millenium in East Africa, becomes extensive more and more (see the article on the Moslem Traite). It is in particular a question of meeting the increasing requirements as servants bound for the Arabia and of the Persian Gulf and of providing labor to notable of Zanzibar and Pemba to work in the plantations. They also acts to feed Europeans for their new insular colonies of the Indian Ocean. France is a regular customer for his sugar cane plantations on the island Bourbon (today island of the Meeting) or the island of France (Mauritius). The caravans will seek the black slaves in the interior of the country, by avoiding the areas dominated by the tribe Masaï which with the reputation to be wild people. Two main roads are borrowed. The first, to the south, passes near the lake Malawi to join Kilwa. The other, more to north, leaves Lake Victoria, to bring ivory and slaves to Bagamoyo. This trade becomes so important that a vast market with the slaves is built in 1811 with Zanzibar.

At the beginning of the 19th century, a hard but advised man passes to the head of the Sultanate of Oman, Sayyid Saïd. After having consolidated its authority and given of the order in the businesses of the sultanate in the capital Mascate, it attacks the problems of the external territories where the Omani domination is threatened, in particular by the governors Mazrui. Indeed, in 1814, in addition to Mombasa, the governor Mazrui control Paste and Lamu.

In 1822, Saïd sends troops on the coast of Eastern Africa and puts at the step part of the rebellious cities. The family Mazrui does not fall immediately and, to approach the theater to the operations, Sayyid Said bin Sultan Al-Busaid moves his capital of Mascate to Zanzibar. This change of capital is also a personal wish for the sultan, who fell under the charm from this island that it has just discovered and for which it has great projects. It launches new activities: Zanzibar thus soon will provide the ¾ worldwide production of cloves, culture which was imported island Bourbon in 1812. The sultan also intensifies the draft of the blacks, one estimates that 15.000 slaves forward each year by his port, which does of it one of most important of Afrique.
Zanzibar draws from great profits of these activities.

In 1840, the Mazrui family is definitively subdued and Sayyid Saïd becomes the unchallenged leader of all the east coast of Africa, of current the Somalia until the Mozambique.

The power of Oman is with its apogee, but the sultan undergoes more and more the pressures of the colonial European powers which are during first half of the 18th century in full fight of influence for the control of the Indian Ocean and the sea routes towards Asia.

The British take foot in East Africa

The British in particular seek to prevent that France does not take foot in East Africa. For the British, the existence of a strong regional power, with which they are in good terms, is not to displease to them, and the United Kingdom gives rather its support for the sultan Sayyid Saïd.

In same time, the European companies more and more largely disapprove the trade of the slaves and the United Kingdom makes pressure on the sultanate to reduce the draft of the blacks. In 1822, a first treaty, known as of Moresby, is signed by the sultan. By this treaty, the sultan agrees to return illegal the sale of slaves to countries being declared Christian. The treaty also forces to circumscribe the trade of slave to the wearing of Oman and East Africa. In 1833, the British empire shows the example by abolishing slavery in its colonies and in 1845, Sayyid Saïd signs the treaty of Hamerton which limits the draft of the blacks to its only colonies of East Africa. But on the ground, these various diplomatic treaties will spend decades before being completely applied.

The sultanate multiplies the trade agreements and the diplomatic exchanges with the western powers (in 1836 with the United States, 1840 with Great Britain and 1844 with France). These treaties also envisage the establishment of foreign consulates in Zanzibar, a first for a sub-Saharan African country.

European colonization 1850-1964

Middle of the 19th century: The European exploration of the interior of the grounds

At that time begin for Europeans the discovery and the exploration of the interior of the country, still largely “ will terra incognita ”.

It is as of the end of the 18th century that spirits of the old continent start to be impassioned for the vast one and mysterious African continent. The interests are varied: incipient anti-slavery passion, search of adventure and exoticism, searches scientific source of the the Nile…

The majority of the explorers who want to discover the grounds located beyond the coastal strip under control of the Sultanate of Oman unload on the island of Zanzibar, main door on the world of the East Africa. They there recruit many assistances, buy the material and the vivres necessary for forwarding, and choose the present that they will have to offer to the local chiefs of tribes. western world. Two German pastors, Krapf and Rebmann, are among the first to traverse the interior of the grounds. Krapf translates the Bible into Swahili and begins the first evangelizations. Rebmann is the first European to announce the Kilimandjaro in 1848.

A little later, in 1856, two English explorers (Richard Burton and John Speke) seek to find the source of the the Nile. They go up the track of the Arab commercial caravans, and arrive at the Lac Tanganyika in 1857-1858, then Speke reaches a true inland sea which it names the queen Lake Victoria in the honor of its majesty. A second stay in 1861 consolidates it in the idea that it had found well by this lake the source of the Nile.

Famous the David Livingstone, on his side, during its forwardings of exploration of the river Zambezi, reached by the south the lake Nyassa (today Lake Malawi) on September 19th, 1859, then explores the surroundings of them. In fact, this lake had certainly already been located of the Portuguese at the 17th century, but their observations were not communicated to the remainder of In 1866, Livingstone sets out again of Zanzibar to complete the exploration of the lake Tanganyika and the surrounding areas. It also wishes to take share with the search of the sources of the Nile, which is not finished because John Speke still did not succeed in making accept of all, and in particular of Richard Burton his former travelling companion, veracity of its theory. Livingstone is supposed to be died during several years, because one is without news of him in Zanzibar until 1871. An American journalist, Henry Stanley, share with his research and discover it in 1872 in Ujiji close to Kigoma. Livingstone continues its voyages but dies of dysentery the following year close to banks of the lake Tanganyika.

Concurrently to these famous explorers, of many missionaries traverse the interior of the grounds of the East-African coast starting from the middle of the 19th century: the spiritains which settle in Morogoro and Kondoa, the Anglicans, the white fathers which go to Tabora, in Ujiji and Karema, Benedictines…

The visit of all these European explorer-missionaries and testimonys which return from there from the life of the local populations will accelerate the awakening by the European public opinions of the horrors related to the draft of the blacks. Livingstone in particular, at the time of its returns of forwardings in England, multiplies the conferences and publications to describe what is the reality of the trade of the slaves in Africa.

Decline of the sultanate and conditions of a colonization 1856-1886

In 1856, Sayyid Saïd dies and of the fratricidal fights the various sons of the sultan for his succession oppose. Finally, with the assistance of the British who intervene largely in the businesses of the sultanate, it is the Thuwaini oldest son who recovers the throne in Oman while Majid, his/her younger brother, takes the head of the possessions of Zanzibar, which is declared independent of the Omani sultanate. The territory under control of the sultanate of Zanzibar includes/understands then, in addition to the principal island, the island of Pemba, the island of Maffia, and the coastal strip who faces them, of Portuguese Mozambique to current Somalia (the Coast of Zanguebar). West coast in direction of the big lakes, the limit of the zone zanzibarite is not really fixed.

With died of Majid in 1870, his/her younger brother Bargash becomes the new sultan of Zanzibar. The capacities of the sultan are increasingly tributary of goodwill of the United Kingdom, and in 1873, under the pressure, Bargash signs finally fine treaty putting at the draft blacks on its grounds, even if the possession of a slave is always authorized.

While the British affirm their authority on their dominion of the sultanate of Zanzibar, the Germans invest the interior of the continent and, with the beginning of the year 1880, sign treaties of good agreement with African tribal chiefs, the latter not including/understanding besides most of the time the intentions of the Westerners. The company of German Eastern Africa, rested by the adventurer Carl Peters, who excels in this exercise of extension of the German influence, connects the signatures of treaties “of eternal friendships”. The competition between Germans and British in East Africa is exacerbated and of 1886 to 1890, various agreements and treaties organize the division of the zones of influences between the two colonial powers, with the great despair of the Bargash sultan who makes the expenses of these power struggles.

During a first conference, in Berlin in 1886, the the United Kingdom and the Germany recognize the sovereignty of the sultan on Zanzibar, but in same time strongly reduce the extent of the zones where this sovereignty is exerted. The sultan, in addition to the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, Maffia and Lamu, have nothing any more but one 16 km broad coastal strip which goes from the Cape Delgado (in current Mozambique) until Kipini (in current Kenya). To Germany returns the interior of the continent to the big lakes, area which will be soon called the Tanganyika, plus the Burundi and the Rwanda; the whole of these possessions forms German Eastern the Africa news (Ostafrika).

The border between the German and British territories is a simple straight line traced towards the west since the Tana river to Lake Victoria. With this border, Kilimandjaro is in the German territory.

In 1888, the Germans, who are not satisfied this division of the grounds which them gene since they must cross the coastal strip zanzibarite to reach inside the grounds, negotiate with the sultan a lease to be able to exploit the coast. Tensions appear and the chancellor Bismarck dispatch of the troops on the spot.
The situation is elutriated with the Traité of Héligoland, signed in 1890. Germany recovers the island of Heligoland located off its European coasts and n the other hand gives up other claims on the Eastern coast of Africa and recognizes the supremacy of the United Kingdom on Zanzibar. This same year, the Sultan loses officially any control on the small coastal strip who was supposed being under her seizure, and it to him is given a statute equivalent to a civil servant paid by the British Crown.

In 1891, the British impose the constitution of a government on Zanzibar, and name at its head Sir Lloyd Mathews. With died of the reigning sultan, in 1896, a son of the former Bargash sultan, Khalid, proclaims sultan and seizes the royal palace of Zanzibar. The British intervene militarily, they bombard the palate, and drive out Khalid which is replaced by a new sultan, Hamud Ben Mohammed on August 27th, 1896. In 1897, the statute of slave is definitively abolished on the island, in spite of the opposition of the notable buildings, mainly Arab and Indian, which fear the disappearance of this so practical cheap labor for the plantations of cloves.

The German colonization of Tanganyika: 1886-1919

The First World War and its consequences

The world war which opposes the European great powers as from 1914 touches the East Africa logically since two of the main characters of the war are present in the area.

The English have the advantage of controlling the maritime access. They mass their troops on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, and, in the south of Kenya, Mombasa and Nairobi. But the Germans will oppose up to 1916 a savage and effective resistance. In September 1914, the light cruiser Königsberg runs close to Zanzibar an important English ship, the Pegasus. The German ship, pursued by Royal Navy, is made forget while hiding a little more in the south in a delta of the Ujiji river. It will take 10 months for the British to find it and come to end.

More in north and inside the continent, of the engagements take place on the big lakes. The general with the orders of the German army in the area, Paul Von Lettow Vorbeck, leads the hard life to the allies. The English are severely beaten with Tanga and Jassin, attacked in Mombasa, and in a general way badgered by the Germans who adopt a true strategy of guerilla.

From 1916, the situation improves for the allies. It should be said that the German soldiers are isolated from the motherland and that the German high command has other priorities to support in an important way its troops of East Africa.

May 8th, 1916, Kigali, in current Rwanda, is taken to the Germans, then a few months later Kigoma and Ujiji on the edges are lake Tanganyika. Finally on September 19th, the allies hitherto seize Tabora, capital soldier of the Germans.

After the success of some counter-offensives, the Germans are definitively beaten with the end of the year 1917.

The war completely stopped the development projects and of installation which the Germans had undertaken in East Africa. At the end of the hostilities, the country is found with a completely dismantled administration and an economy at the dead point. To remain, the African populations find a time their old lifestyles.

In 1919, following the Treated of Versailles, the allies are distributed the control of the territories of old “the OstAfrika” German. The United Kingdom sees itself entrusting the mandate of what from now on is officially called the Tanganyika. The Belgians recover them it “Ruanda-Urundi” (today the Rwanda and the Burundi). One then estimates at 3500000 people the population of Tanganyika.

British Tanganyika: 1919-1964

Islands of Zanzibar and Pemba of 1886 to 1964

On their side, the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba know a certain political stability of the beginning of the XXe century until the beginning of the year 1960. The territory is always protectorate of the United Kingdom, which maintains in place the political system of the sultanate, while officializing its exercise of the capacity while constituting into 1925-26 of the executive councils and legislatures in the place of the advisory counsel. On the economic plan, the first decades of the 20th century are marked by a great crisis of the market of the clove, which create tensions between the Indian and Arab communities.

From the middle of years 1950 are formed various rather independence political parties, and each one with marked an enough ethnic dimension. ZNP, Zanzibar National Party is primarily composed of Arabs. Much farm laborer African, often resulting from the old populations slaves, is found for their part in party ASP (Afro-Shirazi Party), with the rather radical tendencies.

During the presence of the European colonists, British German then, the African companies was upset in their operation and their traditions. The expansion of the Christian religions and the Western economic systems, i.e. in particular the monetarisation of the exchanges, completely modified the relations and the power struggles inter-tribal. These identity and cultural changes were however more or less pronounced from one tribe to another. Some, like the Masaïs, resolutely remained well off this “modernization” of the company.

From 1964 until today: independent Tanzania

The independence and the creation of Tanzania

In 1953, Julius Nyerere , shining and ambitious teacher born in 1922, passed by Edinburgh to finish its studies, takes at 31 years the head of the TAA, which it quickly transforms into a true political party - Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) - which preaches independence. This one is granted by Great Britain on December 9th, 1961, without any violence. Julius Nyerere is a short time Prime Minister, then following the elections of December 1962, becomes the first president of the Republic of Tanganyika.

The independence of Zanzibar and Pemba is obtained on December 10th, 1963. The new State starts by being controlled by the parties initiated by the British (a coalition of the ZNP and small parts of Pemba). But, hardly one month later, in January 1964, the Community tensions which brood years since release, and party ASP, being isolated for a long time capacity whereas it is majority in the ballot boxes, starts a revolution. This one made of many victims in the rows of the Arab and Indian communities. One estimates at approximately 10.000 the number of people who were massacred in the night from January 11th to 12th in Zanzibar. Following this inversion, Karume, leader of the ASP, becomes president of the Republic of Zanzibar.

April 26th, 1964, Tanganyika and Zanzibar amalgamate to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Nyerere becomes the president of the State lately created, while Karume, remaining president de Zanzibar, becomes the vice-president of Tanzania. In the facts, even if the union is well celebrated with the remainder of the country, Zanzibar preserved until today a broad autonomy. In practice, it is the Tanzanian central government which deals with the “national” fields of the policy in Zanzibar: Defense, Interior, foreign affairs, while the local government zanzibarite covers subjects like education, economy…

The reign of Nyerere: 1964-1985

Anxious to accelerate the emancipation of the Africans compared to the western world, inspired of the communist experiments in China, Nyerere engages resolutely in a socialist policy. In February 1967, at the time of the Declaration of Arusha, it defines the principles and doctrines which they wish to see following by the country. According to the ideal of Nyerere, all that must lead to the creation of a levelling company, just, interdependent, which finds in its own resources the means of its self-sufficiency. Education is the priority number one. It should be said that there is urgency in this field: Tanzania produces only 120 graduates at that time per annum.

The first concrete measures of application of this policy are not long in arriving. Principal industries and services companies are nationalized, the taxes increased for a greater distribution of the richnesses. It is in the field of agriculture, principal economic sector of the country, that the changes are strongest. Called Ujamaas, i.e. cofraternity, of the village communities are organized on principles collectivists. Financial incentives encourage the formation of co-operatives. The first results are disappointing, and the first oil crisis of 1973 strongly obscures the economic outlooks for the country. To Zanzibar, Afro-Shirazi Party leads a policy relentless and totalitarian, with tendency openly revolutionary. The Arab and Indian properties are nationalized. Some dissensions appear even between Nyerere and Karume, this last wanting to approach more the communist world that the Tanzanian president who seeks him to spare to the maximum the relations with the Westerners.

In 1972, Karume is assassinated, for reasons which remain rather obscure.

During these years, very slightly supported by the Westerners, Tanzania receives the assistance of China, which for its part wishes to increase its influence in East Africa. It is with a Chinese support that the railway line TAZARA of Dar Es Salaam in Zambia is built in 1975. It is as on the model of the Chinese communes as 800 collective villages are created, gathering ethnic and tribal populations of origin different, and moved of force in the truck. One estimates that in 4 years, of 1973 to 1976,9 million people are thus moved. This policy, which one cannot deny that it allows a certain mixing between the various ethnos groups which compose the Tanzanian population, breaks the human and Community reference marks brutally individuals.

These policies interventionists and utopian less and less produce the anticipated results. The manufacturing output and agricultural regresses, the planning of the economy by the administration is ineffective.

On the political plan, parties TANU of Nyerere and the ASP approach and amalgamate in 1977 to form Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), i.e. the party of the Revolution.

The relations of Tanzania with its African neighbors, in particular those of north, Uganda and Kenya, worsen with the passing of years. The intentions were however good since these three countries formed in 1967 the African East Community (the East-African Community) with an aim of constituting a common economic market in the long term. The first co-operations in particular aim at standardizing the policy of the exchanges and control of the currencies.

But Kenya, rather near to the Western countries, moves away more and more from Tanzania supported by the Chinese Communists, and the border between these two countries is even closed of 1977 to 1983. In Uganda, the leader Idi Amin Dada, who nourishes ambitions of territorial expansions, reproaches his Tanzanian neighbor for lodging opponents with his mode. Uganda attacks Tanzania with the end of the year 1978, and invades the surroundings of Lake Victoria. The Tanzanians, with the assistance of the Chinese military material, arrive, at the end of several months of efforts, and at the price of heavy human losses, to take again the lost territories and occupy even Uganda during almost two years.

The war was expensive, approximately 500 million dollars, and with the beginning of the year 1980, without real industry, with an unproductive agricultural sector, Tanzania is one of the poorest countries of planet.

The country being inserted in the failure, Nyerere starts to modify gradually its policy interventionist carried out since the middle of the Sixties. With the increasingly large intervention of the the World Bank and the IMF, the financial incentives with the collectivists production are partly reorientated towards an investment for the large farms of the State and the road infrastructures. In 1984, the possibility of a private property of the means of productions appears and the company, very gradually, is liberalized.

From 1985 with today

In 1985, Nyerere, the “mwalimu” (the teacher), chooses, contrary to the practice taken by the majority of the other African Heads of State, to withdraw itself from the policy, after having all the same preserved the capacity during 24 years. It is Ali Hassan Mwinyi, then president since 1980 of the archipelago of Zanzibar, which takes its succession. In spite of the results very largely negative of its economic development policy, Nyerere preserved until its death in 1999 the regard of much of Tanzanians and part of the international community. One admits the merit indeed to him to have posed the bases of a democratic State pluriethnic.

Ali Hassan Mwinyi accelerates the opening and the progressive liberalization of the country. In 1992, it authorizes the multi-party system. In 1995, the first elections multipartists take place, even if sullied with serious doubts about their regularity. They see the victory of Benjamin William Mkapa, one of the disciples of Nyerere, which is re-elected in 2000. Mkapa must face many difficulties which burden takeoff so much hoped with the country: economic crisis, epidemic of AIDS, surge of refugees who flee the wars of Burundi. In Zanzibar, independence inclinations emergent sometimes, but until now, the Tanzanian Union is preserved. In 1998, attacks aim at the American embassies of Dar are-Salaam and of Nairobi in Kenya: one counts more than 250 victims and 5000 wounded.

After the elections of December 2005, Jakaya Kikwete becomes the new president of the republic, the fourth since the creation of Tanzania.

External bonds

Site on Tanzania
history of Africa
Site of the Republic of Tanzania
Chart of the political situation of Tanzania in 1886 and 1901

Random links: