Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0365/03655.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 28KB | 444 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03655}
$Pretitle{262}
$Title{Tanzania
Chapter 5B.   Military Command and Mission}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Eugene K. Keefe}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{military
tpdf
forces
nyerere
army
tanzanian
officers
prc
british
defense}
$Date{1978}
$Log{Infantry Unit*0365501.scf
}
Country:     Tanzania
Book:        Tanzania, A Country Study
Author:      Eugene K. Keefe
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1978

Chapter 5B.   Military Command and Mission

     As commander in chief of the TPDF the president has ultimate authority
for the organization, administration, and operation of the forces. President
Nyerere, who has led his country since independence in 1961 and was reelected
in 1975, has generally relied on subordinates in his government for the
day-to-day management of the armed forces not because he has been uninterested
in military affairs but because his philosophy of government has been
basically nonmilitary. If conditions had permitted, he probably would have
preferred to dispense completely with armed forces after the mutiny of 1964,
but reality dictated the need for some kind of defense so the TPDF was
created.

     In statements made during the recruitment and training of the soldiers
who would replace the mutineers, Nyerere outlined his ideas on what the new
armed forces should and should not be. He was adamant in his belief that the
forces must be integrated into the party and the state. They must not be
allowed to become an elite force that could be a threat to the government
instead of its protector. In Nyerere's view the army would, in effect, be an
arm of the party. Such a concept would probably have been almost impossible to
achieve in the premutiny army because of its colonial background and British
orientation, but creating a force almost from scratch gave Nyerere the
opportunity to introduce his own ideas and to ensure that those ideas were
implemented. The new TPDF became a politicomilitary force whose officers and
noncommissioned officers were forced to be political activists. Overall
control of the military, however, was firmly held by civilians.

     The major supervisory body for defense matters was a high-powered
committee chaired by the president and included in its membership both vice
presidents (later the single vice president), the minister for defense and
national service, the commander of the TPDF and his chief of staff, and the
chiefs of political education for the TPDF from the mainland and from
Zanzibar. Subcommittees existed to implement party directives in the armed
forces. Routine management of the forces was a responsibility of the Defense
Forces Committee established by the National Defense Act of 1966. Subject to
the approval of the president this committee supervised administration and
logistics. As originally constituted, the committee was chaired by the second
vice president who at that time also held the defense portfolio. Later, when
the second vice-presidency was abolished and the Ministry of Defense and
National Service established, the Defense Forces Committee was chaired by its
minister. Other members included the commander of the TPDF, the secretary of
the Department of National Defense, and the chief of military personnel.

     At the time of the union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar defense affairs
were the responsibility of the minister for internal affairs and defense, then
Kambona. About a month after the union the defense portfolio was separated
from internal affairs and made a responsibility of the second vice president,
Rashidi M. Kawawa. This arrangement lasted until early 1972 when Kawawa was
made prime minister, and a separate cabinet position for defense and national
service was created with Edward M. Sokoine as minister. In a reshuffling of
his cabinet in 1977 President Nyerere promoted Sokoine to the prime
ministership and demoted Kawawa to the defense position. No explanation was
given, but observers guessed that Kawawa had been associated with some recent
economic setbacks.

     The commander of the TPDF in 1977 was Major General Abdallah Twalipo.
Major general was the highest rank in the armed forces, and on active duty
only the commander held that rank. From its inception in 1964 until the
government reorganization of 1974, the TPDF was commanded by Marisho S. H.
Sarakikya, a Sandhurst-trained lieutenant at the time of the mutiny, who was
catapulted to the rank of brigadier and became the first commander of the
TPDF. For several years Sarakikya was the only brigadier on active duty, but
in 1969 he was promoted to the newly added rank of major general, and soon a
few other positions were designated for brigadiers. Sarakikya, who had
distinguished himself by his loyalty to country and president and by his
ability to manage military affairs during the incubation of the new armed
forces, was made minister for national culture and youth in Nyerere's cabinet
in 1974, and Twalipo became commander of the TPDF jumping from the grade of
colonel to major general. In 1977 Sarakikya was named envoy to Nigeria.

     Another important member of the military hierarchy is the individual
charged with overseeing the political education and activities of the troops.
In November 1964 President Nyerere created the position of political commissar
of the TPDF to ensure that a high-ranking party member would have an official
position in the top level of the armed forces. Nyerere chose Selemani J.
Kitunda, a civilian who was then Coast Regional Commissioner, to be the first
commissar of the forces and gave him the rank of colonel. For lower levels the
president decreed that company commanders would henceforth be chairmen of the
elected party committees that each company would have. As company political
leader the commander would be held responsible for the political education and
indoctrination of the troops. Nyerere expressed the hope that an army actively
participating in the building of a new nation would be unlikely to repeat the
mutiny.

Army

     The country's army from independence in December 1961 until the mutiny in
January 1964 had been formed from units of the British colonial army known as
the King's African Rifles, renamed the Tanganyika Rifles. It was a small force
made up of professional soldiers, a few of whom were veterans of World War II
and a few others who were veterans of the British campaigns against the Mau
Mau in Kenya. As was customary with colonial troops (as well as with British
troops), the men of the Tanganyika Rifles were a political; their function was
to fight during wartime and to train for that fighting or perform ceremonial
duties during peacetime. The soldiers had not played a role in achieving
independence nor were they called on for any meaningful tasks during the
infancy of the new state. In essence the life of a soldier in January 1964 had
not changed measurably in two years of independence; he was poorly paid, most
of his officers were British, and his monotonous day-to-day routine allowed
him plenty of time to meditate on his dissatisfactions. The week-long mutiny
brought an end to the semi-colonial Tanganyika Rifles and paved the way for a
truly national army.

     The army that was created differed not only from its predecessor but also
from most other African armies that had evolved from colonial antecedents.
Tanzania's military lacked much of the colonial orientation that was the
hallmark of the armies of newly independent African states. It is true that
British rank structure and insignia and British methods of training continued
to be used, but recruiting a completely new complement of troops and
promoting a handful of young African officers into command positions allowed
Nyerere to set standards that were in accord with his own precepts rather than
those developed by the British. The nationalistic atmosphere that prevailed
after the mutiny also was conducive to the creation of a truly African
force-one that was Tanzanian rather than the hybrid contingent that ha