President Pays Homage To Mwalimu Julius Nyerere At Butiama
2007-07-10

River Katonga is found in Uganda crossing Kampala –Masaka road at Mile 49. A historic battle took place across this river between the patriotic, nationalist forces of the new Uganda on the one hand and forces of the old colonial order on the other hand. This battle started in September, 1985 and ended with the victory of the revolutionary forces in December, 1985. After the historic victory, when the revolutionary forces took power, we created a constellation of medals for outstanding performance, the highest of which is Katonga, given for individual valour and heroism. It is the highest military honour given for service “beyond call of duty”.

Why do we give this medal to the late Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere? It is because he is the greatest African, the greatest Blackman, in terms of contribution, that has ever lived up-to-date, according to our assessment. There are many Africans that have made great contributions to the African cause, to the Blackman’s survival and cause. These include: Kwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, Jomo Kenyatta, Nelson Mandela, Samora Machel, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Muammar Gaddaffi, Sekou Toure. Emperor Menelik of Ethiopia who defeated the Italians in 1896, John Garang and others.

Each of these freedom fighters made a unique contribution to the liberation of the African peoples in one aspect or another. We do not want to comment on each one of them because, if we do, the citation will be quite lengthy.

The greatest of them, however, in our opinion was and, is still, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere. This is for the following reasons:

(i) He was a great selfless mobiliser who abandoned an academic career in the colonial system to lead a difficult life of a freedom fighter. Although the Tanganyika freedom struggle was peaceful, it was a great sacrifice to disengage from the colonial service to be with the people. It was the good fortune of Tanganyika that he did so. His intellectual mind contributed greatly to the eventual stability of Tanganyika and, later, Tanzania. It could explain the reasons why the governance in Tanzania was always benign unlike in many other African countries. In other countries, intellectuals preferred to remain in the Colonial service thereby leaving the political struggle to the “verandah boys” as they were called in some parts of Africa.


(ii) Secondly, he was nationalistic and treated tribalism, religious bigotry and all forms of sectarianism with contempt. Could it be the reason he always donned a Moslem cap although he was not a Moslem? Was it to proclaim for all those with eyes to see that he did not attach much importance to religious identities when it came to national causes and service delivery?

Is there a road, a University, or any other facility that will benefit Christians alone without benefitting the Moslems or the animists? He pioneered the discontinuation of using tribal designation for districts and regions e.g. Buhaya, Sukumaland, and others. Instead, the capital towns’ designations were used: Mwanza, Bukoba etc. We copied those detoxication measures from him.

(iii) He was a visionary and a great strategist. He could see that a balkanized Africa could not guarantee the future of the Blackman and other African Peoples. Africa had been colonized because it was divided into small tribal kingdoms, clan chiefdoms or segmentary societies that were too small to protect themselves against more organized outsiders.

The argument that we were colonized because of inferior technology is not entirely correct. China and Japan were inferior to the Western technology during the period of European colonialism. Why did the two preserve their independence inspite of all efforts by the European Colonial powers? It was, partly, because of size. They were too big to swallow. It, partly, explains why Ethiopia was the only African country to preserve its independence except for the brief five-years period of the Italian occupation.

Mwalimu Nyerere, seeing this strategic imperative, right from the beginning, even offered to delay Tanganyika’s independence so that together with Kenya and Uganda, they become independent at the same time and become one union, one country. On the question of who will lead the Federation, he said he would support any of the other leaders of East Africa with that task. On his part, he would represent the Union at the United Nations forum (UN). It was because of this stand of Mwalimu that I decided not to do my University studies at Makerere University but at Dar-es-Salaam University. I wanted to be near this great visionary strategist. Although the whole of Africa was colonized, we were lucky, partly because of the resilience of the African societies, that we were not exterminated like the Red Indians, the Incas, the Aztecs or the Australian Aborigines and others.

Eventually, we gained our freedom and we are now, 53 independent African states. What is amazing is that for 50 years now, with this new chance of not only survival but augmenting our position, many of the African leaders have not found it necessary to immunize Africa against any future re-colonization by creating more, viable political units, strategically.

Mwalimu and the late Sheikh Amani Karume were the only exceptions when they created Tanzania in 1964. I salute the people of Tanzania for maintaining this union as an example to the rest of Africa. I remember very well how the reactionaries and myopic elements used to say that Mwalimu was supporting the idea of the East African Federation because he was an “expansionist”; was “ambitious” and many other labels. He wanted to be the President of the Federation, they would claim. Thereby, diverting the People’s minds from the core issues: whether political integration was good for Africa or not.

Mwalimu Nyerere and late Mzee Karume, together with the Tanganyika National Union (TANU) and Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), created Tanzania in 1964. Both of them are now dead. Who is benefiting from the union? It is the Tanzanians of this generation. If Tanganyika and Zanzibar had remained separate, there would be a lot of complications which sometimes we do not think about. Take the example of the exclusive economic zones in the ocean according to the Law of the Sea which is supposed to be 200 Nautical miles. How would Tanganyika and Zanzibar handle that as separate states being so entertwined? The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964 obviated those problems.

The Emperors who created the huge China and Russia have been dead, in one case, for millennia. The individuals are temporary. What is durable are ideas, countries and People. Mwalimu and Sheikh Karume had a durable idea. They helped create a durable country with a durable People.

This is one of the reasons Mwalimu’s contribution is unique. Some people think that the idea of East African Community is new. In fact, it was an ancient reality. There were archeological excavations in Uganda at Ntutsi. They found, among other items, glass beads (enkwanzi) and cowries shells (ensimbi) in this settlement of 900 to 1500 AD. We were not making the glass beads in Uganda; and cowries shells only come from the Ocean. They, therefore, only got to Uganda through the well-known route from Zanzibar, Bagamoyo, Tabora, Karagwe etc. Therefore, the reality of a free trade area is ancient but it was briefly interfered with by colonialism with different colonial powers controlling the coastal area and the hinterland (Germans in Tanganyika, Rwanda and Burundi; British in Kenya and Uganda; and Belgians in Congo). Fortunately, Tanganyika came under the British control, thereby making it possible to re-assemble part of the pre-colonial free trade area.

However, Rwanda, Burundi and Congo stayed out of the free trade area because they were still under the Belgians.

With the recent joining of Rwanda and Burundi in the East African Community (EAC), we are now getting nearer to the situation before the 1885 Berlin Conference. Therefore, Mwalimu and Sheikh Karume were engaged in this struggle of re-assembling this ancient area of African cooperation and this time augmenting it with political cement through merging the sovereignties of the countries in the area. This was because the collapse of the free trade area under the pressure of colonialism had shown that economic integration without political integration was not secure. This is not to talk of the ancient linkages between Kilwa and the gold of Zimbabwe and Copper workings of Congo which were destroyed by the Portuguese intervention in the Indian Ocean after Vasco Da-Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1498. By creating direct routes to India by passing Kilwa, she went into decline.

All these ups and downs of the East African Peoples are due to a low level of political integration. In 1331, an Arab traveller, Ibn Battuta, came to Kilwa and writes as follows: “After one night in Mombasa, we sailed to Kilwa, a large City on the coast whose inhabitants are black.

A merchant told me that a fortnight’s sail beyond Kilwa lie Sofala, where gold is brought from a place a month’s journey inland called Yufi. The city of Kilwa is among the finest and most substantially built-in the World. Its Sultan at the time of visit was Abu’L-Mazaffar Hasan, surnamed Abu Al-Mawahib (the father of Gifts), renowned for his humility, generosity and hospitality. I saw at his court many sharifs, from Iraq and the region of Mecca”. Here Yufi can only mean Zimbabwe. However, because the geography of the whole of Africa was not well understood, he mixed it up with Ife in Nigeria.

Mwalimu, long ago, realized that without political integration, there is no way we can guarantee even the modest advances we have made. Kilwa 800 years ago was one of the “finest cities in this World”. How do we describe it now? Ntutsi, in Uganda, in 900 AD, was bigger than the city of London at that time. It is now bush.

Why? It is on account of failing to provide a secure environment, in strategic, World class terms; on account of failing to promote adequate political roofs to the immense achievements of our people.

I always ask People: “Who was the political guarantor of the Black Man’s freedom in the past?” None. That is why we were colonized and declined. Who is the guarantor of the Blackman’s freedom today in World Class terms? I do not see any. What is the future without a guarantor for our freedom? East Africans should help us answer that question. The guarantor of the Western system for the last 100 years has been the USA and the USSR. When Mwalimu and other freedom-fighters fought the Portuguese, the Boers and Ian Smith, we got solidarity from the communist countries--China and Russia. His hope was that we would build our own strategic capacity using our independence. Have we done it? Are we following Mwalimu’s example with Karume in 1964? The National Resistance Movement (NRM), our liberation Movement, is always firmly in the footsteps of Mwalimu’s vision. I discussed all these issues with Mwalimu when he was alive. Some of the compatriots know what we discussed and I have shared those conversations with H.E. J. Kikwete. Fortunately, a few years ago, Presidents: Kibaki, Mkapa and myself, had a retreat in Nairobi.

After that retreat, we decided to recommend to the East Africans to fast-track the East African Federation. Consultations on that issue are continuing. The decision of that retreat was following many years of discussion.

(iv) Mwalimu was a fearless fighter for African freedom. He declared: “Tanganyika’s independence is meaningless without the independence of the whole of Africa”. Tanzania, under Mwalimu’s leadership, played a crucial role in galvanizing the frontline states to support the anti-colonial

struggle in Southern Africa. This was quite risky because the Western imperialist countries and the Boers of South Africa did not like it. They supported Kambona and all sorts of renegades in order to undermine TANU and ASP.

In 1972, I was staying next to the Selander bridge, in a small Guest House, known as “Sun and Sand”, when a bomb went off on the bridge – two hundred meters away. In one book, “The Silent War”, it was recently revealed that a South African submarine had

dropped saboteurs off the coast who entered Tanzania and planted that particular bomb.

Mwalimu was steadfast. The Portuguese would plant landmines in the Ruvuma Valley. His steadfast stand alongside the struggle of the freedom fighters like Samora Machel, Oliver Tambo, Agustinho Neto, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Sam Nujoma, Kenneth Kaunda led to the second defeat of a European power by Africans when, 1974, the Portuguese fascist regime collapsed, leading to the independence of Mozambique. The first time an African country had defeated a European power was in 1896 when Ethiopia defeated Italy at Adua. A total of 84 million Africans in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Angola,

South Africa and Namibia are now free on account of the crucial contribution of Mwalimu. The 84 million Africans occupying a land area of 4,484,200 sq. kms. If you add Uganda, then the population of Africans freed by Mwalimu’s work is 115 million people in a land area of 4,720,240 sq. kms. This is unprecedented and unequalled in the history of the Black race.

(v) Mwalimu, almost single-handedly, stood by the people of Uganda when we were being decimated by Idi Amin. He rejected the notion that Idi Amin has a right to misuse the sovereignty of Uganda and kill us at will. The Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) in 1979, and the National Resistance Army (NRA) in 1985, got substantial material support that enabled us to create a new Uganda. No other African or Blackman has made such a contribution throughout the 5 million years of our evolution and history.

(vi) Mwalimu was a good and shrewd organizer. It is one thing to have a vision or ideas; it is, however, another matter to have the ability and the discipline to organize People and create institutions to enable you achieve your ideas. This was, for instance, the weakness of people like Dr. Nkrumah. He failed to manage the Army that was used by the imperialists to overthrow the revolution. Mwalimu, in very difficult circumstances, managed to mobilize Tanzanians and non-Tanzanians like us to, on the one hand, protect the democratic will of the people in Tanzania and on the other enable brotherly peoples in other African Countries, to overthrow fascism and colonialism.


It is for these reasons that the revolutionaries in Uganda decided to award the highest military honour for individual bravery to Mwalimu Kambarage Nyerere. His vision is indestructible and will triumph the zigzag course notwithstanding. In order to secure the future of the Black race and other African Peoples, the present and future generations of African leaders must do more than the pre-colonial chiefs did, the colonialists did and the post-colonial African leaders have done; they must emulate the action of Mwalimu and Sheikh Karume when they united Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964.

“May His Soul rest in Eternal Peace”
..End.