Article Outline
From the beginning, Tanzania was a poor state, with few exportable minerals, little industry, and an agricultural system dominated by ideas of tribal self-sufficiency. To counteract a deteriorating economic situation, Nyerere made some major changes in 1967. The state gradually extended its control over all areas of business life. Banks and all private companies were nationalized and state corporations created to provide goods and services for the population. This experiment in socialism received a tremendous blow with the increases in the price of petroleum in the 1970s, which wiped out Tanzania’s reserves. Nyerere’s ujamaa (“familyhood”) program, designed to revitalize village agriculture by combining modern technology with African ideas of cooperation, was hampered by world economic developments, government inefficiency, and resistance from local village and district heads.
During the 1970s and the early 1980s, Tanzania’s leaders were in the forefront of African liberation movements. Mozambican nationalists were allowed to use Tanzanian territory for training and attack bases during their rebellion against the Portuguese. In Uganda, Tanzanian troops helped overthrow the regime of Idi Amin in 1979 and occupied the country until 1981. President Nyerere was also one of the major African representatives in the negotiations for ending white rule in Zimbabwe. Although it maintained good relations with the West, Tanzania moved closer in philosophy and practice to the Communist-bloc countries; China was particularly helpful with aid.
In November 1985 Nyerere retired and was succeeded in the presidency by Ali Hassan Mwinyi; however, Nyerere retained the chairmanship of the CCM until August 1990. Opposition parties were legalized in 1992. The first multiparty elections were held in October 1995, but logistical problems caused the electoral commission to schedule a new round of elections for November. Opposition parties accused the ruling CCM of fraud and withdrew from the second elections, claiming irregularities in the voting procedures. Benjamin Mkapa, a member of the CCM, was elected president, and the CCM won the majority of the seats in the National Assembly. Multiparty elections were also held in Zanzibar in October 1995, and President Salmin Amour, a member of the CCM, was reelected. Opposition parties contested the results, however.
In the early 1990s violence in the countries bordering Tanzania led to an influx of refugees. In 1993 refugees from Burundi crossed the border into Tanzania, fleeing the violence that followed a coup attempt against the Burundian government. In Rwanda violence erupted between the Hutu and the Tutsi in 1994, causing hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee into Tanzania. A resurgence of violence in Burundi in 1995 sent thousands more Burundian refugees into Tanzania. Tanzania closed its border with Burundi in March. At that time Tanzania had about 60,000 refugees from Burundi and more than 700,000 refugees from Rwanda. Representatives of Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC) met in November 1995 and agreed on a plan for the repatriation of refugees, but many refugees refused to return to their countries. In many parts of Tanzania, refugees significantly outnumbered local residents.
In 1995 the United Nations (UN) Security Council established an international war crimes tribunal to try individuals accused of participating in the genocide in Rwanda. The city of Arusha in Tanzania was selected as the site for the tribunal. Trials began in May 1996.
Tensions between Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania rose in the 1990s as Zanzibaris increasingly called for greater autonomy from the national government. In late 2000 Mkapa was reelected as president, and the CCM swept legislative elections in both Tanzania as a whole and in Zanzibar. International observers noted serious irregularities in the Zanzibar polling, and the Civic United Front (CUF), the main opposition party in Zanzibar, charged the CCM with voter intimidation. Clashes between members of the CUF and government forces rocked Zanzibar in 2000 and 2001. The CCM and CUF signed accords in 2001 and 2002 to amend Zanzibari voting laws and electoral procedures, quelling the violence.
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