Plan Giralda | |
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Planned by | British Armed Forces |
Objective | Prevent a coup by the Umma Party against Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere |
Plan Giralda was a British plan for military intervention in Zanzibar following the 1964 revolution. Giralda was intended to be launched if the radical left-wing Umma Party attempted to launch a coup against the government of President Julius Nyerere's newly formed Tanzania. It was the fifth and final British plan for such an eventuality, following Operations Parthenon, Boris, Finery and Shed. Giralda would have required British Army units, Royal Marines and Royal Navy vessels from the Far East to be deployed to Zanzibar if a request was received from Nyerere. Follow on units would be sent after the main assault from the British garrison in Kenya. The operational constraints of sending troops over such long distances, the reluctance of the Kenyan government to weaken the British presence in their country, the reduction of Western presence in Zanzibar and the strengthening of the political situation in Tanzania made intervention unlikely and the plan was suspended in October 1964. The newly elected Labour government cancelled the plan in December.
The Zanzibar Revolution had occurred on 12 January and since then British forces had kept a presence in the area to safeguard European citizens. [1] Since 30 January British forces had also been kept on standby to launch a military intervention in the event that the radical left-wing Umma Party staged a coup to overthrow President Abeid Karume's moderate Afro-Shirazi Party which controlled the governing Revolutionary Council. [1] Plan Giralda was the fifth British plan for this eventuality, following Operations Parthenon, Boris, Finery and Shed. The other four operations had been cancelled by the time that Giralda was put into place. Giralda was designed as a replacement for Operation Shed and was introduced around 23 September 1964. [2] Since the revolution Zanzibar had merged with the African mainland country of Tanganyika to form Tanzania and Giralda was designed as a means of intervention in case the Zanzibar-based Umma Party attempted a coup against President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.
Plan Giralda was to have used British troops from Aden and the Far East to launch a military intervention in Zanzibar. [2] Troops from British garrisons in Kenya had been designated for previous intervention plans but they were cancelled due to security and secrecy concerns. [2] Giralda called for an infantry battalion and a tactical headquarters unit to be shipped from Aden to the British naval and air base on Gan in the Maldives where they would rendezvous with a Royal Marines commando unit and vessels of the Royal Navy drawn from the Far East. [3] Because of the long distances involved it was estimated that it would take 11 to 15 days for the entire force to reach Zanzibar following the initial order. Once the force had reached the island it was capable of remaining embarked and out of sight of land for up to 15 days before operational efficiency would be compromised. [3] One of the problems facing the plan was that President Nyerere's agreement had to be given for the operation to go ahead and the 11- to 15-day delay between this agreement and the arrival of troops may have weakened his resolve for action. [3] If, however, the troops were sent in anticipation of this agreement they could only remain on board the ships for a finite time before they would have to be publicly disembarked. Resource constraints meant that an amphibious assault force with attendant ships could not be kept permanently ready in the theatre as this capability had been ruled out in the 1961 strategy paper "British strategy in the 1960s". [3]
Giralda would have relied on follow on forces drawn from bases in Kenya or transported through Kenya from Aden to maintain security after the initial assault. [3] The movement of these troops was subject to the agreement of the Kenyan government and so put the safety of British troops at the discretion of a foreign government. [3] Similar political problems had affected the reinforcement of Kuwait in 1961. [4] The support of the Kenyan government might have been difficult to obtain as the reinforcements may have come from the British garrison there which had recently been required to quell mutinies in the Kenyan army. [5] By the autumn Western interests in Zanzibar were practically non-existent and in October the British Chiefs of Staff were informed that Nyerere was very unlikely to request intervention and as a result the plan was suspended. [4] The October 1964 British general election brought in a Labour government which scrapped Giralda in December. [4] The government decided not to inform Nyerere that it no longer considered itself bound to respond to any request for intervention. [4] Giralda was the last plan for British military intervention in Zanzibar.
The African Great Lakes nation of Tanzania dates formally from 1964, when it was formed out of the union of the much larger mainland territory of Tanganyika and the coastal archipelago of Zanzibar. The former was a colony and part of German East Africa from the 1880s to 1919’s when, under the League of Nations, it became a British mandate. It served as a British military outpost during World War II, providing financial help, munitions, and soldiers. In 1947, Tanganyika became a United Nations Trust Territory under British administration, a status it kept until its independence in 1961. The island of Zanzibar thrived as a trading hub, successively controlled by the Portuguese, the Sultanate of Oman, and then as a British protectorate by the end of the nineteenth century.
Julius Kambarage Nyerere was a Tanzanian anti-colonial activist, politician, and political theorist. He governed Tanganyika as prime minister from 1961 to 1962 and then as president from 1962 to 1964, after which he led its successor state, Tanzania, as president from 1964 to 1985. He was a founding member and chair of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) party, and of its successor Chama Cha Mapinduzi, from 1954 to 1990. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he promoted a political philosophy known as Ujamaa.
Abeid Amani Karume was the first President of Zanzibar. He obtained this title as a result of a revolution which led to the deposing of Sir Jamshid bin Abdullah, the last reigning Sultan of Zanzibar, in January 1964. Three months later, the United Republic of Tanzania was founded, and Karume became the first Vice President of the United Republic with Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika as president of the new country. He was the father of Zanzibar's former president, Amani Abeid Karume.
The Tanganyika Rifles was the sole regiment in the Tanganyikan army, from 1961 to 1964.
The Uganda–Tanzania War, known in Tanzania as the Kagera War and in Uganda as the 1979 Liberation War, was fought between Uganda and Tanzania from October 1978 until June 1979 and led to the overthrow of Ugandan President Idi Amin. The war was preceded by a deterioration of relations between Uganda and Tanzania following Amin's 1971 overthrow of President Milton Obote, who was close to the President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere. Over the following years, Amin's regime was destabilised by violent purges, economic problems, and dissatisfaction in the Uganda Army.
The Zanzibar Revolution occurred in January 1964 and led to the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar and his mainly Arab government by the island's majority Black African population.
John Gideon Okello was a Ugandan revolutionary and the leader of the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964. This revolution overthrew Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah and led to the proclamation of Zanzibar as a republic.
The Sultanate of Zanzibar, also known as the Zanzibar Sultanate, was a Muslim state controlled by the Sultan of Zanzibar, in place between 1856 and 1964. The Sultanate's territories varied over time, and after a period of decline, the state had sovereignty over only the Zanzibar Archipelago and a 16-kilometre-wide (10 mi) strip along the Kenyan coast, with the interior of Kenya constituting the British Kenya Colony and the coastal strip administered as a de facto part of that colony.
Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu was a Zanzibar-born Marxist and pan-Africanist nationalist who played an important role in the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution and served as a minister under Julius Nyerere after the island was merged with mainland Tanganyika to form Tanzania. He was jailed by Nyerere from 1972 and, after his release following an international campaign, remained a vocal critic of imperialism, authoritarian states and excessively statist development models.
Oscar Salathiel Kambona (1925-1997) was the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tanganyika from 1963 to 1966.
People have lived in Zanzibar for 20,000 years. History properly starts when the islands became a base for traders voyaging between the African Great Lakes, the Somali Peninsula, the Arabian peninsula, Iran, and the Indian subcontinent. Unguja offered a protected and defensible harbor, so although the archipelago had few products of value, Omanis and Yemenis settled in what became Zanzibar City as a convenient point from which to trade with towns on the Swahili Coast. They established garrisons on the islands and built the first mosques in the African Great Lakes Region.
Tanganyika was a colonial territory in East Africa which was administered by the United Kingdom in various guises from 1916 to 1961. It was initially administered under a military occupation regime. From 20 July 1922, it was formalised into a League of Nations mandate under British rule. From 1946, it was administered by the UK as a United Nations trust territory.
Operation Parthenon was a British plan for military intervention in Zanzibar following the 1964 revolution. The operation was authorised by the British Commanders Committee East Africa on 30 January. The main objectives were to restore law and order in Zanzibar and to prevent the radical left-wing Umma Party from taking control of the government from the moderate Afro-Shirazi Party. The forces assigned to the operation included two aircraft carriers, three destroyers, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel, 13 helicopters, 21 transport or reconnaissance aircraft, a battalion of Foot Guards, a battalion of Royal Marines and an independent company of paratroopers. The plan was to launch a helicopter and parachute assault of Unguja, Zanzibar's main island, before proceeding to take the smaller island of Pemba. If it had been carried out, Parthenon would have been the largest British airborne and amphibious operation since the Suez Crisis of 1956. Parthenon was scrapped around the 20 February and replaced with Operation Boris.
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Operation Finery was a British plan for military intervention in Zanzibar following the 1964 revolution. It was a replacement for the earlier operations Parthenon and Boris, amphibious and airborne assaults. Finery circumvented the reliance of the previous plans on bases in Kenya, where government and local support for intervention were not forthcoming. Instead, Finery would have utilised the commando carrier HMS Bulwark to land Royal Marines on Zanzibar to protect Karume's government. Because of delays in the deployment of Bulwark, Finery was supplemented by Operation Shed, which could be launched at shorter notice. The expected coup did not occur, and Finery was scrapped on 29 April 1964, although Operation Shed remained in place.
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