Tanzania

Tanzania A German colony from 1891 (German East Africa), the colonial forces were defeated by the British under Smuts in 1916. After the war, Britain came to administer it as a League of Nations Mandate, when it became known as Tanganyika. It was governed under the principle of indirect rule, which invested considerable autonomy in the village and tribal chiefs. The British were relatively restrained in their colonial administration, as they focused their attention on the adjacent colony of Kenya, which they could rule without reference to the League of Nations, as well as on the colony of Zanzibar. It became a UN trust territory after World War II. In 1952, Nyerere founded TANU (Tanganyika African National Union), through which he managed to unite the country's ethnically mixed population around the demand for Britain to honour its obligation to the UN and release the country to independence.

Independence was achieved on 9 December 1961 with relatively few complications, compared for example, to Kenya (Mau Mau) or Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). In 1964 it was united with Zanzibar under the name of Tanzania, though the two parts retained considerable autonomy with separate parliaments and administrative systems. In 1972 TANU merged with Zanzibar's major African Party, the ASP (Afro Shirazi Party), to form a new unity party, the Chama Cha Mainduzi (CCM, Party of the Revolution).

Tanzania became a model for an African way to socialism based on indigenous cultures. The Arusha Declaration of 1967 inaugurated a policy whereby the village became the administrative and economic unit, as large businesses became nationalized and subject to state planning. The aim of this policy was to achieve economic self-sufficiency, and to reduce income inequalities. However, the policy stifled private initiative, partly through lack of incentives, and partly through an overblown bureaucracy which tried to coordinate the vast network of villages and state-owned companies.

In 1979 Nyerere declared war on Uganda, which led to the overthrow of the dictator Amin. By the 1980s it had become apparent that Nyerere's socialist policies had failed to increase production. Under his successor, Mwinyi, the economy was liberalized. This led to much unemployment (up to 40 per cent in 1994) and poverty, which was compounded by the fall in world market prices for its main export commodities, coffee and cotton. In an attempt to stave off popular unrest, Mwinyi introduced a multi-party state in 1992, while the 1995 presidential elections were won by the government's candidate, Benjamin Mkapa, with 62 per cent of the votes, protests by the opposition notwithstanding. Even though Mkapa's policies led to economic stabilization and growth from the late 1990s, unemployment was not significantly reduced, and one-fifth of the population continued to live in absolute poverty. Mkapa was re-elected in 2000.