Tanzania: Why We Guard Against Subversion

The airport road into Dar es Salaam is usually clogged with herds of humpbacked Boran cattle, handsome women in gaudy tradecloth, and barbers in nightgowns who playfully ply their razors in open shade beneath the flame trees. Last week that casual character changed. At the beginning of the nine-mile route, cadres of the Tanzanian People's Defense Force stood tautly at attention, carrying shiny new Chinese automatic rifles. Claques of cheering Africans waved Chinese Communist flags and chanted: "Chou Enlai, Chou En-lai!" Riding along the route in an open Rolls-Royce beside beaming President Julius Nyerere, Red China's Premier must have felt pleased. Then Africa caught up with him.

Halfway along the route, a waving welcomer in a roadside tree stuck his hand into a beehive, loosing a swarm of stingers that rapidly dispersed the crowd. Apiphobia spread—both literally and figuratively. That night, at the state banquet in Diamond Jubilee Hall, President Nyerere also indicated a reluctance to get stung. Coolly thanking Chou for the $45 million in Chinese aid pledges Tanzania has accepted (but not yet received), Nyerere declared: "We have to guard the sovereignty and integrity of our united republic against any who wish to take advantage of our current need in order to get control over us ... from no quarter shall we accept direction, and at no time shall we lower our guard against subversion. Neither our principles, our country, nor our freedom to determine our own fu ture is for sale."

It gave Chou something to ponder before buzzing off to other African capitals.