Word: babu
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...rage on Zanzibar these days is the "packing party." While one team of British civil servants busily crates furniture, clothing and household effects, another helps polish off the leftover gin and lime. Then the two teams switch roles, muttering ritual phrases such as "Bloody Babu" or "Hanga be hanged." The game has gained popularity for the best-or worst-of reasons. By order of the young nation's autocratic, 30-man Revolutionary Council, the 108 British civil servants and families who remain on Zanzibar have until April 30 to clear out; and, thanks to the Communist-run Carpenter...
Crying Colonialism. Less obvious but more ominous is the growing isolation of President Abeid Karume. A moder ate, ineffectual leftist, the former merchant seaman proved no match for the wily, anti-Western machinations of Peking-leaning Foreign Minister Abdul Rahman Mohamed, better known as "Babu," and Moscow-trained Vice President Kassim Hanga. Solidly supported by a cadre of younger Marxists, Babu and Hanga now control half of the Revolutionary Council, can usually work their will and twist any issue simply by crying "colonialism." They were able to replace Treasury Secretary Herbert Hawker, a Briton, with an East German Communist "adviser...
...Surprises. With the oddest man in the Zanzibar revolutionary triumvirate out of the way, President Karume and his Peking-leaning Foreign Minister. Abdul Rahman Mohamed ("Babu"), were free to forge ahead with reforms. Their first target: the "degrading" rickshas that plied the narrow streets of Stone Town, Zanzibar's Arab and Indian quarter. "No longer will men work as animals on Zanzibar" Karume declared, personally putting the torch to a pile of gasoline-soaked rickshas. To avoid political backfire, he promised the owners $280 each in compensation...
...Vice President Kassim Hanga, who studied at Moscow's Lumumba University for 21 years. And if Red China's Premier Chou En-lai was interested, he had only to pop over from West Africa and talk with Peking's good friend, Foreign Minister Abdul Rahman Mohamed. "Babu" would certainly listen...
...babbled on, quieter but more dangerous men were busy. Back from the mainland, where they had gone in case the coup failed, rushed the people who would lead "the people": Afro-Shirazi Party Boss Abeid Karume and Umma's Abdul Rahman Mohammed, better known as "Babu" (Swahili for father). Karume, a burly, bull-necked labor leader who leans to Moscow (and therefore may be the group's moderate), became President, while Babu, whose experience in foreign affairs includes a recent trip to Peking, was named Foreign Minister. Vice President is Kassim Hanga, a bitter Zanzibari with a Russian...