African Cuba?

All the 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's Union, household servants are forbidden to help their employers pack.

In the three months since its sudden, savage coup against the ruling Arab minority, once-torpid Zanzibar has become an island of fear. Bands of tough government cops, armed with Russian-supplied burp guns, prowl the land in search of "enemies of the state." Hundreds of Arabs have been marched off their property by African land-grabbers; more than 2,000 prisoners are crammed into hastily built detention camps.

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." When the remaining Britons leave this month, other East Germans, as well as Russian and Red Chinese officials, will move into their jobs.

At the same time, the council has been laying the foundation for a Communist dictatorship. It has decreed the death penalty for "counterrevolutionary" activity, enforces its verdicts with prison terms up to 107 years (to be followed by deportation), and vicious corporal punishment.

Concord Squadron. Though Zanzibar is still a member of the British Commonwealth, the council has turned unabashedly to the Communists for economic aid. Babu has lined up a $500,000 cash handout from Red China, with promises of Chinese credits to come. In exchange for 500 tons of cloves (world market price: around $800 a ton), the Soviet freighter Faisabad recently delivered 50 trucks to Zanzibar. After dark, the Faisabad unloaded a more dangerous Soviet cargo: small arms and artillery, complete with a band of "technicians," to train Zanzibar's new Youth Army in their use.

Zanzibar's slide into the Communist camp has been watched with dismay but little action from Washington and London. Though the British publicly pooh-pooh the suggestion that tiny Zanzibar (pop. 315,000) is becoming an African Cuba, they alerted mainland East African governments to the danger of subversion. When the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, William Attwood, chimed in with a similar warning that Zanzibar should be "a source of concern to Africans," the Revolutionary Council took umbrage. Last week it peremptorily demanded the removal of a $3,000,000 U.S. space-tracking station, one of 16 strung around the world to communicate with orbiting U.S. astronauts. Washington fatalistically agreed to dismantle the station, then stood by quietly as 5,000 Zanzibaris--egged on by Russian sailors--coursed through the capital carrying signs that read, "Go Home Yank." But at the same time, a U.S. Navy task force, known as the "Concord Squadron" and headed by the attack carrier Bon Homme Richard, steamed into the Indian Ocean--merely on a good-will mission, the Pentagon pointed out. Still, all that heavy-caliber good will might have a sobering effect on the region.

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