Good Show for the Blimps

WITH an emphatic beat on a giant ceremonial drum, Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere launched a nationwide celebration marking his East African country's tenth anniversary of independence from Britain. On hand for the twelve days of merrymaking were the Presidents of four neighboring states. So were some 80 former colonial civil servants whom Nyerere brought from London aboard a chartered VC10--in keeping with a promise he had made in 1961 --to see what the country had accomplished in its first decade of iihurii (freedom). Amused locals promptly nicknamed the East African Airways jetliner the "Blimps' Special."

Nyerere had a lot to show his guests, including a brand new international airport at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania. He also took some of his visitors on a 20-minute train ride to mark the inauguration of a completed 312-mile section of the 1,150-mile TanZam railway, which Tanzania and neighboring Zambia are building with the help of a $406 million interest-free loan from China. Only one thing marred the festivities: a raid on Dar es Salaam by two mysterious planes that showered the capital with antigovernment leaflets. The airdrop was thought to have been organized by supporters of a renegade politician, Oscar Kambona, who has lived in exile in London since 1967.

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