AHMED BADAWI QULLATEIN - A TRIBUTE

Comrade Ahmed Badawi Qullatein one of the founding members of the Marxist Umma Party of Zanzibar and a close colleague of late Abdulrahman Babu has passed away while on pilgrimage in Mecca.

Badawi born around 1930 started his radical political career in the mid 1950s as a trade union activist in the Zanzibar and Pemba Federation of Labour (ZPFL). Even before articulating trade unionism i.e from 1950 to 1954 he was an active member of the Zanzibar Club which was started by Zanzibar graduates of Makerere and UK universities.

Most of the members of the Zanzibar Club had joined The Communist Party of Great Britain while being students in the UK in the late forties and early fifties.They include the late Dr Ahmed Rashid who knew Mwalimu Nyerere at Edinburg, late Dr Idarus Baalawy and others.

Even non-intellectual Zanzibaries who landed in the UK as seamen also joined the British Communist movement in those days.The notable thing is that literally every single one of them was received in Zanzibar when they returned by Ahmed Badawy.He made sure he was at the baggage room of the docks or airport to embrace them.

Badawi left ZPFL after serious rifts emerged within its leadership in 1960 and started the Allied Maritime and Dock Workers Union which together with other newly launched unions that had also broken away from the ZPFL formed The Federation of Progressive Trade Unions(FPTU).The federation started publishing newsletters, bulletins and two weekly newspapers-Kibarua and its English sister publication Worker.

Badawi was appointed their editor and the two papers became the ferment of working class struggles and consciousness in the isles.Meanwhile another ex-British Communist Party member Khamis Abdulla Amer became the Secretary General of the FPTU.(Khamis was appointed member of the Revolutionry Council after the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964) 

It may be recalled that FPTU leadership forged close links with revolutionary Cuba as early as 1961 such that Zanzibaries were already in Cuba during the CIA inspired Playa Giron invasion in April of that year.They offered to enlist to defend the Cuban Revolutin.Fidel,Che and Raul appreciated the Zanzibari's move and solidarity which set the stage for the FPTU to send a bigger group of Zanzibaries for full military and cadre training in the subsequent year of 1962 History seemed to repeat itself when the US threatened to invade Cuba during the October Crisis of 1962 and the Zanzibaries were there again offering to confront US aggression thousands of kilometers away from their home in Zanzibar. 

That is the reason why Che came to the isles in 1965 on his way to the then Congo and he met the ex-FPTU and Umma Party militants during his one week stay at Migombani lodge in Zanzibar.It was a moving moment indeed! One Cuban trained 1962 veteran Comrade Ali Bafaqih narrated to me that historic all night meeting with Che puffing his big cigar while engaged in lively discussion on the prospects of the African liberation struggle with the "Comrades"present who included Babu, Badawy,Foum, Ali Mahfoudh and others. Che was then already a staunch Pan-Africanist.

Upon their return fom Cuba FPTU leadership activists managed to smuggle a few pistols into the isles.Badawi possesed one Makarov and so did Ali Sultan who had a Browning.Rumours spread and authorities became jittery whereby the Umma Party was proscribed in December of 1963 while plans were in full gear to arrest and prosecute Abdulrahman Babu for subversion and treason.It is now known that some extremist rightwing members of the Ancien regime advocated the killing of the leader of the Umma Party.

It was Badawi among the echolons of Umma group who prevailed on the intrasigent Babu to immediately leave the isles and seek refuge in Daresalam.Badawi then liaised with late Saleh Sadalla and Twala who assisted to provide an outrigger canoe which was used by Babu to secretly flee across the channel to Dar.

Badawi escorted Babu to Fumba fishing village in southwest Zanzibar from where he departed accompanied on the canoe by Ali Mahfoudh to whom Badawi gave a pistol to protect Babu on the way just in case.(Narrations that Babu left from Kizingo beach in Zbar town attributed to the recently published book by Ghassani are not correct.Indeed the man who drove Babu with Badawi is still living in Daresalam)

Badawi was the first leader of the Umma Party to be approached by some members of what was to be known subsequently as the Commitee of 14 who organised the 1964 Revolution and was duly informed of the impending uprising whereupon he informed Babu and the entire Umma leadership to get prepared for the eventuality.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Umma group was informed even before late mzee Abeid Karume and other political leaders of the ASP got the information with the exception of late mzee Saleh Sadalla, Kassim Hanga and Abdulaziz Twala who were privy to the preparations of the Revolution.

Badawi was also the first person to draft the telegrams that were sent to global leaders seeking their recognition of the Zanzibar Revolutionary Government.He also instructed Umma militants to guard their neighbourhoods and families from roaming criminal bands of lumpens who saw the revolution as a racial anti-Arab orgy.

Actually the intervention of Umma militants who were themselves multiracial minimised and diminished the scale of bloodletting visited upon both the Arab minority and the black followers of the overthrown regime.

Badawi was appointed the first Director of Information and Broadcasting after the Revolution and subsequently promoted to the post of Junior Minister of Works Ministry until arrested in 1972 following the assasination of mzee Abeid Karume.

He was subjected to severe physical abuse and egregeous torture as well as sentenced to death.However he was set free in 1978 together with Babu and other comrades. May his soul rest in peace!

Benn Haidari

Klintvägen 16 C 36

22100 Mariehamn

Åland

Suomi-Finland

Author of Modern Zanzibar Cuisine

Tel/Home: +358.18.13665

Mobile: +358.457.3424826