DAR ES SALAAM, Tanganyika, Jan. 21—In a broadcast to a still tense nation, President Julius K. Nyerere tonight condemned the mutiny by the Tanganyikan Army as a “disgrace.” The President, whose whereabouts during yesterday's mutiny was a mystery, called on everyone to remain cairn.
His statement came at the end of a day in which the army's rebellion against its white officers spread inland and panic seized this capital on the coast of the Indian Ocean.
“My hope is that we shall never see such a disgrace repeated in Tanganyika,” the President said. His voice was noticeably strained.
Until tonight the President had not been heard from since hundreds of African troops seized Dar es Salaam in a day of violence, looting and killings. The death toll was put at 17 and the total of injured at 100.
The troops were incensed over the amount of their pay and the fact that British officers still commanded them two years after Tanganyika achieved independence from Britain.
Mr. Nyerere repeatedly sought to combat the idea that the mutiny was the beginning of an attempt to overthrow the Government.
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“Some people went around spreading rumors and claimed that I was no longer here, that my ministers were no longer here and that there was no Government,” he said. “Such rumors make a little trouble seem to be much bigger than it really is.”
The President appeared to be reading from a prepared text.
The capital had awaited Mr. Nyerere's statement for hours after learning that he was safe. But he spoke for only three minutes and his words left uncertainty on whether the mutiny had altered the strength of the presidency.
Mr. Nyerere referred to the mutiny as “some trouble,” called the killing a “sad story” and expressed his condolences for the dead.
It was what he did not say that caused apprehension.
He did not explain why he had remained silent for two days while jeering mobs had terrorized the city's Indian and Arab quarters, plundering shops, smashing windows and wrecking cars.
Nor was anything said about the fact that rioting soldiers had repeatedly usurped his au‐ thority as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.
The Constitution stipulates that only the President can commission officers and appoint them to commands. It also stipulates that only the President can terminate military appointments and dismiss members of the Armed Forces.
Both battalions of Tanganyika Rifles dismissed all their white officers on their own authority.
The army, known as the Tanganyika Rifles, has 1,600 men split into two battalions.
The latest insurrection broke out this morning at Dodoma, 450 miles inland, when 800 men of the Second Battalion seized their 10 British officers, five commissioned and five noncommissioned, and ordered them to leave the country. It is expected that they will be flown to neighboring Kenya with their 20 dependents.
Yesterday 800 men of the First Battalion forced their 17 British officers and 7 British noncommissioned officers out of the country. Africans were appointed in their places.
At one point in the mutiny, soldiers were said to have attacked an Arab shop in the capital with mortars, handgrenades and machine guns, killing eight persons, including a 6‐year‐old girl.