Tanzania, 1980 — dissident coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 26 June 1980, during a period of strain in Tanzania under President Julius Nyerere following the 1978 to 1979 Uganda-Tanzania War. The war, which Tanzania won and which led to the overthrow of Idi Amin, had left the country with an oversized and confident army that became increasingly difficult to control, while Tanzania faced its worst economic crisis since independence. Persistent food shortages, an IMF standby program canceled in 1980 after Tanzania failed to meet performance targets, and mounting criticism of Nyerere's centralized socialist planning and distribution methods fed discontent.
It is in this context of an over-large post-war military and economic hardship that coup plotting recurred, with the best-documented plot of the era involving both civilian and military conspirators uncovered in early 1983. The June 1980 coding sits in this early-1980s period of army discontent and economic crisis under Nyerere, whose government nonetheless maintained civilian control and averted any successful military takeover.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
51006261980
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Nyerere maintained civilian control of the military and averted any successful coup, remaining president until 1985.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
The Guardian
South China Morning Post
Washington Post
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →