Zanzibar inaugurates own flag of identity

Zanzibar on Sunday hoisted its own flag for the first time in the post-union era as part of the celebration for the island's revolution against colonial rulers.

Zanzibar President Amani Abeid Karume inaugurated the flag at the Amani Stadium on the Indian Ocean island. Tanzanian Vice President Ali Mohd Shein attended the flag raising ceremony.

The Zanzibar House of Representatives in October 2004 unanimously approved a bill for the introduction of the Zanzibar flag which bears three horizontal stripes of colors of dark blue, black and green with an insert of the flag of the United Republic of Tanzania to its top left-hand corner.

The three colors on the Zanzibar flag resemble the national colors of Tanzania.

The Zanzibar flag, however, is only to be hoisted at international forums as well as upon premises of government offices under the jurisdiction of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar such as ministries, parliament and local government entities.

Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika in April 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania, but the Indian Ocean archipelago enjoys much autonomy in the form of independent administrative and legislative bodies.

Some people opposed the idea of a Zanzibar flag, arguing that the flag would serve as an expression of Zanzibar's intention to break away from the union whereas the Civic United Front, Tanzania's major opposition party that takes its power on Zanzibar, opposed the inclusion of the insert of the union flag to the Zanzibar flag.

The invention of a Zanzibar flag was called for when multiparty politics was ushered in to Tanzania and the opposition parties urged for the invention arguing that the flag would accord the island with a distinct identity.

Source: Xinhua