Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera says Malawi must reorient its systems with the values which former President Kamuzu Banda instilled on the nation, he said this after congregating with fellow Malawians at Civo Stadium to celebrate the legacy of Kamuzu who the nation’s father and founder is.
Writing on his Facebook Page, Chakwera said Kamuzu is remembered as an astute forward-thinking statesman, and he laid the foundations of Malawi on four cornerstones of Unity, Loyalty, Obedience and Discipline.
“His bold leadership from the anti-colonial struggle in the late 50s to the nation’s formative years in the early 60s impressed upon subsequent generations the spirit of courage, hard work, unity and nation building. Our forked tongued President forgot to also remind us how Kamuzu rule was evil and cruel. A few examples are listed below as a reminder.
1964 cabinet crisis
Barely a month after independence, Malawi suffered the Cabinet Crisis of 1964. Banda had already been accused of autocratic tendencies. Several of Banda’s ministers presented him with proposals designed to limit his powers. Banda responded by dismissing four of the ministers. Other ministers resigned in sympathy.[25] The dissidents fled the country.
New constitution and consolidation of power
In 1967, Banda visited Taiwan.
Malawi adopted a new constitution on 6 July 1966, in which the country was declared a republic. Banda was elected the country’s first president for a five-year term; he was the only candidate. The new document granted Banda wide executive and legislative powers, and also formally made the MCP the only legal party. However, the country had already been a de facto one-party state since independence. The new constitution effectively turned Banda’s presidency into a legal dictatorship.
In 1970, a congress of the MCP declared Banda its president for life. In 1971, the legislature declared Banda President for Life of Malawi as well.
Banda was mostly viewed externally as a benign, albeit eccentric, leader, an image fostered by his English-style three-piece suits, matching handkerchiefs, walking stick and flywhisk. In June 1967, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Massachusetts with the encomium ” … pediatrician to his infant nation”. Banda himself bluntly summed up his approach to ruling the country by saying, “Everything is my business. Everything. Anything I say is law…law.” Within Malawi, views on him ranged from cult-like devotion to fear.
The Mwanza Four incident
In 1983, three ministers – Dick Matenje, Twaibu Sangala, Aaron Gadama – and Member of Parliament David Chiwanga died in what was labelled officially as a “traffic accident”. Banda had invited an “internal debate on pending multiparty democracy” in Malawi. During a cabinet meeting, the three ministers had voiced support for the multiparty idea, effectively challenging Banda’s claim to life presidency. Angered, Banda promptly “dissolved cabinet” and announced that parliament would meet immediately. At the end of that sitting of parliament, everyone in the chambers was effectively stripped of their political status. The three men were then rounded up at the Zomba Parliament buildings for questioning. Chiwanga happened on them being tortured in a back room and had to be silenced too. The four were later bundled into Matenje’s Peugeot 604 and driven to Thambani in Mwanza District, west of Blantyre, where the accident was staged: sources reported that their car had “overturned while the men had been attempting to escape into neighboring Mozambique”.[citation needed] Later, it was found out they had been killed by having tent pins hammered into their heads.[29] Banda ordered a night burial and mandated that the caskets not be opened for a last viewing.
Foreign policy
Anti-communism
During Banda’s presidency, Malawi initially refused to establish diplomatic relations with any of the communist governments of Eastern Europe or Asia (however, relations were later established with North Korea in 1982 and with Romania and Albania in 1985).
Banda was one of the few African leaders to support the United States in the Vietnam War, a position he adopted in part due to his hatred of communism.
Relations with African countries
Hastings Banda with Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya
While many southern African nations traded with apartheid-era South Africa out of economic necessity, Malawi was the only African nation that recognized South Africa and established diplomatic relations with it, including a trade treaty which angered other African leaders.[34] They threatened to expel Malawi from the Organization of African Unity until Banda left power.[34] Banda responded by accusing other African countries of hypocrisy, saying in a public speech to his parliament: “There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats” (Julius Caesar).[34] He told them to concentrate on convincing the South African government that apartheid was unnecessary. Furthermore, he added that “[African leaders] practice disunity, not unity, while posing as the liberators of Africa. While they play in the orchestra of Pan Africanism, their own Homes are burning”.[34]
Relations with South Africa
Banda was the only African ruler to establish diplomatic ties with South Africa during apartheid as well as the Portuguese regime in Mozambique. After the cabinet crisis in 1964, Banda became increasingly isolated in African politics.[25] On the other hand, his antipathy for Roy Welensky and what he denounced as the “stupid federation”[35] was a smokescreen he used to reject the proposed Bangula Hydro-electric dam – proposed to be bigger than the Gezira Dam in Khartoum – that Welensky’s Federation had sought and obtained funding for from the British government. Banda went on to blame everything including snails (likely to cause widespread Bilharzia) to abort the project. In turn, the British denied Banda the funding and budgetary support he needed to build his pet dream of a new capital city at Lilongwe, in his home region. Hence, he turned to South Africa – itself playing geo-political games in the region – which gave him a soft loan of 300 million Rand. The quid pro quo was that Banda had to support South Africa’s apartheid policies among fellow African leaders. Hence, on one occasion he paid a state visit to South Africa where he met his South African counterparts at Stellenbosch. Banda once noted that, “It is only contact like this [between South Africa and Malawi] that can reveal to your people that there are civilized people other than white…”[36] Banda’s staunch anticommunism also influenced his decision to seek warm relations with South Africa.[37]
After the apartheid era ended and the ANC came to dominate South African politics during the 1990s, relations between Malawi and South Africa threatened to take a downward turn, but a Malawian task force spearheaded by Malawian diplomatic envoys to South Africa including SP Kachipande, and representatives in Malawi, including former diplomat, Mr. Phiri, arranged for a meeting between the two governments which resulted in Nelson Mandela’s first official visit to Malawi as president of the ANC in the early 1990s. He met with John Tembo and the president. The relations between the two governments continued to be cordial after it was revealed that Banda was secretly helping the ANC during the apartheid era. The Malawi government and South African government continued diplomatic relations.
Involvement in Mozambique
Banda’s involvement in Mozambique dated back to Portuguese colonial days in Mozambique when Banda supported the Portuguese colonial government and guerrilla forces that worked for it.[38] Following independence in Malawi, Banda strengthened his relationship with the Portuguese colonial government by appointing Jorge Jardim as Malawi’s Honorary Consul in Mozambique in September 1964.[38] He also worked against Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO) forces in Malawi in continued support of the Portuguese colonial forces.[38] The Organization of African Unity had designated Malawi as one of the Frontline States to help independence movements in Mozambique.[38]
Banda meeting with Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda. Zambia provided logistical support for the black nationalist movements in Ian Smith’s Rhodesia, South West Africa, Angola, and Mozambique.
By the 1980s, Banda supported both the government and the guerrilla movement during the Mozambique civil war.[38] He successfully gave the Malawi Army and Malawi Young Pioneers opposing missions in Mozambique from 1987 to 1992.[38][39] He had the Malawi Army support the Mozambican government, controlled by FRELIMO after the country’s independence in 1975, to defend Malawi’s interests in Mozambique. This was done formally through an agreement in 1984 with Samora Machel.[38] Simultaneously, Banda used the MYP as couriers and active supporters of the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), which had been fighting against Machel’s government since the late 1970s.[38] Malawi was used to channel foreign aid from South Africa’s apartheid government. Machel issued a dossier to Frontline States with evidence that Banda was still supporting the insurgents in spite of the 1984 agreement to stop.[38] By September 1986, Machel, Robert Mugabe, and Kenneth Kaunda visited Banda to persuade him to stop supporting RENAMO.[38] Machel’s successor, Joaquim Chissano, continued to complain of Malawi’s lack of willingness to stop supporting RENAMO.[38] Banda however was trying to keep Malawian interests in the Port of Nacala in Mozambique and did not want to rely on Tanzania and South Africa ports for its imports and exports due to the expense.[38] Mozambique and Malawi came to an agreement to place troops from both countries in Nayuchi near the port.[38] Incidents of Malawi Army members being killed over the course of four years angered the Army because MYP members were involved with the insurgents, essentially pitting the two against each other.[38]
Political demise
The end of the Cold War sounded the death knell for Banda’s naked autocracy. Western leaders and international aid donors no longer had any use for authoritarian anti-Communist regimes in the Third World, all of which came under mounting pressure to democratize. Donors told Banda that he had to implement reforms aimed at making his government transparent and accountable to the people and the international community as a condition for further aid. The British government also stopped their financial support. In March 1992, Catholic bishops in Malawi issued a Lenten pastoral letter that criticized Banda and his government. Students at the University of Malawi at Chancellor College and the Polytechnic joined protests and demonstrations to support the bishops, forcing authorities to close the campuses.
In April 1992, Chakufwa Chihana, a labour unionist, openly called for a national referendum on the political future of Malawi.[38] He was arrested before he finished his speech at Lilongwe International Airport.[38] By October 1992, this mounting pressure from within and from the international community forced Banda to concede to hold a referendum on whether to maintain the one-party state. The referendum was held on 14 June 1993,[40] resulting in an overwhelming vote (64 percent) in favour of multiparty democracy.[38][41] After this, political parties besides the MCP were formed and preparation for the general elections began. Banda worked with the newly forming parties and the church and made no protest when a special assembly stripped him of his title of President for Life, along with most of his powers.[38] The transition from one of the most repressive regimes in Africa to democracy was fairly peaceful.
Opening ceremony for the Banda Mausoleum, 14 May 2006 – Lilongwe, Malawi
Operation Bwezani was a Malawi Army operation to disarm the Malawi Young Pioneers at the height of the political transition in December 1993. Bwezani means “give back.” The MYP had a strong network of spies and supporters countrywide at all levels in society. They were Banda’s personal security bodyguards and were all trained and indoctrinated in Kamuzuism and military training. The Malawi Army did not infiltrate this group before receiving encouragement by protests by the people.
After some questions about his health, Banda ran in Malawi’s first truly democratic presidential election in 1994. He was roundly defeated by Bakili Muluzi,[25] a Yao from the southern region of the country. Banda quickly conceded defeat. ″I wish to congratulate him wholeheartedly and offer him [Muluzi] my full support and cooperation,″ he said on state radio, marking an end to Malawi’s 30 years of one-party rule.
Summary of Cruelty
Many regarded him as the father of their nation, the former British Nyasaland, a Pennsylvania-sized splinter of land between Zambia and Mozambique. But after a revolt within his cabinet, he declared himself President for Life in 1971 and said his opponents would become ”food for crocodiles.”
Hundreds were killed, tortured or forced into exile — and yet Malawi, which describes itself in tourist brochures as ”the warm heart of Africa,” managed to keep its reputation among Africans as a pocket of gentle-spirited people.
Dr. Banda was perhaps the most idiosyncratic of the ”big men” who led their countries out of colonialism. He held degrees from American and Scottish universities and his London medical offices became a sort of anticolonialist salon frequented by Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Kwame Nkrumah of the Gold Coast (now Ghana).
But once in power, Dr. Banda simultaneously affected the lion-tail fly whisk of an African king, the dark suits and homburgs of a British businessman and the arms of a Scottish baron. He refused to make speeches in African languages and established a school modeled on Eton in his birthplace, Mtunthama, where penniless students were taught Latin, Greek and African history from the British point of view. He hired only white foreigners to teach at the school and to run the ministries and businesses that built his personal fortune.
Under his rule, Malawi spurned black nationalist movements and was the only African nation with diplomatic ties to apartheid South Africa and to Israel. He was the darling of cold warriors and big business, and amassed power in his own hands, keeping the Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture and Public works to himself, as well as the trusteeship of the state monopolies in tobacco farming, factories, oil and banking.
He was also the rector of the state university and the dominant figure in the local Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
He never married and said he had no children, but lived with Miss Kadzamira, his ”official hostess,” for 30 years. Victorian in his demands on public morality, he banned women from wearing pants or miniskirts. Long-haired male tourists arriving in Malawi either submitted to shearing by the airport barber or went home.
He also banned television, though he watched it himself by satellite, and prevented the Simon and Garfunkel song ”Cecelia” from being played on local radio, considering it an affront to his consort. He referred to Malawi’s 10 million citizens as ”my children” and was said to be deeply embittered when they turned him out in 1994.
There was always a Potemkin-village quality about his reign. Dr. Banda proudly claimed that Malawi was self-sufficient in food, but an annual ritual — his visit to a field bursting with grain — was carefully stage-managed in special fields seeded with hybrid plants artificially watered and fertilized. In fact, malnutrition was widespread by the late 1980’s, with one child in five dying died before the age of 5.
Such extraordinarily suffering was a result partly of poor harvests, and partly of Government demands that peasants grow tobacco and other crops for export. One year, protesting farmers chopped down the model field he was to visit. Dr. Banda simply went to another.
His sleek capital, Lilongwe, was built with South African money and South Africa underwrote and trained the red-shirted Young Pioneers, a paramilitary youth group that spied on citizens and terrorized dissidents. And in one of the world’s smallest and poorest nations, where the per-capita income was $200 a year, Dr. Banda kept five residences, a fleet of British luxury cars and a private jet.
The party Banda led since taking over from Orton Chirwa in 1960, the Malawi Congress Party, is now in power again after leading a judicial coup to oust the DPP and Peter Mutharika from power.
Source: Wikipedia
