BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-For many Malawians born in the year 2000, the Malawi Young Pioneers (MYP) sound like a farming youth group.
And in truth, the MYP was established as a training institution for youths that did not get selected to secondary school and later not selected to college.
Thousands went through its agriculture and skills programs across the country.
But within that nationwide institution, a small section was grown into a paramilitary wing that operated with guns, uniforms, and party power behind it.
According to survivors, it was this wing that turned fear into policy of the MCP government. Villages lived in fear of reports, arrests, and night visits.
The MYP paramilitary wing was even said to underrate the Malawi Defence Force at the time.
The most painful stories come from what allegedly happened at two of its bases where dams infested with crocodiles were located close to Stella Maris Secondary School.
Survivors say anyone suspected of disloyalty was taken there. On 11 September 1989, witnesses say 25 people were thrown into one of the dams.
Unlike other executions where victims wore black hoods, these people were left with eyes open to watch their fate.
Before being pushed in, survivors allege the victims were first smeared with chitedze, wild buffalo beans that cause severe itching.
That cruelty became an MYP song: “Wapalamula chitedze iwe, chidzakuyabwa… wapalamula iweee, wapalamula chitedze iwe chidzakuyabwa.”
Mr. Kaima Nangaipe of Bwanali Village, T/A Chikumbu, says he was there that day. In his account, he says he witnessed something that broke him.
According to Nangaipe, some of the people were first nailed in the head with hammers.
Nails were driven into their skulls to inflict pain before they were thrown to the crocodiles. He says seeing that made him decide to run or die trying.
Nangaipe, who says he was a driver, claims the “offenses” were small. Some had failed to buy a Kamuzu cloth for their wives. Others failed to give gifts when the President inspected maize fields. One was accused of saying “Kamuzu is grown up.”
He says he jumped into an MYP vehicle, drove out through the main gate at high speed, dumped it near Bangwe, and fled to Mulanje before crossing into Mozambique. He survived to tell the story.
The MYP did not just punish. It created silence. A neighbor could report a neighbor.
A joke could cost a life. Young recruits with little schooling were given power over entire communities, and the dams with crocodiles were the final threat.
By the early 1990s Malawians demanded change.
The Malawi Defence Force moved in through Operation Bwezani in 1993 to disarm the MYP paramilitary wing.
~~Many say without the MDF, the country would have faced civil war. ~~
After the operation, the paramilitary wing was disbanded and power returned to constitutional institutions.
Today marks the anniversary of that 11 September 1989 incident. Three years later, the MYP paramilitary wing was gone.
So why should Gen Z care? Because the freedom to speak, to dress how you want, to disagree without fear, was not free.
Because if we forget how a party youth wing became an army with crocodile dams, we risk letting it happen again under a new name.
History is not to spread hate. It is to remember. The nails, the chitedze, the crocodiles, the young man who ran for his life, and the soldiers who risked theirs in Operation Bwezani. All of it is part of where Malawi is coming from.
Let schools teach it. Let young people read it. That is how we honor the victims and protect the future.
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