Part 4 (1/2)

At independence in 1964, the 1st Battalion of the KAR became the first battalion of the Malawi Rifles. The headquarters remained at Cobbe Barracks in Zomba, named after Lt. Col. Alexander Cobbe VC, the commander who had led the CAR into Ashanti country. However, in 1967, a third battalion was formed, and its home would be the newly constructed Moyale Barracks in Mzuzu. It was christened Moyale in memory of the site on the KenyaEthiopian border where a contingent of the Nyasaland KAR excelled by outmaneuvering their Italian enemy. In the early 1970s, the headquarters of the Malawi army moved to the new Kamuzu Barracks in Lilongwe, which also became the home of the 2nd Battalion; Cobbe Barracks continued to be the base of the 1st Battalion.

In the colonial period, an indigenous person could not expect to become a commissioned officer. This changed after the 1961 elections when Malawians began to be sent for training abroad, mostly in Great Britain. Later, some were trained in Kenya. In 1978, a new military inst.i.tution, the Kamuzu Military College, opened in Salima, primarily to train soldiers of all ranks. Officers continued to be sent to military schools in countries such as Britain, the United States, and France for advanced and more technical training. Less than 10 percent of the national budget is spent on the military, and an estimated 561,000 men (age 15 to 49) are considered fit for military service. Currently Malawi has three well-commanded, disciplined, and well-equipped battalions. Helicopters and transport aircraft have been added to the armed forces. There are also patrol boats on Lake Malawi, and a small army air wing based at the Zomba airport.

Until the early 1970s, the British, as part of technical a.s.sistance, provided the leaders.h.i.+p of the Malawian army in the person of the commander. They also attached commissioned and noncommissioned officers to the Malawian army to help with basic training. However, in 1972, Brigadier Graciano Matewere was promoted to the rank of major general and became the first Malawian to command the Malawi army. Eight years later, he was replaced by General Melvin Khanga, a Sandhurst-trained officer, considered to be a very competent soldier and administrator. Since his retirement in 1992, the army has had a number of commanders including generals Isaac Yohane, Manken Chigawa, Kelvin Simwaka, Joseph Chimbayo, and Marko Chiziko. Chigawa was murdered by bandits in the Dedza area on the ZombaLilongwe road.

On the whole, the defense forces have kept out of politics, although during Operation Bwezani of November 1993, they seemed to indicate that they would be playing a more active role in the political destiny of the country. The army has also been involved in minor incidents including one on 15 January 1998, when some soldiers ransacked the offices of the Daily Times in Blantyre because of a story they did not like. The newspaper took the case to court, but it was settled out of court when the army commander apologized, saying that the action of the soldiers had not been sanctioned by the command.

In late 1999, the military started, for the first time in its history, to recruit women into its ranks and, prior to this, it organized a workshop to sensitize officers on gender matters.

The Malawi military has increasingly became involved in mediating roles in international disputes. In 1987, they joined frontline forces in trying to contain the actions of the guerrilla movement Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana (RENAMO) in Mozambique. The Malawi army was a.s.signed the responsibility of guarding the NacalaMalawi rail line in northern Mozambique. Companies of the army patrolled that region for three years. In more recent times, the army has been part of the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda and in eastern Europe. Malawi has confirmed its commitment to this aspect of international relations by offering its armed personnel to be part of a trained force that can be called on to perform such duties anywhere in Africa. Malawi soldiers are involved in the Africa Crisis Response Initiative, a U.S.-sponsored program aimed at training African soldiers for peacekeeping, humanitarian, and similar emergencies. In the later part of 1999, 72 Malawi soldiers were part of the Organization of African Unity's Military Observer Force to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it continued to contribute its military personnel well into the 2000s. Early in 2000, the air wing of the Malawi army played a leading role in the rescue operations following the flood disaster that befell Mozambique. Similarly, from 2005 to 2007, a contingent of the Malawi defense forces formed part of the African Union mission to Darfur, Sudan.

ASIANS. Most Asians in Malawi trace their origins to the Gujarat region of western India and Pakistan. Initially, they went to the Lake Malawi area in the service of the British colonial government, mainly as subsurgeons, noncommissioned military officers, and as operators in the new railway system. Some of them returned home at the end of their contracts, whereas other remained to become independent businessmen. They were later joined by relatives and friends, and soon the rural and urban retail trade was dominated by people from the Indian subcontinent. Today they are professionals, small traders, craftsmen and commercial middlemen.

In 1970, the government ordered Asians to sell their stores in rural areas to Africans; the order restricted Asian traders to towns. Although the 1970 order did not limit the freedom of Asian residents and citizens to travel within the country, they had to reside and work in one of the four urban areas: Lilongwe, Zomba, Mzuzu, and Blantyre. Within some of these urban centers, strict rules governing where Asians could own property resulted in limitations on where they could reside. Asian residents, whether Malawian citizens or not, were also compelled to transfer owners.h.i.+p of trucking businesses to Malawians of African origins. Asians remained free to expand into other areas of business, and industrial licenses for new Asian industries were routinely granted.

However, many Asians chose to leave the country, mostly to Great Britain. Those who remained began to feel more pressure with the 1986 pa.s.sing of the Immigration Act, which called for a decision in two years from foreign residents: to emigrate from Malawi, to register as citizens of Malawi, a country that does not allow dual citizens.h.i.+p; or to apply for a permanent resident permit. It is estimated that by the early 1990s fewer than 13,000 Asians were still living in Malawi. After the 1994 elections, the situation changed in that the new government reversed the 1970 order; Asians could now return to the rural areas to live and engage in business.

A notable number of Asians had actively supported the move to multiparty politics, and some of them, such as Krishna Achutan, became significant players in the United Democratic Front.

Asians have contributed much to Malawi culture, including to its vocabulary, which has come to be a.s.sumed to be indigenous to the Lake Malawi region. Since, initially, the colonial army was manned by Indians, certain Indians words came to be popularized and were eventually adopted by Malawian languages. Among such words are basi (enough), chai (tea), debe (tin), galimoto (motorcar), rupiya (s.h.i.+lling), and tchuti (holiday); their Hindustan derivatives, respectively, are bas, chae, dubbi, gharri, rupee, and chuti. See also NYASALAND INDIAN a.s.sOCIATION; NYASALAND INDIAN TRADERS a.s.sOCIATION; TRANSPORTATION.

ASKARI. Of Swahili origin, in Malawi the term refers to soldiers. Its usage can be traced to Sir Harry Johnston's establishment of the first modern military force. See also ARMY.

a.s.sOLARI, ALESSANDRO, BISHOP (19282005). This Catholic bishop of the Mangochi diocese was born in Italy, ordained in 1954 in the order of the Missionaries of the Company of Mary, and was a priest in Madagascar for six years before going to Malawi in 1961. Eight years later, he was appointed the first vicar apostolic prefect of Mangochi, the area mainly identified with Islam, and in December 1973, he became bishop of the new diocese of Mangochi. a.s.solari was a signatory of the Pastoral Letter of March 1992, which hastened political reform in Malawi. In November 2004, he retired, and he died on 13 April 2005.

ATONGA TRIBAL COUNCIL. Formed in 1932 by the district commissioner of Nkhata Bay, and originally with a members.h.i.+p of 32, this council consisted of all chiefs in the district and, in effect, collectively a.s.sumed the role of an unofficial paramount chief. The government took this unusual step ostensibly because it was a means of solving problems arising out disagreements between chiefs as to who among them was senior. Initially, the council's chairman, elected by the chiefs, held office for a year but, later, the period was shortened by half, apparently to avoid the emergence of particularly powerful individuals. Among matters discussed at council meetings were collection of taxes, administration of justice, immigrant labor, and improvement of education and health. The government was not eager for the Western-educated Tonga to join the council for fear of upsetting the status quo, and when, in 1934, the chiefs voted to include people other than chiefs, the district commissioner vetoed the decision. This was to change as, later, some commoners were co-opted into the council. In February 1948, the government abrogated the council.

AUNEAU, BISHOP LOUIS, SMM (18761959). The second Catholic bishop of the s.h.i.+re diocese, Louis Auneau was born in France on 11 February 1876, was ordained a priest in the Montfort order in 1900, and, seven years later, was posted to the s.h.i.+re area of Malawi. He served at Nzama and Utale and in May 1910 succeeded Auguste Prezeau as bishop of s.h.i.+re. Louis Auneau is much a.s.sociated with the expansion of the Catholic Church in the southern region of Malawi and in parts of Mozambique: many primary schools were opened during his tenure as bishop; Zomba Secondary School and seminaries at Nankhunda and Likulezi were established under his general guidance. He also started the Utale Leprosarium and created two local religious orders of the Catholic Church, the Society of African Lay Brothers and the Diocesan Society of African Sisters. When Auneau retired in December 1949, the pope made him an a.s.sistant at the papal throne and bestowed on him the t.i.tle of Roman count. Bishop Auneau also received other honors. The French government granted him the Order of the Legion of Honor, and the British conferred on him the Order of the British Empire. He died on 5 November 1959.

B.

BAKKER, JACOB. Missionary sent by the Sabbath Evangelizing and Industrial a.s.sociation in the United States to a.s.sist Joseph Booth in his Seventh-Day Baptist work in the Lake Nyasa area, Jacob Bakker, then 26 years old, arrived in the s.h.i.+re Highlands in the early part of 1901. A printer by training, Bakker did not fit in with Booth's plans, which required an educationist and an accountant, and, before long, there was tension between the two men. Shortage of finances, health problems of Booth and his wife, and Bakker's unpreparedness for his work at the mission contributed to the tension. In July that year, the Booths departed for South Africa and the United States, leaving Bakker in charge of all the operations in the country. Bakker showed less enthusiasm for some of Booth's projects such as the African Cooperative Society, and was to close other projects, including several schools. Politically more conservative than his predecessor, Bakker did not receive the same support and loyalty from African a.s.sistants as they had given to Booth. While Booth was in the United States later that year, arrangements were made to sell the Plainfield Industrial Mission to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, to which Booth had now become affiliated. Bakker returned to the United States in late 1902.

BALAKA. Located on the ZombaLilongwe road and on the Blantyre-Salima rail line, Balaka is a rising commercial center in Malawi. Until 1998, Balaka was a subadministrative boma within Machinga district; it has now become the substantive headquarters of the new Balaka district.

BANDA, ALEKE KADONOMPHANI (19392010). One of the most prominent politicians in the period leading to independence and in postcolonial Malawi, Aleke Banda was born on 19 September 1939 at Kwekwe, Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia), where his father, a Tongan from Nkhata Bay district in Nyasaland, worked at Moss Mines. Banda went to Inyati School of the London Missionary Society in Bulawayo, and there distinguished himself as a first-cla.s.s student, a prefect, and editor of the school magazine. He became a prominent leader in the Southern Rhodesia African Students a.s.sociation (banned in 1959) and, at 15, was elected secretary of the Kwe Kwe branch of the Nyasaland African Congress. Using his good writing skills, he published nationalist articles opposing the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and colonialism in general. When the State of Emergency was declared in Southern Rhodesia in March 1959, Banda was arrested at his school premises, detained at the Khami prison, where some Nyasaland-based politicians had earlier been taken, and, within a short time, was deported to Nyasaland. There he worked for the London and Blantyre Supply Company while continuing with his anticolonial activities. He began to edit a labor union paper, Mtendere pa Nchito, and, when Orton Chirwa founded the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) on 31 September 1959, Banda became its full-time secretary general. He also became, with Thandika Mkandawire, founding editor of the party newspaper, the Malawi News, which he continued to edit until 1966.

A tireless and enthusiastic party worker, Banda was a member of the MCP delegation at the Nyasaland const.i.tutional talks in London in July 1960. Later that year, he was also part of the party's delegation to the Lancaster House Conference, which reviewed the future of the Federation. When Dunduzu Chisiza died in 1962, Banda once again became secretary-general of the Malawi Congress Party. In 1966, he was appointed minister of development and planning, and in the next two years, served as minister of economic affairs and minister of finance, respectively. Later, in a 1972 cabinet reshuffle, he took over the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Tourism. A year later, President Hastings Banda dismissed him from the cabinet, ostensibly for a breach of party discipline and, for three years, Aleke Banda lived in his village, becoming a notable farmer. After a well-publicized apology to President Banda, he was appointed managing director of Press Holdings, but, within five years, he lost this position and was placed under detention at Mikuyu where he remained until 1991.

Upon his release, Banda joined the groups agitating for the democratization of Malawi, becoming a founder and vice president of the United Democratic Front (UDF). In the 1994 elections, he stood for a Nkhata Bay const.i.tuency, and, although he lost, he was appointed minister of finance; in 1997, he was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture. In the 1999 general elections, Banda stood as a UDF candidate for Nkhata Bay South but lost to Sam Kandodo Banda of the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD). In spite of this result, he continued to be the first vice president of the UDF and was reappointed minister of agriculture and irrigation in the new cabinet; in a cabinet reshuffle later, Banda became minister of health and population. A prominent businessman, his family owns The Nation, which was established in the early 1990s as a pro-democracy organ, and remains one of the influential newspapers in the country. At the height of the third term debate, which dominated the pre-2004 elections, he resigned from the UDF and joined the People's Progressive Movement, eventually becoming its leader. The People's Progressive Movement became part of the Mgwirizano coalition in the 2004 elections. In 2009, Aleke Banda retired from politics but he continued to be one of the most respected persons in Malawi.

BANDA, ETTA ELIZABETH (1949 ). Prior to May 2009 when she was elected as a member of Parliament for Nkhata Bay South and was appointed Malawi's minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, Etta Banda occupied numerous distinguished positions in the health profession. Banda graduated from the nursing school in Malawi, worked for some time before going to South Africa and then to Boston University, where she earned an MSc degree in community health nursing. Later, she received a PhD in nursing administration, education, and policy from the University of Maryland. She taught at the Kamuzu College of Nursing, University of Malawi, where she served as dean, vice princ.i.p.al, and princ.i.p.al. Besides teaching, she also carried out research, mainly in health policy planning, and was a member of the editorial board of the African Journal of Midwifery. Both in Malawi and the wider Southern African region, Banda was involved in projects aimed at meliorating primary health care, especially in the field of reproductive health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, s.e.xually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis. Most of this work received support from, among other international organizations, the Kaiser Family Foundation, IntraHealth International, Health Equity Project, and Management Science for Health. In the Cabinet reshuffle announced on 7 September 2011, Etta Banda lost her position in the government but she continued to serve as a member Parliament for Nkata Bay South.

BANDA, HASTINGS KAMUZU (c. 18961997). Malawi's former life president was born Kamnkhwala Banda at Mphonongo in Chief Chilawamatambe's area in modern Kasungu district in around 1896. Since his mother, Akupinganyama, and his father, Mphonongo, wanted him to go to a good school, Kamnkhwala left his village school near Mtunthama, the site of present-day Kamuzu Academy, for his maternal grandparents' home at Chiwengo; this enabled him to attend the school at Chikondwa, where the Chayamba Secondary School stands today. In 1908, he moved to Chilanga Mission station where two years later Dr. George Prentice of the Free Church of Scotland baptized him as Akim Kamnkhwala Mtunthama Banda, although he would later add two other names, Hastings and Walter, of which the latter was later dropped. Kamunkhwala (meaning the little medicine) was also replaced by Kamuzu (the root).

Banda continued his schooling at Chilanga Primary School, where his teachers included his uncle, Hanock Msokera Phiri, where in 1914 Banda pa.s.sed Standard 3. In the following year, Banda set out for South Africa, apparently with a view to enroll at Lovedale (see LOVEDALE MISSIONARY INSt.i.tUTE), the famous Scottish Presbyterian school. For a brief period, he worked at Hartley, in Southern Rhodesia, where he met his uncle who had gone ahead. The two proceeded farther south, working at a Natal colliery before reaching Johannesburg. It was in the latter city that Banda probably made friends with Clements Kadalie and learned of Garveyism. Although he changed his plans to go to Lovedale, Banda did not lose sight of his ambition to improve his education and, to this end, he completed Standard 8. He also became a member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, which agreed to underwrite his education in the United States.

Banda began his studies at the AME church's Wilberforce Inst.i.tute, in Ohio, where he completed his diploma in only three years. Next he entered the University of Indiana to pursue an early interest in medicine. He remained there for two years before transferring to the University of Chicago, majoring in history and politics. After he received a bachelor's degree (1931), Banda entered Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, graduating in May 1937. He decided to go to Scotland to attain postgraduate qualifications to enable him to practice in the British empire, planning to return home as a medical missionary. The return to Nyasaland became a long-term goal after the Church of Scotland and the government refused him positions in the colony. Instead, he established a practice in Liverpool in 1941 but, as a conscientious objector, he spent the remaining war years in Tyneside working at a mission for colored seamen and, subsequently, at the Preston Hospital near Newcastle.

After World War II, Banda established a practice in the London suburb of Kilburn and became more politically active, joining the Labour Party and the Fabian Bureau. He enjoyed the exchange of ideas with other African expatriates and future leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta. Certainly at this juncture, Banda had the funds to return home, but he chose to stay in London. He generously supported the education of about 40 needy African students while serving as doctor to several thousand patients. He remained in regular touch with Malawi and, from the time that the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) was formed, Banda encouraged, advised, and supported it financially. He also gave financial aid to a cooperative farm in Kasungu by purchasing land and equipment. This Kasungu agricultural scheme (1950) was to act as a model for similar African-run developments in Malawi.

As the movement for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland advanced, Banda responded with a militancy not before exhibited by this rather conservative man. He campaigned against the Federation through the Fabian Bureau and sympathetic members of the British Parliament. The NAC's and Banda's opposition to the Federation were unrelenting as both were vociferous in noting African objections to such plans. Despite this, the decision was made to form a closer union, and in 1953, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland became operative.

When the Federation became a reality, Banda felt betrayed by London. He also felt that he was responsible for the failure of the Kasungu farm project back at home. At this point in his life, he chose to leave London for the Gold Coast (later Ghana), where Kwame Nkrumah invited him to accept an administrative post in the government that had resulted from recent const.i.tutional changes. However, Banda chose a more reclusive life in k.u.masi, the Ashanti capital, where he lived with Mrs. Margaret French, his companion since the end of the war. Until 1957, he practiced medicine and ignored events at home. During this same period, the NAC floundered badly before being revitalized by Henry Chipembere and Kanyama Chiume. In 1956, both became members of the Legislative Council (LEGCO), where they exerted pressure on the government to dissolve the Federation.

A new militancy began in the NAC and, in 1957, Banda was informed of those developments. That same year, Thamar Dillon Banda (no relation) visited Banda in k.u.masi and urged him to return home to head the NAC. Chipembere followed up by writing to Banda, emphasizing the need for a charismatic-type leader who was qualified for the task. The timing seemed propitious to Banda: the Federation news grew grimmer with talks of members.h.i.+p in the Commonwealth, and in k.u.masi, charges (later proven false and dropped) were made against Banda preventing his practice of medicine. The invitation to return home was welcomed, and Banda departed from Ghana, leaving Mrs. French there; he briefly stopped in London where he met old friends, made speeches, and prepared for his journey in July 1958.

Banda arrived in Blantyre prepared for a long struggle or, if his people did not want him, to return to London. However, on 6 July 1958, several thousand Malawians greeted him at Chileka airport, treating him like their savior from colonialism. In August, the NAC elected Banda as their president and he chose a cabinet consisting of Chipembere (treasurer), Chiume (publicity), Dunduzu Chisiza (secretary), and Rose Chibambo (Women's League). Banda then began a campaign to strengthen the NAC. In the next two months, he visited nearly every district, lecturing against the ”stupid Federation,” advocating immediate decolonization, and attacking tribalism and thangata. Everywhere he spoke of the virtues of unity, loyalty, obedience, and discipline. By the end of the year, Malawians were united as never before and were growing impatient with an inflexible Protectorate government. Relations between the European settlers and the NAC worsened as the former considered the const.i.tutional demand for African majorities in the Executive Council and LEGCO as absurd proposals.

In JanuaryFebruary 1959, the NAC began a nonviolent and noncooperative campaign in which the detested agricultural regulations (malimidwe) were ignored. Banda opposed the use of violence as a political weapon, but did not exclude the possibility if it ended the despised Federation. Fearful of the increased number of Congress meetings and speeches, the government reinforced its police staff with Southern Rhodesian troops and, on 3 March, declared a State of Emergency. Banda was aroused from sleep in his Limbe home, taken to Chileka airport in only his night clothes, and flown to Gweru prison in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). In Gweru, Banda, with Chipembere and the Chisiza brothers, planned Malawi's political and economic future. During 13 months in detention, Banda also wrote his autobiography, which to date has not been published. In April 1960, Banda was flown home, but he did not stay long before embarking on short speaking engagements in Great Britain and the United States.

At home again, he concentrated on the Lancaster House conference in JulyAugust. At this const.i.tutional meeting, Banda, Orton Chirwa, Chiume, and Aleke Banda represented the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), which, during Banda's period in jail, had become the successor political organization to the NAC; Michael Blackwood represented the United Federal Party of European supporters, and Nophas Kwenje, James Ralph Chinyama, and Thamar Dillon Banda stood for a more moderate African position. Banda took an immediate hard line and repeated the demand for African majority rule, for self-government, and for an end to the Federation. By the end of the conference, both sides had agreed to a dual-roll franchise, a LEGCO having 28 elected members and an Executive Council of 10 members, all of whom would have ministerial status. The new Const.i.tution was presented by Banda as a vital doc.u.ment leading to independence. However, moderates like Kwenje were blamed for the failure to secure a universal franchise.

Shortly after the Monckton Report indicated that secession from the Federation could be permitted, Banda attended the Federal Review conference in London in December 1960. Also attending the conference and maintaining a hard line against the Federation were Joshua Nkomo of the National Democratic Party of Southern Rhodesia, and Kenneth Kaunda of the United National Independence Party of Northern Rhodesia. The conference accomplished little, but when Banda returned home, he announced that the Federation was dead. He spent the next months preparing for the August 1961 elections. His campaign to enroll voters and ensure their support for the MCP was immensely successful. His appearances and speeches were very popular, and his control in and over the MCP was growing more complete. The election results were nothing less than spectacular, for Banda and his MCP swept the lower roll seats (20) and obtained two higher roll seats. The governor, Glyn Jones, appointed Banda minister of natural resources and local government and, in this new capacity, Banda directed his energies to eliminate the abusive and detested thangata and malimidwe. From then (1961) onward, Banda concentrated on the agricultural development of Malawi, with some notable results.

The interim period before the dissolution of the Federation in 1963 witnessed the gradual a.s.sumption of political power by Banda and his a.s.sociates. Governor Jones had confidence in the ministers' abilities and was impressed by their eagerness to get on with the problems of government. The final preparations for self-government were formalized at Marlborough House, London, in November 1962; these negotiations resulted in the establishment of a cabinet and a legislature. The only point that remained nonnegotiable was Banda's determination to secede from the Federation. Finally, in December 1962, the right of Nyasaland to withdraw from the federal government was formally announced, although months before it had been conceded by the British government. It would take one year to dismantle the Federation.

In February 1963, Kamuzu Banda was formally made prime minister, a role he had held, practically speaking, for over a year. Several months later he and Governor Jones negotiated the last of the const.i.tutional changes made at Marlborough House. Accordingly, elections were held in April of the following year in which 50 MCP nominees were elected unopposed. Banda selected his cabinet shortly thereafter: Chipembere (Education), Yatuta Chisiza (Home Affairs), Colin Cameron (Works), Willie Chokani (Labor), and John Msonthi (Transport). At independence on 6 July 1964, Chiume became minister of information and external affairs, and Tembo became minister of finance. Banda a.s.sumed the portfolios of trade, natural resources, social development, and health.

In the decades following independence, Banda a.s.sumed even greater personal power and enjoyed wide popularity. Ambitious economic projects and government reorganization also characterized his administration, which had the paternalism of the 18th-century enlightened despot Frederick the Great of Prussia. The Kasungu-born doctor reversed decades of British neglect and indifference with the result that Malawi's earliest loans were oversubscribed by foreign investors delighted with the positive economic climate and apparent political stability. Malawian entrepreneurs were encouraged to engage in commerce formerly run by Asians, and Banda sought some Africanization of large-scale industries such as railways. He also invested his party's money in Malawi, mainly in Press Corporation Ltd. The Cinderella Protectorate, as Malawi was once dubbed, did emerge from the ashes, but critics of his style of government often point out that economic development was skewed and was attained through authoritarian methods and greatly diminished political freedom.

The Cabinet Crisis was a catalyst for the reorganization of government and the further consolidation of Banda's personal rule. In September 1964, Banda dismissed several cabinet ministers, and three others resigned out of sympathy. He portrayed his former ministers as enemies of the state and expelled them from the MCP. At Banda's direction, Malawi virtually became a one-party state by mid-1965. In nearly every aspect of life in the country, the party complemented the state in political power; public criticism of the government was eschewed, and only private questions were tolerated by the Banda government.

The ministerial crisis also precipitated a revitalization of local or traditional inst.i.tutions, long overlooked during the colonial period. Banda encouraged the return of traditional dancing and the use of one national language, chiChewa, which was also his mother tongue. His efforts to exert moral control over Malawi society included regulations on drunkenness, tight trousers, and short skirts. The traditional (local) court system was expanded, and Malawian jurisprudence was increasingly preferred over that inherited from the British, which Banda perceived as too permissive, allowing unacceptable numbers of criminals to escape because of clever lawyers or poorly presented evidence. The judiciary became less independent and more susceptible to political controls by Banda and the MCP. Extrajudicial measures, such as the Forfeiture Act (1966), permitting the government to seize property of ”subversive” persons, became law. In 1971, presidential elections were not held, but the Malawi Parliament declared Banda as ”life president,” stipulating that, on his death, the functions of that office would be performed by a Presidential Council comprising two cabinet ministers and the secretary general of the Malawi Congress Party.

Under Banda's leaders.h.i.+p, Malawi's priorities were to expand agricultural production, especially the estate sector, to encourage industrial development and to improve the nation's transportation system. Banda's economic influence was all pervasive, mostly as a result of the economic statutory bodies, some of which he had inherited. Parastatals (publicly owned holding companies) were created as a means for Malawi to control its economy and retain whatever expatriate resources were necessary to reach the proposed national goals. At independence, the nation lacked capital and an entrepreneur cla.s.s with management ability; the parastatal sought to fill that vacuum, and Banda, by becoming general overseer of this corporate empire, extended his powers far beyond those provided by the government. He allowed these organizations to function in the marketplace as well as to use their resources for his own political purposes. Some of the most important of these statutory bodies were the Malawi Development Corporation (MDC), Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation, Air Malawi, and the Electricity Supply Commission; only the latter proved able to make a profit.