Part 6 (2/2)

CHIRWA, JONATHAN (?1934). In 1897, Jonathan Chirwa, a TumbukaNgoni, was preacher and teacher in charge of the Free Church station at Hora in the heartland of Ngoni territory. In May 1914, he was one of the first three Africans to be ordained full minister and was immediately posted to Loudon Mission as a.s.sistant to Rev. Donald Fraser. Two years later, he was transferred to Mwenzo in Northern Rhodesia, but, in July 1918, he resigned from the ministry and was suspended from the church after admitting to adultery. Christians and coworkers in Ngoni, led by Rev. Andrew Mkochi and Rev. Donald Fraser, continuously and vigorously called for his restoration, which finally took place in 1924. He was reposted to Loudon, and, four years later, he scored another first by being elected as the first African moderator of a presbytery. Chirwa, an accomplished composer of church hymns, remained at Loudon where, as the years pa.s.sed, he came to be regarded as ”an eminence grise” (T. J. Thompson, 1995: 207). He died in 1934 and is buried in a Ngoni-style cattle kraal, in the same grave in which the remains of Donald Fraser would be laid to rest in 1935.

CHIRWA, ORTON EDGAR CHING'OLI (19191992). Born in Nkhata Bay district on 30 January 1919, Chirwa was educated at Bandawe, Khondowe (Livingstonia) and at St. Francis College, Natal, before going to Fort Hare University College where, in 1950, he obtained a BA with philosophy as his major. He returned to Malawi to lecture at the Domasi Teachers Training College. Besides his teaching duties, two other things preoccupied him at this stage: preparation for Part 1 of the English Bar examinations and his disappointment with the policies and organization of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), especially at the time the idea of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was being imposed on the Africans of Nyasaland. He left the party only to return to it after a brief period. In 1955, Chirwa resigned from government service, went to England to complete his legal studies, and, in May 1958, was called to the Bar, thereby becoming Malawi's first indigenous barrister. He would also be the only Malawian to be honored with the t.i.tle queen's counsel.

On his return, he entered private practice in company with Abdul Sattar Sacranie, and also became the NAC's legal advisor. On 6 March 1959, he was arrested, sent to Khami prison in Southern Rhodesia, and was released eight months later. In September of that year, Chirwa and his wife, Vera Chirwa, and other free activists including Sydney Somanje, Chechwa Bwanausi, Augustine Mnthabala, and Aleke Banda, formed the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) with a view to continuing with the work of the banned NAC. The new party immediately began to campaign for the release of political detainees and for a boycott of the Monckton Commission, which was due to arrive in the country in 1960 to review the future of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

When Dr. Hastings K. Banda was released in April 1960, Chirwa handed over to him the presidential reins of the MCP. During the next several years, Chirwa was a key aide to Banda, serving him at the numerous const.i.tutional conferences where self-government and independence were negotiated. After the 1961 general elections, Chirwa became parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Justice; later, he was appointed minister of justice and attorney general, and, in this capacity, he was responsible for initiating the nation's local court system. Chirwa split with his chief over Banda's slow Africanization policy of government positions. The prime minister reacted by accusing Chirwa of collusion with the Chinese in Tanzania. Chirwa was dismissed in September 1964 and, for security reasons, he left the country to live in exile in Tanzania. He taught law at the University of Dar-es-Salaam, and later he and his wife, also a lawyer, moved to Lusaka, Zambia, where for a time they were on the law faculty at the university in that city.

Chirwa also started a political party, the Malawi Freedom Movement (MAFREMO), which aimed at organizing the overthrow of the Banda government in Malawi. He had been in exile 17 years when, in December 1981, he, Vera, and their son, Fumbani, were enticed to visit the Chipata-Mchinji area on the ZambiaMalawi border where they were subsequently abducted by agents of the Malawi government and arrested. From July 1982 to February 1983, the trial was deliberately held in the National Traditional Court to ensure that the verdict would favor the government. In May 1983, they were sentenced to death for treason for having conspired to overthrow the government and were confined to the maximum security prison in Zomba, where they were not allowed to communicate with one another. Both London Amnesty International and the Church of Scotland protested the trial and urged Banda to grant a reprieve of their sentences. In June 1984, the death sentence was commuted to life in prison; five months earlier, Banda had ordered their release from ”protective custody.” Fumbani reported that he had been held in solitary confinement in Zomba prison in a section reserved for political prisoners. Banda is said to have later regretted the commuted sentences, particularly after a MAFREMO attack on the northern police post of Kaporo in January 1987.

On 20 October 1992, Orton Chirwa died in jail and, since the agitation for political change had by that time become a fact of life, the government gave the rare permission that he be buried in Nkhata Bay, his home district. Much to the government's dismay, it became a national funeral, attended by people from all walks of life and from all the three regions of the country. Bakili Muluzi, head of United Democratic Front (UDF) and future president of Malawi, also attended. However, Chirwa's wife, Vera, still in prison, was not allowed to view his body nor to accompany the funeral party. See also CHIRWA, VERA MLANGAZUA.

CHIRWA, ROBSON WATAYACHANGA (1931 ). Secretary general of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in the 1980s, Robson Chirwa was born in 1931 in the Mabulabo area in southern Mzimba. He went to local mission schools and to Dedza Secondary School, where he completed the Cambridge School Certificate. He then studied for the advanced teacher's certificate at the Domasi Teachers' Training College. He taught in schools in Mzimba and was promoted to a.s.sistant school inspector and then inspector. In the mid-1960s, he spent a year in England studying education administration. In the late 1960s, Chirwa was appointed education attache at the Malawi High Commission in London. He returned to Malawi early in 1971 and worked as the district education officer.

Later that year, he entered Parliament and, in 1972, was appointed parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Subsequently, he served in several ministries as full minister, including the position of regional minister of the north. In 1987, he became minister without portfolio and administrative secretary of the MCP. Three years later, he was appointed minister of trade, industry, and tourism, a post he held until the MCP lost power in 1994. An articulate ”supporting player” and generally well liked, Chirwa was not particularly ambitious for higher office and so was never regarded as a serious contender as successor to President Hastings K. Banda. Chirwa has virtually retired from politics and went to live in Mzuzu where he concentrated on farming and other businesses.

CHIRWA, VERA MLANGAZUA (1932 ). Politician, lawyer, academic, human rights activist, and wife of Orton Ching'oli Chirwa, Vera Chirwa was a founding member of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and a national leader of the League of Malawi Women. Granddaughter of Jonathan Chirwa and Yesaya Chibambo, she was born in Mzimba district, educated at Blantyre Secondary School, and trained as a lawyer in London. After the 1964 Cabinet Crisis, she and her husband went into exile, first to Tanzania, where she worked as a prosecutor, and later for the East African Community. In 1977, she moved to Lusaka where she taught law at the University of Zambia. In 1982, agents of the Malawi government kidnapped her, with her husband, Orton Chirwa, and son, Fumbani, and put them in Zomba prison. Their son was later released, but Vera and her husband were tried by the National Traditional Court, found guilty, and condemned to death. Their sentences were commuted to life; Orton Chirwa died in prison in 1992, and his wife was released in the following year.

Upon her release, she became a campaigner for political reform and a nonpartisan human rights activist and founded the Centre for Advice, Research and Education on Human Rights (CARER). At the Heads of State summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) held in Algeria in July 1999, Chirwa was one of the people elected to the African Human and People's Rights Commission. She retired from this position in 2005. Among other appointments she was a rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions of Detention in Africa and served on the Women's Voices and the national Commission on Women, both in Malawi. In 2007, Zed Books published her Vera Chirwa: Fearless Fighter, an Autobiography.

CHIRWA, WELLINGTON MANOAH (19162005). Born in Nkhata Bay district in 1916, he went to school at Bandawe and Livingstonia where he qualified as a teacher. He taught in local schools, became a headmaster, clerk to the Atonga Tribal Council, secretary of a teacher's a.s.sociation, and chairman of the West Nyasa Native a.s.sociation. In 1938, Chirwa went to Southern Rhodesia where he also worked as a teacher, and even served as princ.i.p.al of the Gloag Ranch Mission School. For a brief period (194546), he was a journalist. All this time, he furthered his education by correspondence and, in 1948, was admitted to Fort Hare University, graduating in 1952 with a BA and a teaching certificate. From 1952 to 1953, Chirwa taught at the Henry Henderson Inst.i.tute in Blantyre but, because he was increasingly developing an interest in politics, he turned his entire attention to that field.

Chirwa became an active member of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) and joined the opposition to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. However, unlike many of his contemporaries, he decided to fight it from within its structures. So, against the wishes of many Africans, Chirwa and Clement k.u.mbikano were elected, with the blessing of the NAC, to the new Federal a.s.sembly in 1954 as representatives of the Nyasaland African Provincial Councils. In the Federal a.s.sembly, he spoke against the Federation and was a member of the African Affairs Board, which, although established to protect African interests, proved to be quite ineffective, much to the disappointment of Chirwa. In 1957, the opinions of Henry Chipembere, Kanyama Chiume, and a memo from Dr. Hastings K. Banda persuaded the NAC to insist that Chirwa and k.u.mbikano resign from the Federal a.s.sembly or be expelled from the Congress. The latter course was taken in July 1957.

Chirwa was a member of the Monckton Commission, which he joined in February 1960 only after he received a.s.surance that Banda would be released. The minority report, signed by, among others, Chirwa, demanded a quick dissolution of the Federation on the grounds of its unpopularity with Africans. However, in spite of these views and of his sharp mind, which could have benefited postcolonial Malawi, Chirwa was vilified for having identified himself with Federal inst.i.tutions. Soon after the const.i.tutional changes began to be implemented, he left Malawi to live in Southern Rhodesia, and later, he settled in London.

In 1965, Chirwa tried to return to Malawi but was refused entry; he tried again in 1968 but, after only a week in Nkhata Bay, he was asked to leave the country. In 1972, Chirwa sent feelers to Banda expressing his desire to return to Malawi. Banda had the matter discussed at the annual convention of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), which that year was held in Lilongwe. His expectation was that delegates would be totally opposed to it, thus giving him the excuse to turn down the request. A number of delegates, including some chiefs from all three regions, saw no problem with Chirwa's wish. But this response annoyed Banda, who stormed into the convention hall to express his disappointment with people who had been sympathetic to Chirwa's request; he told the convention that such an approach indicated that they were unappreciative of the work he had done for Malawi since his return in 1958. Following Banda's unexpected outburst, the convention turned against those who had offended the president and, amid abuse and shouting, asked them to leave the venue of the meeting and return to their homes. The chiefs were expelled from the MCP and deposed from their traditional authorities' offices. Chirwa remained in exile in London. In 1990s and early 2000s, he actively supported multiparty democracy and, from his London base, was involved in charity work, with the aim of raising money to a.s.sist economic development in Malawi. In 2004, he returned to Malawi and settled in Nkata Bay, where he died a year later.

CHIRWA, YURAIAH CHATONDA (1860s?1951). One of the most distinguished of the initial graduates of Livingstonia Mission, Chirwa was born in modern Nkhata Bay district, went to school at Bandawe, and was already a teacher when Robert Laws sent him and Charles Domingo to Lovedale (see LOVEDALE MISSIONARY INSt.i.tUTE) for further education in 1891. He returned three years later and was to spend most of his working life at Khondowe where, by the 1920s, he was a senior a.s.sistant at the Overtoun Inst.i.tution. A founding member and vice president of the North Nyasa Native a.s.sociation (see AFRICAN WELFARE a.s.sOCIATIONS), Chirwa also presented evidence to the commission of inquiry into the Chilembwe uprising. Although politically active, he was considered a moderate, certainly compared to Domingo and Levi Mumba, who was also one of his contemporaries.

CHISIZA, DUNDUZU JR. (19631999). Malawi's leading professional actor was a baby when his famous father, Gladstone Dunduzu Kaluli Chisiza, died in 1962. After completing secondary education at the Henry Henderson Inst.i.tute (HHI) Secondary School, he went to college in the United States where he specialized in theater arts. On his return to Malawi in the mid-1980s, he formed the Wakhumbata Theatre Ensemble of which he became the director and princ.i.p.al actor. Based in Blantyre, the group made regular tours to different parts of the country and, in the process, established itself as the best known of such theater companies in Malawi. He wrote over 20 plays, some of which he published in two collections, Barefoot in the Heart (1983) and Democracy Boulevard (1988). Many of his plays, which he also acted in, tended to have an antigovernment commentary, and the Malawi Censors.h.i.+p Board banned some of them. Chisiza surprised many Malawians when he joined Hastings Banda's cabinet in 1993, at the height of the agitation for political reform. He became minister of youth and culture, contested and lost elections in 1994, when he returned to full-time acting.

CHISIZA, EPHRAIM YATUTA KALULI (19261967). Born in Karonga district, and educated at Livingstonia, Yatuta Chisiza was the older brother of Dunduzu Chisiza. In 1948, he joined the Tanganyika police and advanced to the rank of inspector, becoming one of the very few such senior officers in the colony. In 1956, his brother, Dunduzu, encouraged him to return to Nyasaland where the struggle for decolonization was gathering momentum. Yatuta based himself in Blantyre where he became a businessman and politician. When Dr. Hastings K. Banda returned to Malawi in July 1958, Chisiza was one of the politicians who took Banda to different parts of the country to introduce him to the people he was about to lead on the road to decolonization. Taking advantage of his experience as a police officer and of his large physical stature, the party appointed Chisiza as Banda's body guard and head of security. He also became Banda's private secretary.

Chisiza was arrested during Operation Sunrise and, with Banda, Henry Chipembere, and Dunduzu, was detained in Gweru, Southern Rhodesia. In September 1960, he was released, and, like many other senior politicians in the banned Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), he became a key player in the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) where he would hold the position of administrative secretary. When his brother died in September 1962, Yatuta became a member of Parliament for Karonga and was promoted to parliamentary secretary. At independence, he became minister of home affairs, but he broke with Banda during the Cabinet Crisis of September 1964. He went into exile in Tanzania.

In 1967, Chisiza a.s.sembled some of his closest supporters, had them trained in guerrilla warfare, and, in October of that year, entered Malawi through Mwanza with a view to overthrowing Banda's government. The local officer in charge of police informed the headquarters of reports of the infiltration and, within hours, the Malawi army was led to the site where Chisiza and his followers, equipped with weapons such as bazookas and AK47 guns, were. A combat ensued resulting in the death of Chisiza and some of his people. Others ran away, one shot himself as the Malawi security forces approached him, yet others were captured, taken to Zomba and executed. Although the government was silent on its losses, it is reported that many soldiers were killed in this short operation.

CHISIZA, GLADSTONE DUNDUZU KALULI (19301962). Popularly known as ”Du,” Chisiza was born in 1930 in Karonga district, educated at Livingstonia, and, from 1949 to 1950, worked as a clerk in the Tanganyika Police Department. In the latter year, he went to Uganda to further his education at the Aggrey Memorial College. In 1953, Chisiza left for Southern Rhodesia, where he worked as editor of the information bulletin at the Indian High Commission in Salisbury (Harare). He became involved in local politics and, with young activists such as George Nyandoro and Robert Chikerema, founded the Rhodesia African National Youth League, the forbearer of the Rhodesia African National Congress. Chisiza's activism led to his deportation in September 1956. Back in Nyasaland, he became a member of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) but, in October of the following year, he went to study economics at Fircroft College, part of the Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham, England. He returned to Malawi in September 1958, and Dr. Hastings K. Banda immediately appointed him secretary general of the much rejuvenated NAC.

Chisiza became a key organizer of the Congress and was part of the inner circle that met on 2425 January 1959 to discuss the future plan of action. These meetings discussed, among other matters, a change of approach from nonviolence to violence where necessary, and, not long after the deliberations, there were incidents of violence in some parts of the country, including Fort Hill (now Chitipa), Karonga, Dowa, and Ntcheu. As cases of violence increased, the governor, Sir Robert Armitage, declared a state of emergency, giving him extraordinary powers to effect his authority in the colony. Chisiza was arrested on 4 March and taken to Gweru prison, Southern Rhodesia, where he was confined together with Banda, Henry Chipembere, and Yatuta Chisiza, his brother. Chisiza was released in September 1960 and, once again, became secretary general of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), the successor to the NAC. He was a delegate to the Lancaster House Const.i.tutional Conference in December 1960 and to the Federal Review Conference later.

After the MCP won the elections in 1961, Chisiza became parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Finance, a position for which he had been preparing for many years. A fine theoretician, Chisiza was perceptive of the problems facing his nation and produced a plan of economic development for Malawi. He was not to see it through for, on September 1962, a car accident at Thondwe Bridge, on the BlantyreZomba road, tragically took his life. There are many who question the circ.u.mstances of his death, even nearly five decades later. However, there is no doubt that the death robbed Malawi of a leading economist, a courageous person, and a pragmatic and broad-minded leader, one who was not afraid of Banda, who would soon become dictator of Malawi.

CHISSANO, JOACHIM ALBERTO (1939 ). President of Mozambique from 1986 to 2005, Chissano was born in southern Mozambique in 1939 and educated locally and in Portugal. In 1962, he abandoned his legal studies to join the Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO from the Portuguese Frente de Libertaco de Mocambique) and, in the following year, he became a member of the Central Committee of the organization. From 1969 to 1974, he was FRELIMO's chief of security as well as its chief representative in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Chissano was prime minister of Mozambique during the transition to independence, and when the Portuguese handed complete power to the people of Mozambique, Chissano became foreign minister in a government headed by president Samora Machel. On the latter's death in 1986, Chissano became president of the former Portuguese territory and immediately undertook the task of improving the MozambiqueMalawi relations, which had become particularly strained because of the suspicion that Malawi was aiding the Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana (RENAMO) in its attempt to overthrow the FRELIMO government. A recipient of, among others, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation Prize for African Leaders.h.i.+p, and the Africa Prize for Leaders.h.i.+p for the Sustainable End of Hunger, Chissano has become one of the elder statesmen of Africa.

CHISUMPHI. This is a northern Chewa designation for High G.o.d; it is a proto-Chewa theological tradition, predating the rise to political dominance of the Phiri, the rulers of the Maravi state. Chisumphi's princ.i.p.al functionaries came from the Banda clan, and Makawena was a t.i.tle of the High G.o.d's ritual ”wife.”

CHITALO, EDDA (1932 ). She was born in Blantyre and, after primary school, went to teachers college where she qualified in 1951. She taught at Blantyre Girls' School where she was later to become headmistress. Chitalo became a member of Parliament for Blantyre in 1971 and, within two years, was appointed a deputy minister. In the early 1980s, she was expelled from the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), lost her position, and retired from active politics. In the early 1990s, she returned to politics as an advocate of reform. She was reelected to Parliament in May 1994, this time on a United Democratic Front (UDF) ticket; she was appointed minister of health and later moved to the office of the president. She retired from politics finally in the early 2000s. See also WOMEN.

CHITENJE. Popular colorful cotton prints, about two meters long, usually wrapped around the waist to cover the lower part of the body. Often a chitenje is worn over a dress or skirt to protect it from becoming dirty. Sometimes dresses, skirts, and men's s.h.i.+rts are made from chitenje material. Most of the chitenje cloth is made locally by David Whitehead & Sons, but some of it is imported from other parts of Africa and from Holland. During the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) rule, the League of Malawi Women had uniforms of chitenje printed with special party colors, which included a prominent image of Dr. Hastings K. Banda. Since members.h.i.+p in the league was a.s.sumed of every woman, and the uniform was mandatory, immense profit accrued from the sale of it, adding much to the party's treasury.

CHITIMBA. In the colonial days known as Florence Bay, Chitimba lies on the northeastern point of the lakesh.o.r.e area of Rumphi district. For many years, this was the main port on Lake Malawi for the Livingstonia Mission at Khondowe, and it could be approached through a dramatic 22-hairpin turn road.

CHITIPA. Built in 1896 to guard the road to Northern Rhodesia and Tanganyika, Chitipa is located in the northernmost section of Malawi. The British named the place Fort Hill in honor of Sir Clement Hill, a senior officer in the Foreign Office. During World War I, it was an important military base, strategic in its proximity to Tanganyika, then known as German East Africa. For most of the colonial period, Fort Hill was significant only as a customs and immigration post. However, as a result of widespread antigovernment activity, accompanied by some violence in early 1959, Fort Hill became the headquarters of the Fort Hill subdistrict, which encompa.s.sed all the upland section of Karonga. In 1965, Fort Hill was renamed Chitipa, actually reverting to its original Lambya name. It also became the boma of the new Chitipa district.

Chitipa district is noted for maize, beans, coffee, and cattle production; in recent years it has also proved to have potential as a tobacco growing area, except that its very poor transportation links with the rest of the country make commercial agriculture an unprofitable proposition. Until the 1960s, Chitipa town was the site of a labor recruitment office for Wit.w.a.tersrand Native Labour a.s.sociation (WNLA) of South Africa. The organization's catchment area included southern Tanganyika and northeastern Rhodesia (Zambia). In the previous decades, it had also been the recruiting center for the Rhodesia Native Labour Bureau, locally known as Mthandizi or Untuli, that is, ”the helper.” Chitipa was also one of the early training bases of the Young Pioneers (see YOUTH), which, like all other similar establishments, have now been closed.

CHITSULO, BISHOP CORNELIO (19091984). The first Malawian to become a Catholic priest, Chitsulo was born on 19 December 1909, at Njoro village on the periphery of Mua mission. In 1920, he joined the Minor Seminary at Mua and, seven years later, he went to Kipalapala Major Seminary in Tanganyika, where he spent 10 years studying for the priesthood. In 1937, he was ordained at Mbembeke and, in 1956, he became the first Malawian apostolic vicar and was charged with the responsibility of the new Dedza Vicariate, which, in 1959, became a diocese. Bishop Chitsulo held that office until he died on 28 February 1984, and was replaced by Bishop Gervazio M. Chisendera.

CHITUKUKO CHA AMAI MU MALAWI (CCAM). Meaning the Development of Women in Malawi, the organization was formed in 198485 at the behest of Miss Cecilia Kadzamira, as vehicle for the socioeconomic development of the women in Malawi. Central to it was the self-sufficiency of women, and the method of attaining this goal was for women in each locality to think of means of generating income that could be used to improve conditions in their areas. Among the numerous projects were communal agricultural plots and sewing and knitting schemes. This idea was interesting, considering President Hastings K. Banda's hatred of things socialist. CCAM did not flourish because at times it was difficult to distinguish it from the League of Malawi Women. Also, many women, especially those who were employed, felt that the CCAM was interfering with their work and the time usually spent with their families. Furthermore, there was not much enthusiasm for it as it was felt that this was primarily an idea imposed from the top, an idea with a political agenda, and that, given the dominance of the party, they had no choice but to reluctantly be part of the project.

CHIUME, MURRAY WILLIAM KANYAMA (19292007). Born on 22 November 1929 at Usisya in the northern lakesh.o.r.e area of Nkhata Bay district, Chiume was one of the prominent nationalists who worked for Malawi's independence. In 1938, he left with his uncle for Dar-es-Salaam, Tanganyika, where he attended primary school before going on to Dar-es-Salaam Central School where he completed Standard 8. In 1946, he qualified to enter Tabora Senior Government Secondary School, then the most select high school in the colony, where he pa.s.sed his Cambridge University Higher Certificate Examinations (A Level), and in 1949 was admitted to Makerere University College, Kampala, Uganda, with a science focus. Makerere, like Fort Hare in South Africa, was then a major breeding ground for future leaders of the decolonization movement. In 1951, Chiume was admitted to the medical school, but changed within a year to science education, which he found more to his liking.

While at Makerere, Chiume also found time to return home where, in 1950, he was made secretary of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) conference at Nkhata Bay. At the end of 1953, he was awarded his diploma in education and, early the following year, he began teaching at the Alliance Secondary School, Dodoma, Tanganyika. In September of that year, he resigned and, in January 1955, he returned to Nyasaland where he became actively involved in the NAC, joining other recent graduates such as Henry Chipembere, Harry Bwanausi, and Vincent Gondwe. This group of young men also started the Nyasaland College a.s.sociation to raise funds to enable more indigenous people to go to universities abroad.

In 1955, Chiume became a small-scale coffee farmer in Chikwina, an area not far from Mzuzu, the new northern provincial headquarters. The government had just introduced coffee growing in the area but, because people were increasingly suspicious of government projects, Chiume noticed resistance to the adoption of this cash crop. However, convinced that they needed a dependable cash crop in order to tackle poverty and so increase self-reliance, he campaigned for it. In October of that year, he was elected to the Nkhata Bay District Council, which in turn elected him to the Northern Province Council. In that same year, a new const.i.tution allowing five Africans to be elected to the Legislative Council (LEGCO) was introduced in the colony. Chiume stood as the NAC candidate for the north and, on 15 March 1956, he was duly elected to the LEGCO. Chipembere also won elections in the south, and the two became the most effective advocates of decolonization in the LEGCO as well as outside it. They were also among the senior Congress members who called for the arrival of Dr. Hastings K. Banda to lead the nationalist movement. When Banda a.s.sumed the heads.h.i.+p of the NAC, Chiume, famous for his eloquence, was made publicity secretary general of the movement, and he also became its chief foreign affairs spokesperson, partic.i.p.ating in many Pan-African conferences as well as tours on behalf of Banda and the Congress.

When the State of Emergency was declared on 3 March 1959, Chiume, unlike other ranking politicians, escaped arrest and detention because, at the time, he was abroad seeking support for the party. He would spend most of 1959 and 1960 in Great Britain as the NAC's amba.s.sador at large, making several trips to Africa and Europe to explain the aspirations of the NAC. At the Lancaster House const.i.tutional talks in 1960, he joined the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) delegation, and on his return to Nyasaland he resumed his position as publicity secretary general of the MCP. In 1961, he was elected member of Paliament for Rumpi and was appointed the first African minister of education to which ministry the portfolios of information and social development were added. In 1964, he was returned unopposed, this time as member for Rumpi East. At independence, Chiume became minister of foreign affairs, but that was short-lived as he was sacked from office because of his opposition to Banda's policies and his subsequent role in the Cabinet Crisis of 1964. Threatened by party zealots and afraid of political detention, Chiume sought refuge in Tanganyika where he became a businessman and resumed his old interest, journalism. He also wrote several books and became a co-owner of the Pan-African Publis.h.i.+ng Company. Chiume remained politically involved and was the president of the Congress for the Second Republic (CSR) of Malawi, a party that was active mainly among Malawian exiles in Tanzania and Zambia.

Meantime, in Malawi, Banda and the MCP were determined that Chiume would never return to lead in any form, and, as time progressed, he became the most maligned political exile. Besides instructing party loyalists and youth leaguers to look for him and, if possible, kill him should he try to enter the country, he was portrayed in political speeches as evil and an enemy of the country. Anybody indicating any a.s.sociation with his name or party was arrested and imprisoned without trial. He was so vilified in popular MCP songs that the generation of Malawians born after the Cabinet Crisis came to identify his name with infamy.

In 1994, Chiume arrived

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