Yatuta Chisiza

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yatuta Chisiza (born 1926 – died October 1967 near Blantyre) was a former Malawian minister of home affairs who led a brief guerrilla incursion into the country in October 1967. He entered Mwanza district from Tanzania with 9 companions. In the following clash with security forces on 9 October he and two other members of insurgent forces were killed, five captured, other flee (added by Vladimir Nosov).

Chisiza was born in the Karonga district of northern Malawi (then Nyasaland) in 1926 to Kaluli Chisiza, a Group Village Headman. He was educated at Uliwa Junior Primary School and at the mission school of Livingstonia. He subsequently worked as an Assistant Inspector in the police force in Tanzania (then Tanganyika) and returned to Malawi in 1958. For a short time he, together with his brother Dunduzu Chisiza, attempted to go in business operating a butcher's shop, but this venture soon failed.

After the historic Nyasaland African Congress convention in January 1959, he was appointed bodyguard to Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who later became the first premier of Malawi. He was arrested along with hundreds of others (including his brother)in the dawn raids of Operation Sunrise on March 3, 1959, when the colonial administration declared a state of emergency in Nyasaland. He was imprisoned in Khami Prison near Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia. He was released, some months after Banda, in September 1960.

After the death of his brother in September 1962, Yatuta was elected to the Legislative Council for Karonga district and Banda appointed him Minister of Home Affairs. Not long after Malawi had gained independence from Great Britain in July 1964, he was one of several cabinet ministers who, chafing under an increasingly autocratic leadership, were ousted by Banda in the so-called Cabinet Crisis. He fled the country and, allegedly after undergoing military training in China, later conducted guerilla operations against the Banda regime. He was killed by a single shot to the head in October 1967, apparently by Malawi security forces, although rumours have attributed a role to security forces of the Ian Smith regime in Southern Rhodesia. His body was put on display at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital near Blantyre as a warning to other potential insurgents. He was survived by two sons.