Kanyama Chiume
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Kanyama Chiume (born 1929) was one of the leading nationalists in the struggle for Malawi’s independence. He was and one of the leaders of the Nyasaland African Congress. He served as Minister of Education and Minister for Foreign Affairs in the 1960's.
Chiume was born Murray William Kanyama Chiume in Nkhata Bay District of Nyasaland, as Malawi was known then. He attended Makerere University in Uganda.
Along with Henry Masauko Chipembere and Dunduzu Chisiza, Chiume was instrumental in organizing popular support in the mid- to late 1950s for Hastings Banda and in persuading Banda to return to Nyasaland in order to lead the country to independence. Along with Chipembere and three other "unofficials", he was elected to the Nyasaland Legislative Council when a revised constitution came into effect in 1955 and presented an aggressive front in the debating chamber on land reform and other matters. He was given a senior post in the Congress at its Nkhata Bay conference in August 1958. He was in London and hence avoided arrest in Operation Sunrise (March 1959) when the colonial government rounded up and interned hundreds of members of the Nyasaland African Congress during the state of emergency. In July 1960 he joined Banda, Orton Chirwa, Aleke Banda and other prominent Africans at the Nyasaland Constitutional Conference in London. He was made Minister of Education in 1962 and was Foreign Minister in the first government formed after independence in July 1964. He was driven out of the (now renamed) Malawi Congress Party in the course of the cabinet crisis in August 1964 after displeasing Banda with a speech in Cairo during a conference of the OAU. Former Member of Parliament for Rumphi, Northern Region of Nyasaland, former cabinet minister of in caretaker government (Right Honorable Minister) and under Prime Minister Dr. Banda (portfolios included among others Education, Social Services, Independence Celebration and Foreign Affairs), Pan Africanist (country delegate to All Africa Peoples Congress - Accra, Ghana, PAFMECA and PAFMESCA conferences), one of the key ring leaders in the 1964 Malawi Cabinet Crisis, exiled "rebel" leader (declared Dr. Banda's Public Enemy Number One), exiled in Tanzania from 1964 to 1994, democracy and multi-party activist, correspondent with Tanzania's "The Nationalist", "Daily News and Sunday News" and "Uhuru" newspapers, author and publisher of numerous books, leader of opposition Congress for the Second Republic (CSR). Returned to Malawi in 1994 after internal and international pressure on Dr. Banda. Briefly served as Chaiman of Malawi National Library Service and Malawi Book Service. Retired from active politics.
[edit] References
- Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry, British Colonial Office Cmnd. 814, July 1959.
- Chiume: Autobiography of Kanyama Chiume, Panaf, 1982, by Kanyama Chiume, Panaf, 1982.
- The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa, by Robert I. Rotberg, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965
- Banda, by Philip Short, London: Routledge & Kegan 1974
- Malawi, the Politics of Despair, by T. David Williams, Cornell Univ Press, 1978Template:Africa-politician
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