KAHUMBE, CHARLES. Medical doctor, businessman, and one of the founders of the United Democratic Front (UDF), Kahumbe was born in one of the most established families in Blantyre district. Educated in the district, he went to India where he qualified as a medical doctor. On his return, he worked for the government and later opened a private practice in Blantyre. He also became a businessman, transporting fish from Lake Malawi to the urban centers. Kahumbe was personal physician and one of the princ.i.p.al advisors of President Bakili Muluzi. He remains a prominent businessman in the Blantyre area.
KAINJA, CATHERINE KATE (19502007). This academician and politician born in the Lilongwe-Dedza area emerged in the mid-1990s as one of the leading negotiators in the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) hierarchy. Kainja taught home economics at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, until 1992 when President Hastings K. Banda appointed her to his cabinet. In 1994, she was elected to Parliament and was returned in 1999. She became a member of the central executive of the MCP and one of its main strategists. She joined the governing party in 2004, becoming minister of education, science, and technology in 2005 and, in the following year, minister of women and child development. In December 2007, she pa.s.sed away at a hospital in England.
KAKHOBWE, SAM (1938 ). Born in Lilongwe, Kakhobwe went to Dedza Secondary School and the University of Lesotho, Botswana, and Swaziland at Roma, Lesotho, where he graduated with a BA. He joined the civil service in 1968, received successive promotions, and served in the foreign service before becoming secretary of the treasury. In 1985, Kakhobwe succeeded John Ngwiri as secretary to the president and cabinet and head of the civil service. Upon his dismissal from the civil service in 1987, Kakhobwe joined Farming and Electrical Services, one of the large commercial firms in Blantyre. After the 1994 elections, he became chairman of the Privatization Commission of Malawi, and in 2005 he was appointed as executive director of the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF).
KALESO, REV. PETER. For some months in 1992 and 1993, this activist church minister of the Blantyre synod went underground because of the fear of arrest by President Hastings K. Banda"s security forces. Later he became a member of the Public Affairs Committee (PAC), a founder of the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD), and then a leading official of the United Democratic Front (UDF) Party. In 1994, he was appointed amba.s.sador to South Africa and, in 1999, he was elected to the National a.s.sembly as a member for Mulanje Southeast. He became deputy speaker of the National a.s.sembly and then minister of trade and industry. In January 2004, President Bakili Muluzi sacked him from this position and, by 2006, he had lost his influence in national politics. In April 2011, he became a founding executive member of Joyce Banda"s People"s Party.
KALIATI, PATRICIA (1945 ). One of the most prominent female politicians in early 21st century Malawi, Kaliati was born in Mulanje district and trained as a teacher and a community development worker. After teaching at a number of schools, she went into politics in 1999, stood for the Mulanje West const.i.tuency on the United Democratic Front Party ticket, and became a member of the National a.s.sembly. President Bakili Muluzi appointed her as deputy minister of health (20004), deputy minister of national public events (20024), and deputy minister of local government (2004). In the 2004 general elections, she was returned to the National a.s.sembly and appointed as minister of information and tourism. In the following year, she joined President Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika"s new political organization, the Democratic Progressive Party, and retained her portfolio which, in May 2007, was redesignated as minister of information and civic education. After retaining her seat in May 2009, Kaliati was appointed minister of gender, child development, and community. In July 2010, she was dropped from the cabinet and, in the following month, the Anti-Corruption Bureau announced that it was investigating her on alleged corrupt practices. In September the following year, she was reappointed to the cabinet as minister of information and civic education and, in this capacity, she was also to serve at the government"s main spokesperson.
KALILOMBE, REV. PATRICK AUGUSTINE, WF (1933 ). Emeritus bishop of Lilongwe, and the first Malawian clergyman to join the White Fathers order of the Catholic Church, Patrick Kalilombe was born near Mua in Dedza district. He lectured in scripture at Kachebere Major Seminary, where he later became rector of the inst.i.tution. In 1972, he became the first Malawian bishop of Lilongwe diocese, replacing Bishop Joseph Fady, who had headed the Lilongwe diocese since 1951. In 1976, Kalilombe went on leave to lecture and study. Three years later, he resigned as bishop of Lilongwe and began lecturing at the Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham, England. A frequent commentator and prolific writer on Christian churches in Africa, Bishop Kalilombe remains one of the most highly respected theologians in Africa. Although now retired, he continues to write, and his many publications include Black Catholics Speak: Reflections on Experience, Faith, and Theology (1991) and Doing Theology at the Gra.s.sroots: Theological Essays from Malawi (1999).
KALINGA, JATO VINCENT DADEYO MSULA (19222001). The first Malawian executive secretary of the Christian Service Committee of the Churches of Malawi (CSC), Jato Kalinga was born at Bupigu in Ulambya, Chitipa district, in September 1922. He attended local schools before going to Mwenilondo in Karonga and Livingstonia, where he qualified as a teacher. He taught at Livingstonia and in Chitipa. In 1949, he was in the early group of the new higher grade teachers" course at Domasi and, upon graduation two years later, was appointed headmaster of Ulambya Primary School, the only full primary school in the old Karonga district in 1951. In 1955, Kalinga became a.s.sistant inspector of schools, first stationed at Mzuzu and, a year later, at Karonga. From 1957 to 1958, he studied at Bristol University, England, and for the next seven years was the inspector of schools for Karonga district, and then district education officer. He also worked at Mzimba and at the Ministry of Education headquarters before becoming regional education officer for the north; he served in the same capacity in the central and southern regions. In 1972, Kalinga retired from the civil service and joined the Christian Service Committee as administrative secretary; two years later, he took over the headship of the organization from Rev. Thomas Colvin. He retired from the CSC in 1978 to farm in Chitipa and became active in the Livingstonia synod. He died at Karonga on 28 August 2001.
KALONGA. This was the t.i.tle of the rulers of the Maravi state system. In everyday chiChewa, it means leader.
KALUA, BENNY KAVINS KAMLEPO. This former employee of Malawi Hotels Ltd. became famous in 1991 and 1992 when, as an exile in South Africa, he used Channel Africa of the South African Broadcasting Corporation to campaign against Dr. Hastings Banda"s government. He became leader of the Malawi Democratic Party (MDP) and was its presidential candidate in 1994, receiving 0.52 percent of the vote. In 1999, he stood again as the MDP"s candidate for the presidency and, as in 1994, only a small percentage voted for him. In 2004, he stood unsuccessfully as a member of Parliament for Rumphi East. He has remained active in national politics.
KALULUMA. Located in northern Kasungu district, this area is ruled by chiefs of the same name. The original Kaluluma, part of the Maravi expansion in the 17th century, settled among Tumbuka clans, including the Kanyinji, Nyirongo, and Zimba, all of whom lived without central authority. In spite of resistance, Kaluluma eventually succeeded in establishing himself as the new ruler of the area.
KAMENYA BROTHERS. This was an a cappella group from Dedza district comprising diehard Malawi Congress Party (MCP) loyalists who would sing for Dr. Hastings Banda whenever he toured the central region. Their lyrics almost always threatened death to people, especially those like Kanyama Chiume, who were in exile and were suspected of plotting against Banda and his MCP government.
KAMUNGU, LEONARD MATTIYA (18771913). One of the first African clergymen of the Universities" Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), Kamungu was born at Mayendayenda in Chia, on the eastern side of Lake Malawi. When the UMCA opened a school at Chia in 1887, Kamungu was among its initial pupils, and one of his teachers was Augustine Ambali. He later went to the Likoma Island school, which had been recently established by Rev. Chauncy Maples. In 1890, he was baptized and took the name Matthias; in the same year, he and a group of other African students left for St. Andrews, Kiungani, Zanzibar, for further education. He completed his studies at St. Andrews in 1897 and returned to Likoma as an a.s.sistant to Rev. Arthur Glossop, who had arrived on the island four years earlier.
Toward the end of the following year, Bishop John Edward Hine made him reader, and in 1899, Kamungu and a few others returned to Kiungani to prepare for the deaconate. He returned from Zanzibar at the end of 1900 and was posted to Mponda"s area at the southern tip of Lake Nyasa to teach and gain some pastoral experience. In November 1902, Bishop Gerard Trower ordained Kamungu as deacon, with the ceremony taking place at Chia. Thereafter, he worked at Lungwena and Fort Maguire, mainly Yao and Islamic areas, at Nkhotakota, and, from 1911, at Msoro near Chipata in the Luangwa Valley, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). A few years before going to Msoro, Kamungu had been ordained and, throughout his life, he stuck to his vows of celibacy, which he had taken before Bishop Hine when he became deacon. On 27 February 1913, Father Leonard Kamungu and his cook died, apparently from poisoning. The Anglican community still regards him as one of the most devoted clergymen to work in the Lake MalawiZambezia region, and in 1969, the synod of the diocese of Malawi declared him a martyr.
KAMUZU ACADEMY. Located at Mtunthama, Hastings K. Banda"s birthplace, named after him and modeled on English public schools, the academy was established as a high school for exceptional students. In Banda"s time, one girl and two boys from each district of the country were selected to attend the school, and the fees were paid by the government. Students had to pa.s.s the national primary school examination with a very high grade. Others had to write an entry examination set by the school. Built with government money, its board of governors, the headmaster, and the teaching staff had to be personally approved by Dr. Banda. The board, always headed by a Malawian, was international in composition but the teaching staff was exclusively of European origin, mostly British, because Banda believed that most Africans did not understand Latin and ancient Greek, a prerequisite for appointment to a teaching job. Banda insisted that students at the academy had to be taught cla.s.sics, which he argued was an essential part of a good education. The salaries of teachers and the general conditions of employment were much better than those of teachers in government schools and in the University of Malawi.
Since the change of government in 1994, the Kamuzu Academy has received less government subventions, has Malawian teachers, and charges very high fees. Students still write qualifying examinations but, since only those who can afford the fees apply, it is increasingly becoming a school for the elite in Malawi and neighboring countries such as Zambia and Tanzania. President Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika has returned to the original system, sending two students from every district annually to the academy at government expense.
KAMUZU COLLEGE OF NURSING. See EDUCATION; UNIVERSITY OF MALAWI.
KAMWAMBI, GARNET THOMAS NGUBOLA. Author and a leading commentator on Malawi public affairs, Kamwambi was born in Karonga district and, after graduating from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, in the late 1960s, he worked as a statistician in the Malawi government"s Department of Statistical Surveys. From the early 1970s to early 1994, he worked outside Malawi, mostly for the United Nations Population Fund. During Bakili Muluzi"s presidency, Kamwambi was a member of the Malawi Electoral Commission. In February 2010, the police arrested Kamwambi at Karonga boma and took him to the police headquarters in Lilongwe where the inspector general of police, Peter Mukhito, questioned him in connection with his recently published book The Real State of the Malawi Nation 50 Years after 1958, in which he criticized government policies, including the quota system. He was sent back to Karonga where he was to report to the police once every month, and was warned that he faced the possibility of being charged with sedition.
KAMWANA, ELLIOT. See CHIRWA, ELIOT MUSOKWA KAMWANA.
KAMWANA, MAC J. (19351984). The first Malawian head of the Malawi police force and son of a much respected Dutch Reformed Church clergyman, Mac Kamwana was born at Kamwana, Dowa district, on 26 June 1935. He went to local primary schools before attending Kongwe Secondary School and went on to the Police Training College (PTC) in 1953. A bright and dedicated policemen, he became a tutor at the police school from 1957 to 1962. Kamwana served in various districts before returning to the PTC four years later, this time as supervisor of the advanced training wing. In 1967, he was promoted to the rank of superintendent and was also appointed deputy commandant of the college; in the following year, he completed a course at the Scottish Police College at Tulliallan and, upon his return to Malawi, he took command of the PTC, becoming the first Malawian to do so.
In 1969, Kamwana was promoted to senior superintendent and moved to the southern division as second in charge. A year later he was promoted again, this time to a.s.sistant commissioner of police, administration. After attending a command course in Great Britain later that year, he received yet another promotion, as deputy commissioner of police. In 1972, Kamwana was appointed commissioner of police, the first Malawian to head the nation"s police force. By the time he retired in 1982, the position of commissioner had been redesignated as inspector general of police.
KAMWENDO, JOHN (1936?). John Kamwendo became a youth activist in the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) and its successor, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Later, he worked for the MCP headquarters and even managed the party newspaper, the Malawi News. In 1967, Kamwendo was elected mayor of Blantyre, becoming the first African to occupy this position. He was also group general manager of the Press Holdings Group of companies and, when he lost that position in late 1974, he became an independent businessman.
KAMWENDO, MIKE. Educated in the United States, singer, writer, and journalist, Mike Kamwendo returned to Malawi in 1972 to work as a producer for the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). In 1976, he joined the Blantyre Newspapers, and a year later, he was appointed editor of the Malawi News. In January 1979, he became managing editor of the Blantyre Newspapers, which now incorporated the Daily Times and the Malawi News. In the mid-1980s, Kamwendo became an independent journalist, although he returned to the Blantyre Newspapers for a brief period. In the 1990s, he became editor of the Daily Times again, and, by 2005, he was a public relations officer in the office of the president and cabinet. In 2006, he was transferred to the Ministry of Information and Civic Education, where he became director of public relations.
KANADA. Famous head of the guerrilla-type force behind Henry Chipembere"s attempt to overthrow Hastings K. Banda"s government in 1965. Like Medson Silombela, government forces found Kanada elusive, and security captured him only after he had killed a man at his girlfriend"s home.
KANDODO. A chain of retail stores, which, by the late 1950s, had been set up in most parts of Malawi, thereby establishing major compet.i.tion with the Mandala stores of the African Lakes Company (ALC) and with Asian retail shop owners. Kandodo"s parent group was the London & Blantyre Supply Company, a general dealer and import and export firm, which began operation in Malawi in the mid-1920s. In the early 1970s, most Kandodo stores were taken over by Press Holdings, a predecessor of Press Corporation Ltd., and by the late 1990s, those in BlantyreLimbe, Zomba, and Lilongwe closed. The name Kandodo derives from the walking stick (ndodo) that one of the first Europeans a.s.sociated with the firm used.
KANDONDO, KEN EDWARD. Grandnephew of Hastings K. Banda and Malawi"s minister of finance since June 2009, he broke with the family"s long relationship with the Malawi Congress Party and joined the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika in 2006. In the May 2009 elections, he successfully contested the Kasungu central const.i.tuency on the DPP ticket and, in June, became minister of finance, replacing Goodall Gondwe. Prior to becoming a member of the National a.s.sembly, Kandodo, an accountant trained in Great Britain, was head of the National Food Reserve Agency. In Sepember 2011, Kandondo was dropped from the cabinet.
KANTIKI, MATHIAS. This author, educationist, noted authority on chiChewa, and Catholic layman was born in Ntcheu district and was one of the first students at the Catholic Secondary School in Zomba. He trained as a teacher and, in 1948, was among the first Malawians to attend an education course at the Inst.i.tute of Education in London. On his return, he was appointed inspector of schools and served in the Department of Education until he retired in a senior capacity in 1972. Kantiki also served as education secretary general for the Catholic Church in Malawi.
KANSILANGA, REV. MISANJO. This former senior clerk of the general synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian became a major player in the democratization of Malawi in the early 1990s. As secretary of the Public Affairs Committee (PAC), he was central in the communications between the government, on the one hand, and the churches and the general public, on the other.
KANYAYA, ADAMSON AKOGO (1930 ). Politician and leader of the Malawi Democratic Union (MDU), Kanyaya was born in Mulare, Karonga district. He attended schools in Karonga and Livingstonia and studied by correspondence for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) O level. He worked as a civil servant, mainly in various clerical jobs, and in 1958 returned to his home district where he became a political activist and was elected district secretary of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC). He was detained during Operation Sunrise and spent a year and a half at Khami prison in Southern Rhodesia. Upon his release, he was employed by the Kilupula Rice Growers Co-operative Union. From July 1961 to July 1962, Kanyaya studied at the Lakehead College of Art, Science and Technology, Port Arthur, Canada. In 1963, he was elected as a member of Parliament for Karonga South. Following the Cabinet Crisis of 1964, he went into exile in Zambia. Later he trained in guerrilla warfare and, in 1967, was one of the people who formed the Yatuta Chisiza group that tried to overthrow Hastings Banda"s government. He escaped capture and went to Zambia. In 1993, Kanyaya returned to Malawi as leader of the Malawi Democratic Union and contested the elections in the following year. He lost but was appointed to the cabinet for just over two years, and soon afterward retired from active politics.
KANYENDA. This is the t.i.tle of the rulers of the northern lakesh.o.r.e area of Nkhotakota district. The original Kanyenda arrived in the region, probably toward the end of the 16th or early 17th century as part of the Maravi expansion. He and Kabunduli went northward. The latter moved beyond the Luweya River to the region bordering the Viphya Highlands, settling among the Tonga and some Tumbuka speakers. Kanyenda settled in the southern Tonga area.
KANYUMBA, LUCIUS GRANDSON (1972 ). Businessman, farmer, member of the National a.s.sembly for Ntcheu Bwanje South, Kanyumba was educated at St. Kizito Seminary in Dedza district and at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, majoring in biology. He went on to graduate school, obtaining an MSc in environmental sciences in 1995. Later, he returned to the University of Malawi to study environmental science and received his PhD. In 1995, Kanyumba became a teacher at Balaka Secondary School and, the following year, he was appointed as the executive director of the Andiamo Youth Cooperative Trust, a Catholic Church development agency based at Balaka. In 2005, he joined the new Democratic Progressive Party, and in 2008 became its governor for the eastern region (Mangochi, Balaka, Machinga, and Zomba). In February 2009, Kanyumba was elevated to the National Governing Council of the party, where he occupied the office of second director of youth. In May of that year, he won the Ntcheu Bwanje South const.i.tuency and in June was appointed minister of youth development and sports. On 7 September 2011, he became minister of labour.
KAPALEPALE. See LIKAYA-MBEWE, SMART.
KAPENI. A township in Blantyre that derives its name from the Yao chief, Kapeni, who ruled the Blantyre area in the years before the Europeans arrived. It was Chief Kapeni who in 1876 played host to Henry Henderson and his guide, Tom Bokwito, and directed them to the site where the Blantyre Mission was built. Of the Mangoche section of the Yao, Kapeni himself had in the late 1860s wrestled free from the indigenous Mang"anja ruler, Kankomba.
KAPHWITI. Sometime in the 16th century, Kaphwiti and his sibling, Lundu, spearheaded the Maravi expansion southward to the Lower Shire region. Initially, Kaphwiti, senior to Lundu, set up his headquarters at Malawi-ya-Kaphwiti on the Mkurumadzi River, but later moved to Mbewe-ya-Nyungu, from where he ruled most of the Lower Shire Valley. However, in the last quarter of the 16th century, Kaphwiti lost most of his authority to Lundu who, most likely determined to control the ivory trade, expanded westward to the Lolo and Makua country in the west and the Sena area southward toward the confluence of the Shire and Zambezi rivers.
KAPITO, JOHN (1955 ). Leading consumer advocate in postHastings Banda Malawi, John Kapito is the executive director of the Consumers a.s.sociation of Malawi (CAMA) and a founding board member of Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN). Kapito is an outspoken tobacco control advocate and a persistent campaigner against smoking and the reliance of Malawi on a tobacco-based economy, which, according to his organization, tends to give undue influence to the tobacco industry. He has also been critical of child labor in Malawi and, in 2006, President Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika appointed him as one of the six commissioners of the Malawi Human Rights Commission.
KAPOCHE. The region around this tributary of the Zambezi River const.i.tuted the core of Undi"s authority.
KARIM, ZEENAT JANET. Fearless journalist and founding editor of the Independent, Janet Karim, daughter of Wales Nyemba Mbekeani, accompanied her father to different parts of the world where he was in the diplomatic service. In the 1970s, she attended the University of Malawi, graduating with a BA (Hons.) degree. She worked for various organizations and, when the political atmosphere began to change in Malawi, Karim founded the Independent, which became a major critic of government policies. In the early 2000s, she worked as an independent consultant in media and gender, was an activist in the Society of Women Living with AIDS, founded the Malawi Media Women"s a.s.sociation (MAMWA), and, with the help of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), established the Dzimwe Community Radio. She also became a talk show host for Capital Radio and, in 2007, she accepted a government diplomatic appointment.
KARONGA. Home of the Ngonde people located on the northwestern sh.o.r.es of Lake Malawi, the name Karonga derives from one of the princ.i.p.al houses of the Ngonde royal family. Karonga is the name of the district as well as that of the boma. In the southern section of the district live the Tumbuka-speaking peoples under the Mwafulirwa; other Tumbuka speakers live in the Kaporo area in the north and near the boma itself. In the 1880s, Karonga became a trading base of the Swahili-Arab, Mlozi bin Kazbadema; it also became the site for a Free Church of Scotland mission station, a major commercial post of the African Lakes Company (ALC), and the eastern terminus of the Stevenson Road, which connected lakes Malawi and Tanganyika. Karonga was also the site of the conflict between the British and the Swahili-Arabs (see ARAB-SWAHILI WAR). The North Nyasa Native a.s.sociation, the first welfare and political organization in the country, was formed at Karonga in 1912. A major rice and cotton growing district, Karonga was also the home of the Kilupula Rice Growers Co-operative Union. It has a small airport and, in recent years, has been the location of the Karonga Rural Development Project, which seeks to improve yields of rice, maize, cotton, and groundnuts. See also AFRICAN WELFARE a.s.sOCIATIONS.
KARONGA WAR. See ARAB-SWAHILI WAR.
KASISI (RAMAKUKAN). Kasisi, also known as Ramakukan, was one of the Kololo from Barotseland who was recruited by Dr. David Livingstone in the 1850s and eventually stationed in the Lower Shire where he emerged as a major political force, establishing authority over the indigenous Mang"anja. Like Chipatula, he also became very involved in economic activities such as the ivory trade, selling most of the elephant tusks to the African Lakes Company and other British businesspeople who were operating in the region during the 1870s. Kasisi"s relations with the Portuguese and their Chikunda retainers were uneasy and, in the 1880s, he sided with the British in their struggle with the Portuguese over control of the Lake MalawiShire area.
KASUNGU. Located about 80 miles northwest of Nkhotakota, Kasungu is the name of the town and the district of the birthplace of Dr. Hastings Banda, the first president of Malawi, and of Rev. Hanock Phiri, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Malawi. Kasungu district is one of the major tobacco-growing areas of Malawi. West of the Kasungu boma is the Kasungu National Park, the largest game reserve in Malawi. Kasungu is also the home of the Kamuzu Academy.
In the 19th century, Kasungu was on the main ivoryslave trade route between Nkhotakota on Lake Malawi and the Luangwa Valley. Chulu, the most senior Chewa ruler in Kasungu, was defeated by Zwengendaba during the Ngoni journey northward. Chulu"s defeat led to the emergence of Mwase Kasungu in the 1850s as the powerful chief of the area because he showed that he was prepared to provide protection when Chulu was unable to do so. In 1863, David Livingstone visited Mwase and, in 1890, Karl Wiese, representing the Portuguese, was a guest of the chief; it was Mwase who signed a treaty with Alfred Sharpe, the British vice consul, following his defeat by British forces in 1895.
KATENGA, BRIDGER (19261975). Former diplomat and senior civil servant, Bridger Katenga was born in 1926, went to school in Ndola, Zambia, and then attended the Hofmeyr School of Social Welfare in Johannesburg, South Africa. Subsequently, he worked as a welfare officer and probation officer in the colonial civil service in Malawi. Upon independence in 1964, Katenga was appointed Malawi"s amba.s.sador to Ethiopia and, later, to the United Nations. On his return to Malawi he became permanent secretary for community development and social welfare. His last position was general manager and chief liaison officer of the MalawiCanada Railway Project, which oversaw the building of the railway line between the lakesh.o.r.e at Salima and the new capital at Lilongwe. See also KATENGA-KAUNDA, REID WILLIE.
KATENGA-KAUNDA, REID WILLIE (19292004). One of the founders of the United Democratic Front (UDF), long the party"s secretary general, and chief of staff at Nsanjika Palace during Bakili Muluzi"s presidency, Katenga-Kaunda was born in Ndola, Zambia, where his father, Gibson Amon Katenga-Kaunda, was a teacher. After Ndola Secondary School, Reid Katenga-Kaunda, brother of Bridger Katenga, returned to Malawi and worked at the Kota Kota Rice Co-operative Society. In 1963, he became one of the first students to attend the administrative officer"s course at the Inst.i.tute of Public Administration, Mpemba, and upon completion in the following year, he was appointed district commissioner for Karonga, the first African to occupy that position. He spent a year at Trinity College, Oxford, after which he would hold many senior government administrative offices, including serving, twice, as high commissioner to the United Kingdom. From 1966 to 1968, he was a member of Parliament. One of the most highly regarded senior civil servants and diplomats, Katenga-Kaunda fell from President Hastings Banda"s favor in 1973 and was placed under house arrest for a year. In 1975, he left the civil service and went into business. In the early 1990s, he was among the major advocates of change, and, later, he stood, unsuccessfully, for the National a.s.sembly as a UDF candidate. He became a political advisor to President Bakili Muluzi and secretary general of the UDF.
KATENGEZA, REV. NAMON. In 1924, Namon Katengeza was one of the first Africans to be ordained minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. Before training for the church ministry, he taught at several schools, including in Nkhoma and Kongwe. As a minister he served in many parts of the central region of Malawi, including Lilongwe, the district of his birth. In 1944, Katengeza dictated notes to Samuel Ntara on Chewa history, which formed the basis of Mbiri ya Chewa (1965), a cla.s.sic in Malawi"s precolonial history. The Namon Katengeza Lay Training Centre at Linthipe, Dedza, in the heartland of the Nkhoma synod, is named in his honor. Among his many children was Richard Develius Katengeza, the first Malawian executive chairman of the Farmers Marketing Board.
KATENGEZA, RICHARD DEVELIUS. This politician, businessman, farmer, administrator and son of Rev. Namon Katengeza, was born in Lilongwe district, and went to local primary schools before working for Du Toit and Du Preeze Flour Mills. Katengeza was an active member of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) and, in 1956, unsuccessfully attempted to secure the party"s nomination for a seat in the Legislative Council. However, in 1961, he was elected to Parliament but, after a short time, he was appointed chairman of the Farmers Marketing Board (see AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING CORPORATION), the first Malawian to hold the position. Later still, he became chairman of Malawi Railways. Katengeza died in the early 1980s.
KATSONGA, CHESTER (19121986). This flamboyant businessman and controversial politician was one of the numerous Blantyre-Limbebased African entrepreneurs who emerged in the postwar period. Katsonga was mostly in the grocery and catering business, supplying food at meetings of the Provincial Council and opening food outlets in places such as the Nyasaland Railway station, Blantyre, and at the central market in that city. In 1953, he branched out into the bar business, becoming the first African to own a legally sanctioned bar in urban Nyasaland. Later, he opened the famous Helen"s Bar outside Zomba. Like most Blantyre businessmen, Katsonga became active in nationalist politics, rising to the position of branch chairman of the Nyasaland African Council (NAC). In October 1960, he and Gilbert Pondeponde formed the Christian Democratic Party (CDP), for which he was much criticized and ostracized by the mainstream nationalist politicians. The Catholic Church was accused of supporting Katsonga and, because of this, the Malawi Congress Party"s (MCP) paper, the Malawi News, attacked it strongly. In 1961, the CDP and Thamar D. T. Banda"s Congress Liberation Party (CLP) merged to form the Christian Liberation Party. The new party failed to win seats in the 1961 elections, marking its virtual demise. However, from then onward, Katsonga concentrated on his commercial interests, including his drinking establishments, such as the popular Chester"s Bar on the periphery of Zomba.
KATUMBI, CHIEF. See CHAWINGA, TIMOTHY, THEMBA KATUMBI.
KAUNDA, BILLY (1974 ). Businessman and engineering contractor, Kaunda is mostly a.s.sociated with the arts. A popular musician nationally and in the southern African region, he gravitated toward politics in the early 2000s and, in 2004, he successfully contested the Blantyre city southeast const.i.tuency as an independent. In 2005, he joined the Democratic Progressive Party and two years later, Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika appointed him as deputy minister of tourism, wildlife, and culture. In May 2009, he was reelected to the National a.s.sembly, this time as a member for the Mzimba West const.i.tuency, and became deputy minister of youth development and sports.
KAUNDA, DAVID JULIZYA (18781932). Father of Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia"s first president, David Kaunda was one of the first Nyasaland people trained at the Overtoun Inst.i.tution to be sent to Northern Rhodesia as evangelists and teachers. Son of Mtepa Kaunda and NyaChirwa, David was born in the modern Nkhata Bay district, but, at the age of 17, his mother, widowed after her husband died in battle, took her children to Elangeni, an important Ngoni settlement, which had also become a major center of Livingstonia Mission activity. One of the lay missionaries of the area was the South African William Koyi. David went to school at Elangeni and Ekwendeni before attending the Overtoun Inst.i.tution, where he trained as a teacher and also met a Karonga girl, Helen Nyirenda, sister of Robert Gwebe Nyirenda. They married in 1905 and had eight children, the youngest being Kenneth, who was born in 1924. In 1904, David Kaunda had been sent to the Chinsali area in Bemba country, Northern Rhodesia, an area where the Livingstonia Mission had been active since 1894 when they opened a mission station at Mwezo in the nearby Namw.a.n.ga-Mabwe region. In 1927, David Kaunda went back to the Overtoun to train as a minister and was ordained three years later. He died at his Lubwa base.
KAUNDA, WEDSON CHALULUMA (19211985). This politician and former sergeant at arms in the first African-dominated Parliament was born at Lusangazi, near Mzuzu, in 1921, and educated at Ekwendeni and Livingstonia, where he qualified as a teacher in 1943. He taught briefly and then left for South Africa where he worked as a clerk in the city of Port Elizabeth. On his return in 1949, he joined politics, becoming secretary of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) at Ekwendeni and, five years later, becoming a member of the Northern Province Provincial Council. In 1956, he lost the NAC"s candidacy for the Legislative Council (LEGCO) to William M. Kanyama Chiume but remained active in provincial politics. A close confidant of Mkhosi Lazalo Jere, the Inkosi ya Makhosi M"mbelwa II, Kaunda became deputy and then full sergeant at arms in 1961 in the LEGCO. Three years later, he trained as a magistrate, a position he held until his retirement in the 1970s.
KAWINGA. Of the Machinga branch of the Yao, the Kawingas settled in the area east of Lake Malombe, but their authority extended to most of today"s Machinga district and the southern part of Mangochi district. From his seat at Chikala Hill, Chief Kawinga in the 1880s and 1890s, strongly resisted British rule, at times fighting them directly, and at other times joining forces with other Yao chieftaincies. After the British defeated Makanjila in 1894, Kawinga, Jalasi, and Matipwiri jointly mounted an attack on the British in February of the following year, with a view to expelling them from the region. However, in September, Sir Harry Johnston and his Sikh soldiers fought back, ending the Yao aspirations.
KAWOMBA. Chewa chieftainship in Kasungu district established during the expansion of the Maravi state. In 1973, President Hastings Banda deposed Chief Mwase Kasungu as the senior chief in the area and replaced him with Kawomba. Although Mwase such as Themba Katumbi and Kyungu Raphael K. Mwakasungula lost their positions as traditional rulers because they had supported the return of Wellington M. Chirwa, Banda went further by directing that Mwase be replaced by someone from a ruling house other than that of the Mwase Kasungu. According to Banda"s understanding of Chewa traditions, the house of Mwase Kasungu was junior to that of Kawomba. For Banda, the change was also determined by historical fact. Chief Kawomba has continued to be one of the most influential traditional rulers in Malawi.
KAYIRA, LEGSON. Malawian author born in Wenya, Chitipa, Legson Kayira went to local schools and to the Livingstonia Secondary School where he completed Form 2. In 1958, he left for the United States where he attended Skagit Valley College and then the University of Washington, Seattle, where in 1965 he graduated with a BA, majoring in political science. In the same year, he won a scholarship to Cambridge University where he studied history for two years, after which he worked in London, mostly in the Home Office. His books include I Will Try (1965), The Looming Shadow (1967), Jingala (1969), and The Civil Servant (1971), all in the Heinemann African Writers Series. See also LITERATURE.
KAYIRA, REV. ANDREW D. Church minister at Karonga from 1950 to the late 1970s, Andrew Kayira was born in Wenya, Chitipa district. He trained as a teacher at the Overtoun Inst.i.tution and taught at several schools, including Mwenelondo, Karonga. In the late 1940s, he completed theological courses and, in 1950, was appointed to the Karonga Mission station. In 1959, the governor nominated Kayira to the Legislative Council (LEGCO); although he did not accept the position, he was not spared from the anger of some nationalist political activists. They burned the manse and he lost most of his property. He remained pastor in charge of the Karonga congregation until 1980 when he returned to Wenya. He died in the early 2000s.
KAZEMBE EUNICE (1952 ). One of the most accomplished women in post-Banda Malawi, Eunice Kazembe has undergraduate and graduate qualifications in business administration and has worked in public service in different capacities, including as the general manager of the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMARC) and as Malawi"s amba.s.sador to the Republic of China. Affiliated with the United Democratic Party, she joined the Democratic Progressive Party in 2005 and was appointed chief advisor to the president on urban development. In May 2009, Kazembe was elected as a member of the National a.s.sembly for Mulanje South and entered the cabinet as minister of trade and industry, a position she held until August 2011 when she was dropped from the cabinet.
KAZIWIZIWI. Located southwest of Khondowe and forming part of the Nyika highlands, Kaziwiziwi has, since the 1980s, become one of the main coal producing areas in Malawi.
KERR CROSS, DAVID (18561935). David Kerr Cross was an ordained Scottish medical doctor who went to the Lake Malawi region in 1885 to work at the Livingstonia Mission. He was posted to Ncherenje in Mwenewanda, Ulambya, in today"s Chitipa district, where he joined Rev. Alexander Bain. Chosen partly because it was on the Stevenson Road, connecting lakes Malawi and Tanganyika, the site was not a particularly healthy one and, in 1886, his wife, Christina, died. When the church abandoned Ncherenje in 1889, he moved to Karonga where he was a pastor, teacher, and doctor. In 1896, he joined government service, working in Zomba and Blantyre before going to practice medicine in Durban, South Africa, in 1902. Dr. Kerr Cross was the first person to produce a medical report on the Karonga lakesh.o.r.e. Among the common diseases he had encountered were malaria, smallpox, goiter, syphilis (which he mostly a.s.sociated with the Swahili-Arabs), epilepsy, and meningitis; he also saw some cases of elephantiasis and filariasis, but no cases of tuberculosis. He died in December 1935 at Sevenoaks, England.
KETTLEWELL, RICHARD WILDMAN (19101994). Director of agriculture from 1950 to 1959 and secretary for natural resources from 1959 to 1962, Kettlewell was one of the most influential civil servants in late colonial Malawi. Born in England in 1910 and educated at Cambridge University, Kettlewell joined the colonial service in Nyasaland as an agricultural officer in 1934. Like many government employees, he saw service in World War II. He served in different parts of the colony and, in 1951, Governor Geoffrey Colby appointed him to head the Agriculture Department. In 1959, he was secretary for natural resources, the position from which he retired in 1962. In the period 195762, Kettlewell also served as a member of the Executive Council. His Agricultural Change in Nyasaland remains one of the most useful publications on the history of agriculture in colonial Malawi.
KHANGA, MELVIN MALUDI (?1996). Born in Ntcheu district and educated at Malamulo, Khanga was trained at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, England, where in the early 1960s he was also commissioned as a lieutenant, becoming one of the first local officers in the Malawi army. Known as a hardworking, professional soldier, he served as aid-de-camp to President Hastings Banda and quickly rose in the ranks. By the late 1980s, he was a full general and, in 1980, he took over from General Graciano Matewere as commanding officer of the Malawi army, a position he held until he retired in 1992. Independent-minded and highly respected by officers and men, Lt. Gen. Khanga steered the army through difficult times, including its involvement in guarding the Nacala rail line from the Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana (RENAMO) guerrilla fighters. In 1994, he was appointed chairman of the board of Air Malawi.
KHONDOWE. In 1894, Dr. Robert Laws decided to locate the Overtoun Inst.i.tution of the Livingstonia Mission of the Free Church of Scotland on the Khondowe plateau, east of Nyika, overlooking Lake Malawi. This became one of the largest, most productive and influential educational centers in southern Africa. The Livingstonia synod moved its headquarters to Mzuzu, and Khondowe is now the home of the Livingstonia University.
KHONJE, NELSON (1923?). Speaker of the National a.s.sembly from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, Khonje was born in Mwanza district. He went to local Seventh-Day Adventist schools and, after completing a teachers course, he taught at several schools in the southern region. In the early 1960s, he spent a year studying in Scotland. He taught at Masongola Secondary School, Zomba, and, in 1965, became headmaster of Ntcheu Secondary School; he was later transferred to Ntchisi Day Secondary School. In 1971, Khonje entered Parliament as member for Mwanza and was subsequently appointed deputy speaker of Parliament and then speaker from 1975 to 1987.
KHULUBVI. This is the M"bona Shrine on the west bank of the Shire River, near Nsanje boma, originally established by the Kapwiti dynasty but later taken over by Lundu.
KILEKWA, PETRO. This remarkable Universities" Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) priest was born Chilekwa, probably in the Lake Banguelo area of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), where as a young boy he was captured by slavers and taken to the east coast where he and other captives boarded an Arab dhow bound for the Persian Gulf. A British patrol boat, the HMS Osprey, rescued them on the third day of the voyage; they were taken to Zanzibar, where on 30 September 1887, he and other boys were handed over to St. Andrew"s College, the UMCA establishment at Kiungani. Two years later, Chilekwa was baptized Petro Kilekwa. In 1895, he was posted to teach at Masasi in southern Tanganyika, but, within a short time, he returned to a.s.sist at the school at Kiungani. In January 1897, he married Beatrice Myororo, a Yao who had in 1881 been rescued from a slave dhow and taken care of by women missionaries of the UMCA at Nkun.a.z.ini and Mbwini. She too was a teacher, having qualified in the same year as Petro.
After their marriage, Kilekwa expressed interest in working in the Lake Malawi region and, in April 1899, the Kilekwas arrived on Likoma Island. Petro was sent to a school at Ntonya in Nkhotakota; in 1906, he pa.s.sed the reader"s examinations and, five years later, he became a deacon. Between 1915 and 1917, he was at Likoma studying for the priesthood and, after his ordination, he became a priest at Kayoyo. Kilekwa served in other parishes before retiring at Mkope Hill.
KILUPULA, CHIEF. See MWANJASI, JOSEPH.
KILUPULA RICE GROWERS CO-OPERATIVE UNION. This union of six rice producing cooperative societies in Chief Kilupula"s area, Karonga district, was formed in 1953. Throughout the 1950s, with its headquarters at Kaporo, it was the largest rice-producing organization in the country, most of its grain being consumed locally but a significant amount being exported to neighboring territories. Its first secretary was Robert Donald Nyirenda, son of Robert Gwebe Nyirenda and, throughout the life of the union, the chairman was Joseph Mwanjasi, Chief Kilupula. The union was liquidated in 1968.
KIMBLE, DAVID BRYANT (19212009). British political scientist and head of the University of Malawi from 1977 to 1986, David Kimble was born in Suss.e.x, England, in 1921, educated at Reading University (BA) and the University of London (PhD). He spent almost all his working life in Africa: University of Ghana, 195162; University of Dar-es-Salaam, 196268; CAFRAD, Morocco, 196871; National University of Lesotho, 197177. Kimble became vice chancellor of the University of Malawi at a time when the inst.i.tution"s morale was low, after many of its local faculty had fallen prey to Hastings Banda"s overzealous security police; some of the university teachers had even been taken as political detainees. Kimble established good working relations with the government and, in the process, some morale returned to the university. The faculty was able to travel abroad to attend conferences and seminars and, subject to censorship laws, were also able to undertake and publish research. From 1978, Kimble was given the responsibility of setting and supervising English exams for all prospective members of Parliament, and this exercise involved most faculty traveling to district headquarters to administer the exams. He retired to England in 1886 and pa.s.sed away in March 2009. Kimble is also known internationally as the founding editor (196097) of the prestigious publication Journal of Modern African Studies.
KINGA. Inhabitants of the Livingstone (Kinga) Mountain range on the northeastern sh.o.r.es of Lake Malawi. From precolonial times to the early 1960s, the Kinga, most famous for their beautifully decorated pots, traded their wares with the Ngonde in exchange for food, which was always plentiful in the latter"s country.
KING"S AFRICAN RIFLES (KAR). See ARMY.
KINYAKYUSA. This is the language of the Nyakyusa of southern Tanzania, and it is basically the same as kyangonde. Church of Scotland missionaries and the Moravian missionaries from Germany translated their language into English and German, respectively.
KIRK, SIR JOHN (18321922). Scottish surgeon, botanist, photographer, traveler, and administrator, this graduate of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary joined David Livingstone"s Zambezi expedition in 1858, at the age of 26, as a plant collector for the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. Kirk visited Zomba Mountain and Lake Chilwa and, in September 1859, he, Livingstone, and a few others walked up the Shire River and then sailed around Lake Malawi as far as Usisya in the north. Besides his botanical interests, Kirk collected many samples of Lake Malawi fish, and he is reported to have been the first person to clinically describe black water fever, which previously had been misidentified as yellow fever. In 1870, Kirk was the British consul general at Zanzibar, and during the 1880s and 1890s, he was a key advisor to the British Foreign Office.
KIRK RANGE. Mountain range named after Sir John Kirk; starts in the Ntcheu area, stretching in a southeasterly direction and basically forms the southwestern border between Mozambique and Malawi.
KITTERMASTER, SIR HAROLD (18791939). The governor of Nyasaland from 1934 to 1939, he died while still in office at Zomba. Kittermaster is much identified with the Lacey Commission and the introduction of the Native Trust Lands of 1936, which transferred most of the Crown land for the sole use of Africans. Previous to working in Nyasaland, he had served in Somaliland and the British Honduras.
KOLOLO. Also known as Magololo, they were a group of people whom Dr. David Livingstone took from Barotseland to the Lower Shire Valley of Malawi where they settled, becoming significant players in the political and economic life of the area. Originally from Sotho, the area west of the Maluti Mountains, which they had left in 1823 during the Lifaqane, and led by the Fokeng chief, Sebituane, they migrated northward to Barotseland, western Zambia, where for a brief period they ruled the area. In 1855, Sebituane"s son and successor, Sekeletu, recommended 112 porters to David Livingstone who left them at Tete while he proceeded on to England. On his return in 1858, he found that many had occupied their time working for the Portuguese in several capacities: canoemen, elephant hunters, gold diggers, porters, among others.
In 1861, some of the Kololo, led by Moloka and Kasisi (also called Ramakukan), decided to remain in the Chikwawa area of the Lower Shire and make it their home. The Kololo had guns, most of which they had received in lieu of pay, and they used them to gain power in this Mang"anja region, which at that time was in a particularly unstable state because of the slave trade and because of the famine of the 1860s. By 1870, they had established political control in the area between Chiromo in the south and Manthiti Falls in the north and divided it into six chieftaincies.
The Kololo stopped slave raids in the area, and they became active elephant hunters and ivory traders and farmers, growing sesame seeds that they sold to Europeans. They had tense relations with the Chikunda and Portuguese on their western borders but, in the main, had cordial dealings with the British. Both the African Lakes Company (ALC) and the Scottish missionaries made treaties with the Kololo; the former depended much on Kololo ivory. However, at times, distrust between them led to conflict, as happened in the incident involving George Fenwick, formerly a lay missionary of the Church of Scotland at Blantyre. During the scramble for Africa in the late 1880s and early 1890s, the British exploited the Kololo"s dislike of the Portuguese to keep the latter out of the southern Lake Malawi area. A significant number of the Kololo would be among the first students at the Blantyre Mission, and some of them became notable residents of the emerging town of Blantyre. See also ANGLOPORTUGUESE TREATY; CHIPATULA.
KOTA KOTA RICE GROWERS CO-OPERATIVE UNION (KKRGCU). Formed in 1962 when the Kota Kota Rice Trading Ltd. closed, the KKRGCU, with the Kilupula Rice Growers Co-operative Union, became the largest rice producers and exporters in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Like most government-affiliated agricultural cooperatives in Malawi, the KKRGCU was liquidated in 1968.
KOTA KOTA RICE TRADING LTD. Planned in 193839 and commencing operations in 1945, this was a government-backed commercial concern that bought paddy rice from producers in the Kota Kota (Nkhotakota) district and processed it for sale within the colony and for export, mainly to Southern and Northern Rhodesia. With modern machinery, it also often processed paddies for the Kilupula Rice Growers Co-operative (KRGCU) Union when their own equipment could not handle the qualities they produced. In addition, it worked hand in hand with the KRGCU in marketing rice of the two organizations. In 1961, it was converted to a cooperative union of the various rice growing a.s.sociations in the district.
KOYI, WILLIAM MTUSANE (18461886). Of Ngqika ethnic affinity and, therefore, a Xhosa speaker, William Koyi was born in the Thomas River area. In 1871, he became a student at Lovedale Missionary Inst.i.tute, and in 1876 was one of the several black South Africans who offered to accompany Dr. James Stewart to the Lake Malawi region to set up the Livingstonia Mission. Koyi"s ability to communicate in both Xhosa and Zulu was an advantage the missionaries utilized in their determined effort to establish their presence among the Ngoni. Koyi, an all-around handyman, played many roles: interpreter, advisor on Ngoni and African customs, diplomat, teacher, and preacher. Although there were European missionaries resident in Ngoni country, Koyi, later based at Njuyu, was effectively the princ.i.p.al missionary to the court of M"belwa and other Ngoni chiefs between 1878 and 1885, when Dr. Walter Elmslie arrived in the area. He played the same role with the Chikusi Ngoni of Ntcheu when the Livingstonia Mission was based at Cape Maclear in the period 187682. Much loved by the Ngoni and respected by all those who knew him, Koyi died of tuberculosis in 1886. He was certainly the best known of the Lovedale missionaries; the others were Shadrach Ngunana, Isaac Williams Wauchope, Mapas Ntintili, and George Williams.
KUFA, JOHN GRAY (?1915). John Chilembwe"s second in command, Kufa was born at Kongone, on the Zambezi River, where, in 1885, he joined a party of missionaries bound for Blantyre. In 1892, he was one of 11 Africans to be ordained deacons and, within a few years, he became the first African to train as a medical a.s.sistant, pa.s.sing his elementary surgery examinations with distinction. He a.s.sumed the position of chief medical a.s.sistant in the Blantyre Mission dispensary. In 1896, Kufa was posted to Mulumbo in Mozambique to start a substation of the Blantyre Mission, and in 1900, when the Portuguese authorities successfully claimed the area as part of their colony, the Church of Scotland recalled Kufa, closing down the young church establishment.
Kufa left the mission and, for a time, worked at the A. L. Bruce dispensary at Magomero. However, he was now also preoccupied with the 140-acre estate he started at Nsoni where he grew cotton, maize, and tobacco, employing 27 workers. He also grew fruits and raised livestock. Kufa had maintained his contact with Mulumbo and, as the number of Lomwe from that side of the Nyasaland border migrating into the Shire Highlands increased, some of them settled in his Nsoni neighborhood. Many of the Lomwe immigrants knew him, and a significant number would be converted to John Chilembwe"s religious and political beliefs. Kufa and Chilembwe were longtime friends and were in the group of close confidants who planned the 1915 uprising. Kufa was captured on 28 January, five days after the uprising started and, with Stephen Mkulitchi, was hanged in Blantyre in February.
KULUNJIRI, KINROSS W. Businessman and politician, Kulunjiri was briefly secretary general of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) in the early 1950s. He and Mikeka Mkandawire were friends and were considered to be radicals in the NAC. They were against the slow pace toward decolonization as advocated by moderates such as Wellington Manoah Chirwa, James R. N. Chinyama, and Charles Matinga, and they welcomed the younger generation of leaders, including Henry B. M. Chipembere and M. W. Kanyama Chiume, whose ideas were similar to theirs. Kulunjiri worked for the Nyasaland Times and was also a brick maker and founder of the African Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
k.u.mBIKANO, CLEMENT. This former leading Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) politician became a member of the Federal Parliament in December 1953 and refused to withdraw from it when his party asked him to do so. In 1952, he had been part of the delegation of Nyasaland Africans to attend the London conference on the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and, with others, boycotted the official talks at the advice of Dr. Hastings K. Banda. Expelled from the NAC in 1957, he and Wellington Manoah Chirwa remained in the Federal a.s.sembly until the early 1960s. The Malawi Congress Party (MCP) shunned and demonized them, making sure that they had no place in independent Malawi, and they both went into exile.
k.u.mBWENZA, JEREMIA T. (1925?). Former regional minister for the central region, k.u.mbwenza was born at Mitundu, Lilongwe district. He attended local Dutch Reformed Church Schools and, while working as a timber salesman, he studied bookkeeping by correspondence course. In 1951, he joined the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) and, when the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) was formed in 1959, he was vice treasurer of his locality. In 1961, he became a member of Parliament and, three years later, was appointed parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry. In 1964, he was promoted to the cabinet as full minister in the latter ministry. Within a short time, he became regional minister for the central region, a position he held until the mid-1970s, when he retired from politics.
k.u.mTUMANJI, GOMILE WILANICHILAMBO (19211990). Southern region chairman of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) throughout the 1960s and regional minister for the south in the late 1960s, k.u.mtumanji was born in the ruling family of the k.u.mtumanji chiefdom in western Zomba district. After a basic education, he worked outside Malawi for a period and, upon his return, became involved in the politics of decolonization, playing an active role in the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) in Zomba district. In 1959, k.u.mtumanji was among the hundreds of people arrested during Operations Sunrise and, upon his release, he was elected southern province chairman of the new MCP. In 1961, he was elected to Parliament and appointed junior minister. In 1964, k.u.mtumanji was promoted to the cabinet, where he remained until 1970 when he was arrested on charges that he was a.s.sociated with the Chilobwe murders. He died while in prison.
KUNDECHA, REV. STEPHEN. One of the first Africans to be trained at Blantyre Mission, and in 1911 the second African to be ordained as minister, Kundecha, like Harry Kambwiri Matecheta, had worked with Rev. David Clement Scott and was a major force in African evangelization and education. He was responsible for training other prominent African pastors such as Harry Mtuwa, Joseph Kaunde, and Thomas Maseya. Kundecha was also a very outspoken critic of the thangata system, making his views public whenever possible.
KUNTAJA, CHIEF (1916?). Born in Blantyre district, Chief Kuntaja was educated at village schools before going on to the Henry Henderson Inst.i.tute (HHI) in Blantyre where he completed his primary school certificate exam. He was employed as a clerk until 1942 when he joined the King"s African Rifles (KAR), where he distinguished himself and was promoted to the rank of staff sergeant. He left the army in 1947 and returned to work as a clerk, but only briefly as, in the following year, he was installed as Chief Kuntaja. He became a popular and hardworking chief, always seeking ways and means of improving the economic and social well-being of his people.
Identified with progressive traditional rulers, and a member of the Chiefs Council, Chief Kuntaja was strongly opposed to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and was one of the six chiefs, including Philip Gomani III, M"mbelwa II, and Katumbi, who went to London in 1953 to make their position known to the British government. Chief Kuntaja visited London again in MayJune 1958, this time in the company of Henry Chipembere and Hastings K. Banda, to present a case to the colonial secretary for immediate const.i.tutional changes. In July 1960, he returned to London as part of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) delegation to the Lancaster House const.i.tutional talks. After a new government took over in 1961, Kuntaja continued to be a supporter of the MCP, and he remained a chief, committed to his traditional duties.
An earlier Chief Kuntaja (1870s to 1880s) ruled the area adjacent to the Blantyre Mission and seems to have been junior to Chief Kapeni.
KWACHA. In all Malawi languages, kwacha means "dawn" and, in 1955, African nationalists adopted it as a rallying slogan to signify the dawn of "freedom" from colonial rule. All Malawian politicians, including Dr. Hastings Banda, would start their speeches at political gatherings with the slogan, in the same way as Kenyatta and Kenyans would with harambe. Even after independence kwacha, symbolized by a c.o.c.kerel, continued to be widely identified with the Malawi Congress Party (MCP).
In 1952, the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), under the influence of James Sangala, began to publish a newsletter to keep its membership and the general public abreast of its programs. Called Kwacha, the newsletter counteracted government propaganda published in Msimbi and Bwalo la Nyasaland. In August 1955, Kwacha became a broadsheet and played a major role in mobilizing Congress supporters in the 1956 elections. It closed soon afterward because of lack of advertisers. Since 1971 kwacha is also the unit of currency of Malawi.
KWENJE, NOPHAS DINNECK. Journalist and politician, Kwenje trained as a teacher at the Henry Henderson Inst.i.tute (HHI) and served as headmaster at one of the schools in the southern province before going to Southern Rhodesia where he worked in a variety of jobs, including as a photographer, teacher, postal worker, and police detective. Before returning to Nyasaland in 1956, he edited the famous Bulawayo publication, the Bantu Mirror, of which he also became business manager. In 1956, the first Africans were about to be elected to Legislative Council (LEGCO); Kwenje successfully stood as one of the Nyasaland African Congress candidates for the southern province. Compared with Henry Chipembere and Kanyama Chiume, Kwenje and other African members of the LEGCO were considered to be moderates and did not feature in the Malawi Congress Partydominated Parliament. However, unlike James Chinyama and Dunstan Chijozi who were vilified by the MCP, Kwenje later became acting general manager of Malawi Press, a ruling partyrelated position.
KYANGONDE. Language of the Ngonde and basically the same as kinyakyusa spoken on the Tanzanian side of the Songwe River.
KYUNGU. Traditional t.i.tle of the Ngonde rulers; the Kyungu family established political authority in the northern Karonga lakesh.o.r.e around 1600.
L.
LABOR UNIONS. The African trade union movements in Malawi developed in the postWorld War II years. In the immediate postwar period, workers tended to form a.s.sociations, some of which the government did not recognize immediately. In June 1946, railway employees formed the Railway African Staff a.s.sociation, and in 1954 it became the Nyasaland Railways African Workers Union. Also in 1946, African drivers and mechanics, working mostly for European transport firms, organized themselves into the Nyasaland African Drivers a.s.sociation, changing its name three years later to Nyasaland African Motor Transport Workers Union (NAMTWU), thereby broadening its potential membership. Its founders and leaders were Lawrence Makata, Lali Lubani, James Mpunga, and Lawrence Mapemba. In 1949, it registered as a labor union organization, and 10 years later, it changed its name again to Transport and Allied Workers Union. By 1960, it had over 4,000 members, with C. C. Msiska as its chairman and Suzgo Msiska its secretary general. By 1960, another worker organization had emerged, the Commercial and General Workers Union (CGWU) headed by Chakufwa Chihana. The first central union, the Nyasaland Trades Union Congress (NTUC), was formed in 1956, but its affiliation with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) led to the creation of a dissenting organization, the National Council of Labor, led by C. C. Msiska. The NTUC and the council merged and then dissolved in 1961.
Beginning in 1962, unions lost influence, and many leaders took government or Malawi Congress Party (MCP) jobs or, as in the case of Chihana and Suzgo Msiska, were expelled from the MCP for appearing to challenge the new government"s labor policies. Labor unions were also closely supervised