c.h.i.n.kONDENJI, C. M. In 1959, c.h.i.n.kondenji was nominated to the Legislative Council (LEGCO) and, with Ernest Mtawali, appointed to the Executive Council, becoming the first Africans to hold such positions in the colonial administration. This made c.h.i.n.kondenji most unpopular in African nationalist circles where it was felt that he had betrayed his countrymen by joining a government that had strongly frustrated African aspirations through the declaration of the State of Emergency. After the general elections of 1961, c.h.i.n.kondenji retired from politics.
CHINTHECHE. Located in the southern part of Nkhata Bay district, Chintheche is in the heartland of Tonga country, and during the 1870s and 1880s was heavily stockaded because of the regular Ngoni raids into the area. Five miles north of Bandawe, the second site of the Livingstonia Mission, Chintheche fell in the immediate catchment area of the mission, resulting in a comparatively high rate of Western education among the Tonga. Many inhabitants of this locality would distinguish themselves in different walks of life in Nyasaland and the wider Southern Africa region. When British colonial authority was established in the Lake Nyasa region, Chintheche became the boma of the West Nyasa district and then of the Chintheche district, before the main offices moved north to Nkhata Bay, which also became the new name of the district.
Chintheche has not been developed much physically but, in the 1970s, the government hoped it would be the site of the Viphya Pulp and Paper Corporation Limited (VIPCOR) mill. Investors found it more expensive to get the trees out than originally expected, and with an impossible transportation situation, VIPCOR became a dead project. However, wood from this beautifully forested area is used locally, mainly for furniture and for building material. Chintheche has now become a popular low-cost tourist destination. See also FORESTRY.
CHINULA, CHARLES CHIDONGO (18851971). One of the leading intellectuals in the pre-1960 era of Malawian history, Charles Chinula was born at the end of 1885 in Mthimba village on the Kasitu River, Mzimba. At age 11, he started school at Hora where he was taught by, among others, the Lovedale-educated lakesh.o.r.e Tongan David Marawanthu. In 1900, Chinula entered the more advanced school at Ekwendeni, where his teachers included Muhabi Amon Jere and Donald Fraser. Two years later, he went to the Overtoun Inst.i.tution at Kondowe, and there he met Charles Domingo who gave his own name to the younger man so that from then on he would be referred to as Charles Chidongo Chinula. In 1907, he completed the Teacher Probationer"s Certificate, pa.s.sing first in a cla.s.s of 11.
Even as early as 1908, when he was a teacher at Loudon Mission, Chinula was vehemently opposed to the missionary att.i.tude toward African culture, especially their attempts to limit traditional African dances. He was ordained minister in 1925 and soon developed a reputation as a powerful preacher and composer of about 21 church hymns, one of his most famous being "Hena mwana wa mberere" (See the Lamb of G.o.d). Impressed and influenced by Yesaya Zerenje Mwase, Chinula became a major advocate of African advancement and rights, including the insistence that mission education should be open to all children, even those who came from non-Christian families. Viewed by some as arrogant and a militant, Chinula gave his opponents an opportunity to silence him. At a meeting of the presbytery in November 1930, Chinula, then a minister for the Hoho congregation, confessed to adultery; he was defrocked and his membership of the church suspended. Within two years he regained membership and, at a reduced salary, he was a.s.signed to oversee and aid those who, like him, had committed church offenses.
Despite the repeated requests of his congregation that he be restored, the ministry failed, and Chinula, encouraged by Zerenje Mwase"s success as an independent pastor, left the church in July 1934 and established his own, Eklesia Lanangwa (Church of Freedom), with the headquarters at Sazu Home Mission, a short distance from Edingeni, the seat of northern Ngoni authority. There he established a school and opened others in the Mzimba district. However, without a proper source of finance, most of the schools closed eventually, leaving only the one at Sazu to survive into the 1990s. While waiting to be reinstated in the church, Chinula translated the Pilgrim"s Progress into ciTumbuka; he also wrote a condensed version of the book and called it Vyaro na Vyaro (Lands and Lands).
A year later, he, Zerenji Mwase, and Yaphet Mkandawire formed a loose union of churches that they called the Blackman"s Church. In 1941, he unsuccessfully suggested to the Livingstonia Mission that there should be a mutual recognition and interchange of membership and communality between their respective churches. When the M"mbelwa African Administrative Council was established in 1933, Chinula became advisor to M"mbelwa II and, in this capacity, he was considered as the new Ng"onomo Makamo, in spite of his Tumbuka roots. He was to hold this distinguished post until 1961 when the M"mbelwa District Council replaced the Administrative Council. A committed nationalist, Chinula was in 1920 the founding secretary of the Mombera Native a.s.sociation, and in 1924 of the Representative Committee of the Northern Province Native a.s.sociations. As a close advisor to M"mbelwa II, Chinula was the author of the memorandum that the Ngoni paramount ruler presented to the Bledisloe Commission. When the Nyasaland African Congress was formed in 1944, he became chairman of the Mzimba district branch and vice president at the national level; he was also a member of the Northern Provincial Council.
A first-rate preacher and teacher and a productive composer of hymns, Chinula retired from active politics after 1950. In 1967, he returned to the Livingstonia synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP), which had suspended him in 1930, and, although his ministry was not restored, he preached many times, reminding his listeners of his oratory. Chinula died at home on 3 November 1971. See also LOVEDALE MISSIONARY INSt.i.tUTE.
CHINYAMA, FILIPO (?1915). This Ntcheu-based clergyman, co-conspirator of John Chilembwe, and friend of Alexander Makwinja and Peter Nyambo, became a.s.sociated with the Baptist Industrial Mission from about 1903, when he studied at Malamulo, which Joseph Booth had just established. In 1908, John Hollis of the Church of Christ baptized Chinyama at Chikunda and, in the following year, he went to the Nyasa Industrial Mission Training Inst.i.tute in Thyolo, only to leave after a brief period in protest against the mandatory daily three hours" manual labor required of students. Between that time and 1911, he was a labor migrant in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), but, by mid-1911, he was once again active in church work in Ntcheu, reviving a church and school at Uchinda, also known as Ntinda, near Dzunje, which the Church of Christ had earlier vacated. Chinyama and Booth corresponded and, in this manner, he received a copy of Peter Nyambo"s pet.i.tion to the king of England. In November 1914, he spent over a week at Mbombwe as a guest of Chilembwe, and during that time they most likely discussed plans for the 15 January uprising. As Chilembwe"s forces moved on to Blantyre, Chinyama and 300 supporters, armed with spears, descended on Ntcheu boma aiming to seize the armory. The plan failed, and the government, led by its local representative, Claude Ambrose Cardew, pursued Chinyama and captured and executed him.
CHINYAMA, JAMES RALPH NTHINDA. Son of Filipo Chinyama, James was a Lilongwe-based businessman who from the 1940s was active in nationalist politics. In 1950, he replaced Charles Matinga as president general of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) but was voted out three years later for providing ineffective leadership in the struggle against the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In the elections of 1956, Chinyama and Dunstan Chijozi were elected to represent Africans in the Nyasaland Legislative Council (LEGCO). After Dr. Hastings Banda returned to the colony in 1958, James Chinyama came to be identified with the less progressive politicians and, eventually, he became a forgotten factor.
CHIONA, BISHOP JAMES (19242008). Archbishop of Blantyre from 1967 to 2001 and one of the signatories of the Catholic Bishops" Pastoral Letter of 1992, the Right Rev. Chiona was born in Zomba district where he attended the Nakhunda seminary before proceeding to Kachebere Major Seminary and was ordained in 1954. After ordination he served in different parishes and, in 1965, became auxiliary bishop of Blantyre. In 1967, he succeeded Jean-Baptist Theunissen as senior Catholic prelate in Malawi. He retired on 23 January 2001, and died on 18 August 2008.
CHIONA, PETER (19372011). One of the senior office bearers of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in the postHastings Banda era, Peter Chiona was born in Misuku, Chitipa district. He went to Bulambya Primary School, Zomba Catholic Secondary School, and the Domasi Teachers Training College. After teaching at Iponjora, Misuku, and at Soche Hill Secondary School, he proceeded to Oxford University in England, graduating in 1968 with a BA degree. On his return to Malawi, he joined the Planning Department at the Ministry of Education headquarters and, in October 1969, he went to Paris to study education planning. Two years later, he returned to the Ministry of Education but, within a short time, he joined the teaching staff of the Soche Hill College, a const.i.tuent inst.i.tute of the University of Malawi. In 1973, Chiona relocated to Zomba because his inst.i.tution became part of the expanded Chancellor College at its new campus at Chirunga Farm.
In 1976, he was one of the hundreds of people who were victims of arbitrary political detentions (see GWEDE, MARTIN FOCUS; MUWALO-NQUMAYO, ALBERT); released at the end of the year, he became unemployed but was reemployed by the university in 1978. A year later, he joined the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he specialized in education planning. In the early 1990s, retired from the ECA, he became a businessman in Mzuzu but also became active in politics. In 1997, he was appointed secretary general of the MCP and, two years later, second deputy president of the party, and, in that capacity, he was instrumental in forging the partnership between his party and the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD). At the same time, he became one of the two vice presidents of the MCP. In the 1999 general elections, Chiona was elected MCP MP for Chitipa East, one of the few non-AFORD legislators in the northern part of Malawi, but he lost the seat in 2004. Later, he joined the Democratic Progressive Party, becoming its deputy secretary general. From 2006 until his death at Mzuzu on 17 August 2011, he was the board chairman of the Malawi Inst.i.tute of Management (MIM) CHIPATA. See FORT JAMESON.
CHIPATULA. A Kololo chief who lived at Chiromo in the Lower Shire region, Chipatula, like many Kololo, grew sesame, which, in addition to ivory, he sold to Europeans. His relations with Portuguese officials, businessmen, and their a.s.sociates was tense and, much to the liking of the British, he sought to curtail Portugal"s influence in the area. Chipatula had a good working relationship with the British, who found him to be temperamental; the indigenous Mang"anja regarded him as a despot. In 1884, Chipatula was shot dead by George Fenwick, who was in turn killed by the dead chief"s subjects. His son and successor, Chikuse, had equally bad relations with the Portuguese and their a.s.sociates, and for some time considered the African Lakes Company (ALC), Fenwick"s employers, as being responsible for his father"s death. See also KASISI.
CHIPEMBERE, CATHERINE. A teacher by profession, this Likoma-born widow of Henry Chipembere played a significant role behind the scenes in the days leading to decolonization. After the Cabinet Crisis, she joined her husband in Tanzania and, later, in the United States where she and their children remained even after her husband"s death in 1975. She returned to Malawi to contest the 1994 elections for a Mangoche const.i.tuency and, upon the formation of the United Democratic Front government in June 1994, she was appointed deputy minister, first for education and later for health. In 1999, she retired from active politics.
CHIPEMBERE, HABIL MATTHEW, CANON (c. 19001966). Habil Chipembere, father of Henry Chipembere, was born in Masiye on the eastern sh.o.r.es of Lake Malawi in Nia.s.sa province, Mozambique, of Mang"anja parentage. After completing his teacher"s training at St. Michael"s College, Likoma, in 1921, he taught at Nkhotakota and Visanza (Ntchisi), and some years later, he trained for the priesthood at St. Andrews" College of the Universities" Mission to Central Africa (UMCA). In 1935, he became a deacon and was posted to Lungwena on the southeastern sh.o.r.es of Lake Malawi. Three years later, Habil Chipembere was ordained a full priest, and he was to serve at, among other places, Liuli in southwest Tanzania, Malindi, and Matope. In World War II, Habil Chipembere served as chaplain to the King"s African Rifles (KAR) and traveled as far as India. A highly regarded priest, in 1957, he represented the Anglicans in Malawi at the UMCA centenary celebrations in England. A canon, in 1961, he acted as vicar general and soon was appointed archdeacon, the first Malawian to hold the position.
Following the first adult suffrage elections, Habil Chipembere was a member of Parliament for Fort Johnston (later renamed Mangochi), a seat he handed to his son, Henry, when he was released from prison. He returned to full-time priesthood, but his life was disturbed in 1964 when the government hounded him out of the country because of his a.s.sociation with his son, who was at the time regarded as an enemy of the state. Canon Chipembere went into exile in Tanzania, and for three years he served as a priest at Mbamba Bay before retiring.
CHIPEMBERE, HENRY BLASIUS MASAUKO (1930-1975). Popularly known as "Chip," Henry Chipembere was one of Malawi"s foremost nationalists. Of Nyanja and Yao parentage, he was born on 5 August 1930, at Kayoyo, Nkhotakota district, where his father, Habil Chipembere, a priest in the Anglican Church, was stationed. Later, the family moved to Malindi Mission in Mangochi district, then known as Fort Johnston, where Chipembere went to school before proceeding to Malosa and on to Blantyre Secondary School. He then proceeded to Goromonzi High School near Harare, Zimbabwe, where he distinguished himself as an excellent student. The Nyasaland government awarded him a bursary to study at Fort Hare University, South Africa, majoring in history and political science. He graduated in 1954 and became a.s.sistant district commissioner at Domasi, but resigned from the civil service to become a political activist in the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC).
At its 1955 general meeting at Lilongwe, the NAC demanded the right to secede from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and urged the resignation of the Federal a.s.sembly representatives, Wellington Chirwa and Clement k.u.mbikano. Both Chipembere and W. Kanyama Chiume were behind this more militant stand of the NAC as well as responsible for reorganizing and increasing the membership in the Congress. In 1956, he ran for and was elected to the Legislative Council (LEGCO) where he and four other African members began a vigorous parliamentary campaign (195659) that criticized the Federation with a severity not witnessed before. Chipembere, Chiume, and other young politicians were responsible for revitalizing the NAC, for encouraging Dr. Hastings K. Banda to return home, and for relentlessly pursuing freedom for his homeland. Chipembere was probably Banda"s most militant lieutenant.
In 1957, the annual meeting of the NAC took place at Lilongwe and, at the behest of Chipembere, Chiume, Dunduzu Chisiza, and others, it was decided to contact Banda, then living in Ghana, and urge him to return home and become the leader of the Congress, to provide a saviorhero figure for the nationalist movement. Chipembere actually wrote to him, detailing the message. The new militancy in the NAC and the outspokenness of its members in LEGCO were positive factors in Banda"s decision to return to Malawi. In July 1958, Banda had demanded and received from Chipembere guarantees that upon his return he would be president of the NAC and he could then direct the movement as he thought best. In August 1958, Banda chose Chipembere to be NAC treasurer, Chiume as publicity secretary, Chisiza as secretary general, and Rose Chibambo as leader of the women"s section of the NAC. Over the next several months, the Congress hara.s.sed the government with speeches and a.s.semblies and occasional outbreaks of violence. Security forces had their hands full, Southern Rhodesian troops were called in, and, finally, on 3 March 1959, the government declared a State of Emergency (see OPERATION SUNRISE).
Chipembere was jailed from March 1959 to September 1960, when upon his release, Banda, at a large rally in Nkhotakota, reinstated him as treasurer of the Congress, by that time renamed the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). In February 1961, four months later, the government found Chipembere guilty of sedition and incitement, on account of a speech he had made at Rumphi, and sentenced him to three years in Zomba prison. Although promised by Banda that he would exert pressure on the governor, Glyn Jones, for an early release from prison, Chipembere received no such help, perhaps because Banda found it easier to rule without his young cohort. Early in 1963, Chipembere was released and was greeted with enthusiasm and much excitement. Banda immediately a.s.signed him the Ministry of Local Government, and in early 1964, he became minister of education, which he retained after Malawi became an independent nation on 6 July 1964.
From August to September 1964, ministerial dissent erupted into the Cabinet Crisis in which Banda dismissed (on 7 September) Augustine Bwanausi, Rose Chibambo, Orton Chirwa, and Chiume. When on 8 September Chipembere returned from a visit to Canada, he learned of the difficulties of the past two weeks. Like Yatuta Chisiza and Willie Chokani, who had resigned in sympathy, he did so too, but he remained conciliatory in his speeches in Parliament and he tried to let Glyn Jones mediate the rift. Reconciliation hopes were dashed in the next week as Banda replaced the vacated posts in the cabinet, and the ex-ministers took a firmer stance, especially when Chipembere attacked Banda"s slow Africanization policy. Although Chipembere, like the other ministers, had declared their loyalty to Banda, the prime minister called them irresponsible and refused to negotiate. Chipembere had been restricted to his Malindi home by police. Banda had banned public meetings and restricted the "conspirators." In February 1965, Chipembere led about 200 armed men from Malindi to Mangochi where they seized rifles and proceeded to Liwonde, where government reinforcements forced a retreat to Malindi.
Chipembere then fled to the United States, where he studied for a master"s degree at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Encouraged by old friends to return to Africa, Chipembere went to live in Tanzania from 1966 to 1969. In addition to his teaching duties at Kivukoni College, Chipembere worked with Malawian refugees and exiled leaders. He also led his party, the Panafrican Democratic Party of Malawi. After Eduardo Mondlane was a.s.sa.s.sinated, Chipembere, having experienced several attempts on his own life, again left East Africa for the west coast of the United States. He also needed to be near better facilities for the treatment of diabetes from which he had suffered for some time. He and his family settled in Los Angeles where he taught at California State University while also pursuing his PhD studies at UCLA. He died on 24 September 1975, leaving behind his wife, Catherine Chipembere and their seven children who remained in exile until 1993.
CHIPERONI. These are moist and cool winds that blow into southeastern Malawi from the Indian Ocean through Mozambique, bringing with them enough rain to render tea growing possible in Mulanje and Thyolo districts. In the 1960s, a popular sorghum/maize beer, basically the same as chibuku, was named after this weather condition. Similarly, a popular brand of blanket manufactured at the Conforzi Blanket factory in Thyolo bears the name Chiperoni.
CHIPETA, O"BRIEN MAPOPA. The second minister of external affairs in the first United Democratic Front (UDF) government, Chipeta was raised in Mzimba district and went to the local secondary school before going to the University of Malawi, where in 1979 he graduated with a BA (Hons.), majoring in history. He joined the Antiquities Department and, between 1981 and 1986, he was a graduate student at Dalhousie University, Canada, which awarded him an MA and a PhD in history. He returned to the Antiquities Department but left after 18 months to work as a research officer at the Southern Africa Political and Social Research Trust in Harare, Zimbabwe.
In 1992, Chipeta took leave of absence to devote time to campaign for political reform in Malawi. With colleagues such as Frank Mayinga Mkandawire, he began to clandestinely send literature into Malawi, advocating multiparty democracy. They also published a weekly newsletter, the Democrat, which was also sent to Malawi, much to the anger of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and its government. Late in 1992, Dr. Hastings K. Banda accepted the reality of political reform, leading Chipeta and other political activists abroad to return to Malawi in the following year. By this time, he had identified himself with Alliance for Democracy (AFORD), and the Democrat had become the organ of the party. He became one of AFORD"s leading ideologues and, in 1994, was elected to Parliament as a member for Mzimba West.
When, in late 1994, the UDF and AFORD formed a coalition government, Chipeta was appointed minister of agriculture. Two years later, he replaced Edward Bwa.n.a.li as minister of external affairs and would remain in that position until the 1999 general elections. In the meantime, he had fallen out of favor with AFORD for refusing to leave government when the leadership decided against continuing with the coalition arrangement. In June 1999, he contested the Mzimba West seat as an independent but he lost to Loveness Gondwe, an AFORD candidate. Bakli Muluzi then appointed him as director general of the National Economic Council. He died while still in office.
CHIPOKA. Since the mid-1930s when the railway line was extended north of Blantyre, this natural port on Lake Malawi has been a crucial point in the commercial life of the country. It is here that most of the cargo from the railway is transferred to lake transport for consignment to the northern parts of Malawi. Similarly, at Chipoka, southbound goods are transferred from boat transport to the railway. See also TRANSPORTATION.
CHIRADZULU. Name of the district northeast and southwest of Blantyre and of Zomba, respectively; it is also the name of the boma, the district headquarters. A subdistrict of Blantyre until the 1950s, Chiradzulu, a densely populated area, was one of the European settler farming regions of the country, greatly affected by land problems and the accompanying labor tenancy, thangata. This was the home of the A. L. Bruce Estates; John Chilembwe"s Providence Industrial Mission (PIM) had its headquarters at Mbombwe in the district, which was also the center of the Chilembwe uprising of 1915.
CHIRAMBO, MOSES CHARUWANANGA (19392010). Malawi"s first ophthalmologist, Chirambo went to Blantyre and Dedza Secondary Schools and graduated from the University of Alberta Medical School before returning to Malawi in 1969 to join the government medical services. In 1971, he went to Israel"s Hada.s.sa-Hebrew University, qualifying as an ophthalmologist two years later. Upon his return to Malawi, he set about improving ophthalmic services at government hospitals by, among other means, improving training at medical auxiliary level. In 1989, he retired from the Ministry of Health as chief ophthalmologist but remained involved in health-related matters in Malawi in different capacities. He continued to direct the South Africa Development Community (SADC) ophthalmologist course at the Malawi College of Health Sciences, was an eye-care consultant for Sight Savers International (UK) for the East, Central, and Southern Africa region, and when the College of Medicine of the University of Malawi opened in the early 1990s, he joined the teaching staff of its ophthalmology postgraduate program. Chirambo was also influential in the founding of the optometry school at Mzuzu University. In 2007, he won Rumphi Central const.i.tuency for the Democratic Progressive Party, retaining it for two years. In June 2009, he joined the cabinet as minister of health. However, in a cabinet reshuffle of 2 August 2010, Chirambo was dropped from the cabinet. On 15 August 2010, he died at a clinic in Johannesburg, South Africa.
CHIRNSIDE, ANDREW. Member of the Royal Geographical Society who on a visit to the Lake Malawi region in 1879, heard of the nature of civil administration adopted by the Church of Scotland Mission at Blantyre and its substations, such as that at Zomba. Since July 1878, the mission had been headed by Rev. Duff Macdonald who, following the original instructions of the Foreign Mission Committee to, inter alia, act as the settlements" magistrate, had presided over indiscipline and unethical behavior on the part of some of his Scottish a.s.sistants. Such behavior included burning of houses of suspected culprits, flogging, and execution of people accused of stealing and murder, respectively. Some of these incidents were reported in great detail by Andrew Chirnside in his The Blantyre Missionaries: Discreditable Disclosures (1880). In response, the Foreign Mission Committee appointed Rev. Dr. Thomas Rankin and Alex Pringle to investigate the allegations, most of which they confirmed to be correct. As a result of the RankinPringle inquiry, Macdonald and two of the artisans, John Buchanan and George Fenwick, were dismissed from the services of the mission.
CHIROMO. This town in the Lower Shire, the heartland of cotton production, was the official port of entry into Malawi via river transport, and in 1892 it became an important government station. In 1902, the Foreign Office agreed to build a railway from Blantyre to Chiromo: this became the Shire Highlands Railway. In 1977, the rail bridge at Chiromo was reconstructed to allow use for cars and trucks, thus ending the ferry service across the Shire River.
CHIRWA, ELIOT MUSOKWA KAMWANA (18721956). Generally known as Eliot Kamwana, both of which were actually first names, Eliot Musokwa Kamwana Chirwa was one of the most colorful and traveled religious leaders in colonial Malawi. Born in about 1872, as his Tonga parents were returning to the lakesh.o.r.e after escaping Ngoni authority, Elliot went to local schools, including Bandawe, before proceeding to the Overtoun Inst.i.tute, Khondowe. He left the latter in 1901, after only three years, and after pa.s.sing the Standard 3 examinations. Dissatisfaction with the church, including delay in baptizing him, seems to have convinced him to leave the Scottish mission and join the Plainfield Seventh-Day Mission (later renamed Malamulo) in Thyolo district where he was baptized in the following year.
Chirwa taught briefly at one of the Seventh-Day Mission schools before going to South Africa, where for three years he worked as a hospital a.s.sistant, at Main Reef Mine, Johannesburg, studied, and preached, mainly to compatriot immigrant workers. In 1907, he joined Joseph Booth at Sea Point, Cape Town, spending most of the time receiving instructions on the Watch Tower teachings of the Pennsylvania pastor Charles Taze Russel. Russel"s message emphasized the imminent apocalypse, which would be the final judgment call to heaven to the Kingdom of G.o.d. The teachings were also social and political in nature in that they referred to the rise of the ma.s.ses who would replace injustice with justice. It was the type of message that suited Booth, a recent convert from the Church of Christ, and Kamwana, whose dealings with some Scottish missionaries had not always been pleasant. The message was easy to absorb for most Africans in colonial Africa where the position of nonwhites was that of second-cla.s.s citizens.
In 1908, Kamwana returned to Nkhata Bay where he preached to large audiences and baptized hundreds of people, Tonga, Tumbuka speakers, and Ngoni. He attacked the Church of Scotland missionaries for their policies governing, and methods of, baptism and for charging school fees. He accused the colonial government, which he referred to as Babylon, of injustice and of taxing people, and predicted that Europeans would be forced out, leaving Africans to take control of the affairs of the country. In late 1909, Kamwana was deported to South Africa and, when he returned in the following year, he was confined to Mulanje where the government could watch him closely. Toward the end of 1910, William W. Johnston, a professor from Glasgow, Scotland, sent by the Watch Tower Society to establish and report on the situation of the movement in Nyasaland, took Kamwana to South Africa. However, when the South African authorities refused to allow him to disembark at Durban, he returned to Mozambique where after a month"s imprisonment early in 1914, he returned to Mulanje, again to be closely observed by the government.
In 1915, just before the Chilembwe uprising, the government deported Kamwana, his wife, and his close lieutenants and brother Eliot Yohane Chandaka Chirwa, and another confidant, William Mulagha Mwenda, to Mauritius and, after some time, to the Seych.e.l.les. When his wife died on the island, his disciples at home found him another, and sent her to join him in exile. Kamwana remained in the Seych.e.l.les until the occasion of the coronation of King George VI in 1937, when mercy was granted to him and he was allowed to return home, which he did in August of that year. With the aid of his followers, other converts and people such as Charles Domingo, the Watch Tower movement had grown into all parts of the country.
However, within a short time of this hero"s return, Kamwana was embroiled in an ideological conflict with his supporters. He now insisted on strict observation of certain limitations, including nonsmoking and no wearing of ornaments such as beads. His proposal to raise church funds through a contribution of one penny upset some of the Watch Tower adherents, and within Nkhata Bay itself some people were displeased by his transferring the movements headquarters from Chirwa in the south to Mdyaka, north of Nchintheche and the Luweya River. All this led to a split in the organization. Those who opposed the move called theirs the Watch Tower Society of Chifira; Kamwana"s came to be known as the Watch Tower Healing Mission Society or the Mlonda Healing Mission Society. The major difference with his original organization was belief in spiritual healing, not spirit possession, rather than medicine.
Starved of funds, Kamwana"s new center did not develop according to plan. The years of exile seem to have reduced Kamwana"s interest in politics, for, increasingly, he talked of differentiating what was for Caesar from that which belonged to G.o.d. Some Watch Tower followers, especially those in the ThyoloMulanje area, were unimpressed by the change in emphasis, and they ignored his plea to adopt the new approach to preaching. By the time he died on 31 July 1956, his political influence had long been superseded by the African Welfare a.s.sociations, the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), and, nearer home, the Atonga Tribal Council. His religious influence was also greatly diminished; it was estimated that he had approximately 4,000 followers.
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 Censorship 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 Leadership, and the Africa Prize for Leadership 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 shirts 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 membership 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 headship 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 Publishing 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