Africa's Ex-Presidents & Leaders!

William J. Malecela · Jan 6, 2010

- Heshima mbele sana wakuu, wananchi au taifa la wasiojua wanakotoka ni vigumu sana kujua wanakokwenda, ni vyema sana tukawawekea vijana na watoto wetu a brief kumbu kumbu ya wapi Africa imetokea kiuongozi.

- Viongozi walioifikisha Africa hapa ilipo ni nani na walifanya nini, ni muhimu sana kwa wanaotufuatia kuelewa, ili pia wao wenyewe with facts at hand, waweze kutoa na kujumlisha.

- God Bless Africa!

Respect.

Field Marshall Es!

William J. Malecela · Jan 6, 2010

Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere: (Born 1922 - Died 1999).

First Prime Minister (1961) & First President (1962 - 1985) Tanzania.

One of Africa's most respected figures, Julius Nyerere (1922 - 1999) was a politician of principle and intelligence. Known as Mwalimu or teacher he had a vision of education that was rich with possibility

Julius Kambarage Nyerere was born on April 13, 1922 in Butiama, on the eastern shore of lake Victoria in north west Tanganyika. His father was the chief of the small Zanaki tribe. He was 12 before he started school (he had to walk 26 miles to Musoma to do so). Later, he transferred for his secondary education to the Tabora Government Secondary School.

His intelligence was quickly recognized by the Roman Catholic fathers who taught him. He went on, with their help, to train as a teacher at Makerere University in Kampala (Uganda). On gaining his Certificate, he taught for three years and then went on a government scholarship to study history and political economy for his Master of Arts at the University of Edinburgh (he was the first Tanzanian to study at a British university and only the second to gain a university degree outside Africa.

In Edinburgh, partly through his encounter with Fabian thinking, Nyerere

began to develop his particular vision of connecting socialism with African communal living. On his return to Tanganyika, Nyerere was forced by the colonial authorities to make a choice between his political activities and his teaching.

He was reported as saying that he was a schoolmaster by choice and a politician by accident. Working to bring a number of different nationalist factions into one grouping he achieved this in 1954 with the formation of TANU (the Tanganyika African National Union). He became President of the Union (a post he held until 1977), entered the Legislative Council in 1958 and became chief minister in 1960.

A year later Tanganyika was granted internal self-government and Nyerere became premier. Full independence came in December 1961 and he was elected President in 1962. Nyerere's integrity, ability as a political orator and organizer, and readiness to work with different groupings was a significant factor in independence being achieved without bloodshed.

In this he was helped by the co-operative attitude of the last British governor - Sir Richard Turnbull. In 1964, following a coup in Zanzibar (and an attempted coup in Tanganyika itself) Nyerere negotiated with the new leaders in Zanzibar and agreed to absorb them into the union government. The result was the creation of the Republic of Tanzania.

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 6, 2010

Julius Kambarage Nyerere

Ujamaa, socialism and self reliance

As President, Nyerere had to steer a difficult course. By the late 1960s Tanzania was one of the world's poorest countries. Like many others it was suffering from a severe foreign debt burden, a decrease in foreign aid, and a fall in the price of commodities. His solution, the collectivization of agriculture, villigization (see Ujamma below) and large-scale nationalization was a unique blend of socialism and communal life. The vision was set out in the Arusha Declaration of 1967 (reprinted in Nyerere 196:

"The objective of socialism in the United Republic of Tanzania is to build a society in which all members have equal rights and equal opportunities; in which all can live in peace with their neighbours without suffering or imposing injustice, being exploited, or exploiting; and in which all have a gradually increasing basic level of material welfare before any individual lives in luxury." (Nyerere 1968: 340)

The focus, given the nature of Tanzanian society, was on rural development. People were encouraged (sometimes forced) to live and work on a co-operative basis in organized villages or ujamaa (meaning ‘familyhood' in Kishwahili). The idea was to extend traditional values and responsibilities around kinship to Tanzania as a whole.

Within the Declaration there was a commitment to raising basic living standards (and an opposition to conspicuous consumption and large private wealth). The socialism he believed in was ‘people-centred'. Humanness in its fullest sense rather than wealth creation must come first. Societies become better places through the development of people rather than the gearing up of production. This was a matter that Nyerere took to be important both in political and private terms. Unlike many other politicians, he did not amass a large fortune through exploiting his position.

The policy met with significant political resistance (especially when people were forced into rural communes) and little economic success. Nearly 10 million peasants were moved and many were effectively forced to give up their land. The idea of collective farming was less than attractive to many peasants. A large number found themselves worse off. Productivity went down. However, the focus on human development and self-reliance did bring some success in other areas notably in health, education and in political identity.

Liberation struggles

A committed pan-Africanist, Nyerere provided a home for a number of African liberation movements including the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan African Congress (PAC) of South Africa, Frelimo when seeking to overthrow Portuguese rule in Mozambique, Zanla (and Robert Mugabe) in their struggle to unseat the white regime in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He also opposed the brutal regime of Idi Amin in Uganda. Following a border invasion by Amin in 1978, a 20,000-strong Tanzanian army along with rebel groups, invaded Uganda.

It took the capital, Kampala, in 1979, restoring Uganda's first President, Milton Obote, to power. The battle against Amin was expensive and placed a strain on government finances. There was considerable criticism within Tanzania that he had both overlooked domestic issues and had not paid proper attention to internal human rights abuses.

Tanzania was a one party state - and while there was a strong democratic element in organization and a concern for consensus, this did not stop Nyerere using the Preventive Detention Act to imprison opponents. In part this may have been justified by the need to contain divisiveness, but there does appear to have been a disjuncture between his commitment to human rights on the world stage, and his actions at home.

Retirement

In 1985 Nyerere gave up the Presidency but remained as chair of the Party - Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). He gradually withdrew from active politics, retiring to his farm in Butiama. In 1990 he relinquished his chairmanship of CCM but remained active on the world stage as Chair of the Intergovernmental South Centre. One of his last high profile actions was as the chief mediator in the Burundi conflict (in 1996).

He died in a London hospital of leukaemia on October 14, 1999.

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 6, 2010

Kwame Osagefyo Nkurumah: (Born 1909 - Died 1972).

First President (1957 - 1966) Ghana.

Kwame Nkurumah (born Sept. 1909, Nkroful, Gold Coast [now Ghana]-died April 27, 1972, Bucharest, Rom.) Ghanaian nationalist leader who led the Gold Coast's drive for independence from Britain and presided over its emergence as the new nation of Ghana. He headed the country from independence in 1957 until he was overthrown by a coup in 1966.

Early years

Kwame Nkrumah's father was a goldsmith and his mother a retail trader. Baptized a Roman Catholic, Nkrumah spent nine years at the Roman Catholic elementary school in nearby Half Assini. After graduation from Achimota College in 1930, he started his career as a teacher at Roman Catholic junior schools in Elmina and Axim and at a seminary.

Increasingly drawn to politics, Nkrumah decided to pursue further studies in the United States. He entered Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1935 and, after graduating in 1939, obtained master's degrees from Lincoln and from the University of Pennsylvania. He studied the literature of socialism, notably Karl Marx and Vladimir I. Lenin, and of nationalism, especially Marcus Garvey, the black American leader of the 1920s.

Eventually, Nkrumah came to describe himself as a "nondenominational Christian and a Marxist socialist." He also immersed himself in political work, reorganizing and becoming president of the African Students' Organization of the United States and Canada. He left the United States in May 1945 and went to England, where he organized the 5th Pan-African Congress in Manchester.

Meanwhile, in the Gold Coast, J.B. Danquah had formed the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) to work for self-government by constitutional means. Invited to serve as the UGCC's general secretary, Nkrumah returned home in late 1947. As general secretary, he addressed meetings throughout the Gold Coast and began to create a mass base for the new movement. When extensive riots occurred in February 1948, the British briefly arrested Nkrumah and other leaders of the UGCC.

When a split developed between the middle-class leaders of the UGCC and the more radical supporters of Nkrumah, he formed in June 1949 the new Convention Peoples' Party (CPP), a mass-based party that was committed to a program of immediate self-government. In January 1950, Nkrumah initiated a campaign of "positive action," involving nonviolent protests, strikes, and noncooperation with the British colonial authorities.

Respect.

FMEs!

Bujibuji Simba Nyamaume · Jan 6, 2010

HAWA JAMAA KWELI WANAFANANA.
MUNGU AWAREHEMU NA KUZIPUMZISHA ROHO ZAO KWA AMANI.

William J. Malecela · Jan 6, 2010

Kwame Nkurumah & Martin Luther King.

Preparation for Leadership

Kwame Nkrumah, whose original name was Francis Nwia Nkrumah, was born on Sept. 21, 1909, into the tiny Nzima tribe; his origins, although clouded by controversy, were indisputably humble. His early education was in Catholic mission schools and in a government training college. In 1935, after teaching for several years, with the help of friends and the example of Nnamdi Azikiwe (later Nigeria's first president), Nkrumah left for Lincoln University in the United States.

By this time, Nkrumah was already the most radical of the young "Gold Coasters," resenting deeply the exploitative aspects of colonialism. But it was during the years at Lincoln, and the ensuing ones as a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, that he was to give substance to his feelings by studying, as he later wrote, "revolutionaries and their methods" (such as Lenin, Napoleon, Gandhi, Hitler, and, most important, Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican whose followers proclaimed him "provisional president of Africa").

Nkrumah never obtained a thorough grounding in any field and never really demonstrated the intelligence and sensitivity that would have demanded discipline in his thinking. This combination of an inferior schooling and a less than first-rate mind made possible the eclectic and incoherent ideological thought seen in his later writings on "Nkrumaism."
Nkrumah's formal political activity started in America but only began in earnest in London, where he went for further studies in 1945.

While in England, he edited a pan-African journal, was vice president of the West African students' union, and helped organize the Fifth Pan-African Conference in Manchester. There, too, George Padmore, the important former-Communist pan-Africanist, became his mentor and was a crucial restraining influence until he died in 1959.
Gold Coast Leader

In 1947 Nkrumah had his chance to return to Africa in a position of leadership. The United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), a conservative nationalist movement, invited him to be general secretary. He arrived on Nov. 14, 1947. With weak British leadership and the postwar recession, the Gold Coast was ripe for more radical leadership, which Nkrumah ably provided. Riots in early 1948 resulted from economic grievances but were blamed on the UGCC leadership. Nkrumah and others, including Joseph B. Danquah, who later died in one of Nkrumah's political jails, were detained side by side.

After their release later that year, the UGCC leadership demoted Nkrumah, who responded by organizing the Committee on Youth Organization, which (composed of his now numerous admirers) provided the nucleus of Nkrumah's personal support. The inevitable rupture CPP) was born, with Nkrumah its leader.

The 1948 riots speeded the pace of political reform. Yet Nkrumah, always the radical, rejected proposals for a new Gold Coast constitution. He proposed to precipitate a crisis through "positive action": his followers took the cue and agitated for immediate self-government, leading to a state of emergency and Nkrumah's detention once again by the British.

But reform ensued, and the first national elections were held in 1951. The CPP triumphed, thanks to brilliant organization and to the symbol of its incarcerated leader; on Feb. 12, 1951, Nkrumah was released from prison and made "leader of government business." A wholly new period began, in which the principle of ultimate independence was no longer in question.

Power was divided between Nkrumah, who was renamed prime minister in 1952, and the governor. This diarchy symbolized Nkrumah's dilemma of the reconciliation of his image as a revolutionary with his close relationship with the imperial authority. Although this gap was papered over with rhetoric, it always existed in some form. A new enemy of Nkrumah's power appeared in 1954-1956 in the form of a conservative, tribally based political movement derived from the UGCC which even tried to delay independence. The need to struggle for the "political kingdom" against domestic forces intensified Nkrumah's desire for revenge and for total power. Marxist ideology became his congenial and increasingly convenient justification.

Search for the Political Kingdom

On March 6, 1957, the Gold Coast became independent as Ghana. Although Nkrumah was the prime minister (the governor-general was British) and had the governmental machinery in his hands, watchful British and domestic eyes cautioned him from attempting, for example, to transform the professional civil service into a personal political tool. But in the next 3 years he did much - he called two pan-African conferences, made state tours throughout Africa and to America and Britain, and accelerated educational and social development - and with all of this his power grew. He used a preventive detention act to detain many members of Parliament and supporters of the opposition, and by 1960 it took considerable courage to oppose him.

Debate in Africa and in the West, particularly Britain, over the colonial independence movement and the ability of Africans to govern themselves frequently became a debate over Nkrumah and his professed democratic goals. In 1960 a plebiscite made Ghana a republic with a new constitution, and an election resembling a plebiscite made Nkrumah its first president.

President of the Republic

With the founding of the republic on July 1, 1960, Nkrumah had achieved the political kingdom from which "all else" - in pan-African, domestic, and international policy - was to follow. Pan-African concerns had been laid aside during the struggle for domestic power. Now having established firm control of the republic, Nkrumah could center his activity on the uniting of the continent.

But other states with their own leaders and heroes had now emerged, and they resented the constant advice from Accra; nor were they likely to surrender their newly won sovereignty to a great union. Precisely as the new states consolidated their own positions, and as union became less and less a practicable proposition, Nkrumah's insistence on, and his absorption in, the "Union Government" cause grew.

Nkrumah sincerely resented Africa's weakness and sought to prevent its "Latin-Americanization," but his method, his ambition, and the ill-defined nature of his goals doomed the obsession. "Union Government" became a joke in Africa. Thus Ghana's own diplomatic position eroded until, in 1963, it was even denied a position of eminence in the new Organization of African Unity. Yet in the more radical states, Nkrumah himself remained an honored statesman until 1964, when Julius Nyerere, the prestigious president of Tanzania, publicly denounced him in strident
terms. After this, nothing sacred was left either of the cause or of the man.

In domestic affairs, the new constitution had been amended by fiat after the plebiscite so as to bestow dictatorial powers on the "Osagyefo" (redeemer - Nkrumah's self-advocated title). In the ensuing years, the remaining opposition within and without his party were detained, driven to exile, or frightened into silence.

A small coterie of expatriate and Ghanaian Marxists pressed him to make Ghana Africa's first Communist state and as quid pro quo honored "Nkrumaism." Assassination attempts in 1962 and 1964 made Nkrumah accelerate his timetable for the building of socialism. The first attempt led to a new intimacy in relations with the Communist world and his own public advocacy of "scientific socialism"; the second led to a plebiscite making Ghana a one-party state.

The caution and inconsistency that had always characterized Nkrumah's statecraft cloak their sentiments in flattery. The steadily deteriorating financial situation, combined with the reluctance of Nikita Khrushchev's more cautious successors in the Kremlin to bail Nkrumah out, preserved his ultimate dependence on the West.

Instinctively opposed to breaking diplomatic relations with Britain over the Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) question, Nkrumah was forced to do so in order to appear to remain in the vanguard of African radicalism. Actions, not motivations, counted.

Exile and Death

The momentum of Nkrumah's actions, symbolized by the break with Britain, threatened the independence of the army and the police; early on Feb. 24, 1966, three days after Nkrumah had left on a gratuitous peace mission to Vietnam, they toppled the regime, outlawed the party, and announced that "the myth of Kwame Nkrumah is ended forever.

" The jubilant populace destroyed Nkrumah's statues and renamed the many roads, circles, buildings - even universities - that had borne his name. From a dreary exile in Guinea, Nkrumah ineffectually tried to rally Ghana against the new regime. Though initially proclaimed "copresident of Ghana" on his arrival, a gesture of sentiment, Nkrumah soon found himself watched, isolated, without even his Egyptian wife of 8 years. He died in Conakry, Guinea, on April 27, 1972.

Yet Ghana could no more remove the memory and effects of 15 years of its remarkable first leader than Nkrumah could remove the memories and structures of Ghana's colonial and traditional past. On the negative side were the heavy debts that the country had accrued.

More positively, there were the schools and universities, the Volta Dam, and the aluminum industry which Nkrumah had dreamed of in the 1950s and through persistence had seen through. And, he had given most Ghanaians a sense - and pride - of nationhood in the 1950s and had given people of African blood throughout the world a new pride in their color. Ironically, he had wanted to unite and lead a continent, but he founded a nation; of its small size he was continually embarrassed. Yet it is by his successes and failures as leader of that country that his biographers must ultimately judge him.

Respect.

FMEs!

Ndahani · Jan 6, 2010

One thing unique about Mwalimu and Nkurumah was their ability to develop vision of what they wanted Africa to look like. Any briliant leader whether yesterday today or tomorrow, can't make it without vision, emulated by strong will of deeds to attain it.
What I see now is quite the opposite.As a nation we do not have vision. Our leaders have turned themselves to story telling and excuses! I was not born to see how these past briliant leaders began their mission when they thouth about Africa. But I strongly believe they had something precious in their mind with little support from those around them.Majority of those surrounded these guys have shown their true characters. They were wasting these great leaders time

William J. Malecela · Jan 6, 2010

Hailesalssie: (Born 1892 - Died 1975)

First Emperor (1930 - 1974) Ethiopia.

His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I "Power of the Trinity";[1]) (23 July 1892 – 27 August 1975), born Tafari Makonnen,[2]Ethiopia's regent from 1916 to 1930 and Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. was The heir to a dynasty that traced its origins to the 13th century, and from there by tradition back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, Haile Selassie is a defining figure in both Ethiopian African history.[3][4]

At the League of Nations in 1936, the Emperor condemned the use of chemical weapons by Italy against his people.[5] His internationalist views led to Ethiopia becoming a charter member of the United Nations, and his political thought and experience in promoting multilateralism and collective security have proved seminal and enduring.[6]

His suppression of rebellions among the nobles (mekwannint), as well as what some perceived to be Ethiopia's failure to modernize adequately,[7] earned him criticism among some contemporaries and historians.[8]
Haile Selassie is revered as the religious symbol for God incarnate Rastafari movement, the number of followers is estimated between 200,000 and 800,000. among the [9][10]Jamaica in the 1930s, the Rastafarian movement perceives Haile Selassie as a messianic figure who will lead the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora to a golden age of peace, righteousness, and prosperity.[11]

Haile Selassie introduced Ethiopia's first written constitution on 16 July 1931,[57] providing for a bicameral legislature.[58] The constitution kept power in the hands of the nobility, but it did establish democratic standards among the nobility, envisaging a transition to democratic rule: it would prevail "until the people are in a position to elect themselves."[58] and Begun in The constitution limited the succession to the throne to the descendants of Haile Selassie, a point that met with the disapprobation of other dynastic pri Revolution

In February 1974, four days of serious riots in Addis against a sudden economic inflation left five dead. The Emperor responded by announcing on national television a rollback of gasoline prices and a freeze on the cost of basic commodities. This calmed the public, but the promised 33% military wage hike was not substantial enough to pacify the army, which then mutinied, beginning in Asmara and spreading throughout the empire.

This mutiny led to the resignation of Prime Minister Aklilu Habte Wold on 27 February 1974.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-evang-112 Haile Selassie again went on television to agree to the army's demands for still greater pay, and named Endalkatchew Makonnen as his new Prime Minister. However, despite Endalkatchew's many concessions, discontent continued in March with a four-day general strike that paralyzed the nation.
Imprisonment

The Derg, a committee of low-ranking military officers and enlisted men, set up in June to investigate the military's demands, took advantage of the government's disarray to depose Haile Selassie on 12 September 1974. General Aman Mikael Andom, a Protestant of Eritrean origin,[111] served briefly as provisional head of state pending the return of Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, who was then receiving medical treatment abroad.

Haile Selassie was placed under house arrest briefly at the 4th Army Division in Addis Ababa,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-evang-112 while most of his family was detained at the late Duke of Harrar's residence in the north of the capital. The last months of the Emperor's life were spent in imprisonment, in the Grand Palace.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-fate-113


Later, most of the Imperial family was imprisoned in the Addis Ababa prison known as "Alem Bekagn", or "I am finished with the world". On 23 November 1974, 60 former high officials of the Imperial government, known as "the Sixty", were executed without trial. The executed included Haile Selassie's grandson and two former Prime Ministers.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-fate-113

These killings, known to Ethiopians as "Bloody Saturday", were condemned by Crown Prince Asfa Wossen; the Derg responded to his rebuke by revoking its acknowledgment of his imperial legitimacy, and announcing the end of the Solomonic dynasty.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-shinn44-114
Death and internment

On 28 August 1975, the state media officially reported publicly that the "ex-monarch" Haile Selassie had died on 27 August of "respiratory failure" following complications from a prostate operation.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-115 His doctor, Asrat Woldeyes, denied that complications had occurred and rejected the government version of his death. Some imperial loyalists believed that the Emperor had in fact been assassinated, and this belief remains widely held.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-imperialburial-116 One western correspondent in Ethiopia at the time commented, "While it is not known what actually happened, there are strong indications that no efforts were made to save him. It is unlikely that he was actually killed. Such rumors were bound to arise no matter what happened, given the atmosphere of suspicion and distrust prevailing in Addis Ababa at the time."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-117

The Soviet-backed Derg fell in 1991. In 1992, the Emperor's bones were found under a concrete slab on the palace grounds;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-imperialburial-116 some reports suggest that his remains were discovered beneath a latrine.[117] For almost a decade thereafter, as Ethiopian courts attempted to sort out the circumstances of his death, his coffin rested in Bhata Church, near his great uncle Menelik II's imperial resting place.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-lorch-119

On 5 November 2000, Haile Selassie was given an Imperial funeral by the Ethiopian Orthodox church. The post-communist government refused calls to declare the ceremony an official imperial funeral.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-lorch-119

Although such prominent Rastafari figures as Rita Marley and others participated in the grand funeral, most Rastafari rejected the event and refused to accept that the bones were the remains of Haile Selassie. There remains some debate within the Rastafari movement as to whether Haile Selassie actually died in 1975http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia#cite_note-120

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 7, 2010

Jomo Kenyatta: (Born 1894 - Died 1978).

First Prime Minister (1963-1964), First President (1964- 1978) Kenya.

Jomo Kenyatta was born Kamau wa Muigai to parents Muigai and Wambui in the village of Ngenda, Gatundu, in British East Africa (now Kenya), a member of Kikuyu people. His date of birth, sometime in the early to mid 1890s, is unclear, and was unclear even to him, as his parents were almost certainly not literate, and no formal birth records of native Africans were kept in Kenya back then. His father died while Kamau was very young after which, as per custom, he was adopted by his uncle Ngengi, who also inherited his mother, to become Kamau wa Ngengi.

He then left home to become a resident pupil at the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) at Thogoto, close to Kikuyu Town, about 12 miles north-west of Nairobi. He studied amongst other subjects: the Bible, English, mathematics, and carpentry. He paid the school fees by working as a houseboy and cook for a white settler living nearby.
In 1912, having completed his mission school education, he became an apprentice carpenter.

In 1919 he married Grace Wahu, under Kikuyu customs. When Grace got pregnant, his church elders ordered him to get married before a European magistrate, and undertake the appropriate church rites. On 20 November 1920 Kamau's first son, Peter Muigai, was born.

In 1922 Kamau began working, as a store clerk and water-meter reader for the Nairobi Municipal Council Public Works Department, once again under John Cook who was the Water Superintendent.[3] Meter reading helped him meet many Kenyan-Asians at their homes who would become important allies later on.He entered politics after taking interest in the political activities of James Beauttah and Joseph Kang'ethe the leaders of the KCA (Kikuyu Central Association).

He joined KCA in 1924 and rose up the ranks of the association. Eventually he began to edit the movement's Kikuyu newspaper. By 1928 he had become the KCA's general secretary. In 1928 he launched a monthly Kikuyu-language newspaper called MwĩgwithaniaReconciler) which aimed to unite all sections of the Kikuyu. The paper, supported by an Asian-owned printing press, had a mild and unassuming tone, and was tolerated by the colonial government.

Overseas

In 1929 the KCA sent Kenyatta to London to lobby on its behalf with regards to Kikuyu tribal land affairs. He wrote articles to British newspapers about the matter. He returned to Kenya in September 24, 1930 and was welcomed at Mombasa by his wife Wahu and James Beauttah. He then took part, on the side of traditionalists, in the debate on the issue of circumcision of girls. He later worked for Kikuyu Independent Schools in Githunguri. He returned to London in 1931 and enrolled in Woodbrooke Quaker College in Birmingham.

In 1932 to 1933, he briefly studied economics in Moscow at the Comintern School, KUTVU (University of the Toilers of the East) before his sponsor, the Trinidadian communist George Padmore, fell out with his Soviet hosts, forcing Kenyatta to move back to London. In 1934, Kenyatta enrolled at University College London and from 1935 studied social anthropology under Bronisław Malinowski at the London School of Economics (LSE).

He published his revised LSE thesis as Facing Mount Kenya in 1938 under his new name, Jomo Kenyatta. The name "Jomo" is translated in English to "Burning Spear", while the name "Kenyatta" was said to be a reference to the beaded Masai belt he wore, and later to "the Light of Kenya".
During this period, he was also an active member of a group of African, Caribbean and American intellectuals who included C.L.R. James, Eric Williams, W.A. Wallace Johnson, Paul Robeson, and Ralph Bunche.

During his presidency, a number of streets in Nairobi were named after those early black-emancipation intellectuals .

Kenyatta also acted as an extra in the film Sanders of the River (1934), directed by Alexander Korda and starring Paul Robeson. During World War II, he worked as a labourer at a British farm in Sussex, and lectured on Africa for the Workers' Educational Association. In 1942, he married an Englishwoman, Edna Clarke. He also published My People of KikuyuThe Life of Chief Wang'ombe, a history shading into legend.
Edna gave birth to their son, Peter Magana, in 1943.

In 1945, with other prominent African nationalist figures, such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Kenyatta helped organize the fifth Pan-African Congress held in Britain. He left Edna Clarke behind in Britain when he returned to Kenya in 1946.

Return to Kenya

Kenyatta returned to Kenya in 1946, after almost 15 years abroad.
He married for the third time, to Grace Wanjiku, Senior Chief Koinange's daughter, and sister to Mbiyu Koinange, who later became a lifelong confidant and was one of the most powerful politicians during Kenyatta's presidency. Kenyatta then went into teaching, becoming principal of Kenya Teachers College

In 1947, he was elected president of the Kenya African Union (KAU). He began to receive death threats from white settlers after his election.
From 1948 to 1951 he toured and lectured around the country condemning idleness, robbery, urging hard work while campaigning for the return of land given to White settlers and for independence within three years.

His wife, Grace Wanjiku, died in childbirth in 1950 as she gave birth to daughter Jane Wambui, who survived. In 1951 Kenyatta married Ngina Muhoho, daughter of Chief Muhoho. She was popularly referred to as Mama Ngina and was independent Kenya's First Lady, when Kenyatta was elected President.

The Mau Mau rebellion began in 1951 and KAU was banned, and a state of emergency was declared in on October 20, 1952.

Trial and Imprisonment

Kenyatta was arrested in October 1952 and indicted with five others on the charges of "managing and being a member" of the Mau Mau Society. The Mau Mau Society was a radical anti-colonial movement engaged in the Mau Mau Rebellion. The accused were known as the "Kapenguria Six".
The trial lasted five months: Rawson Macharia, the main prosecution witness, turned out to have perjured himself; the judge - who had only recently been awarded an unusually large pension,[5] and who maintained secret contact with the then colonial Governor of Kenya Evelyn Baring[6] during the trial - was openly hostile to the defendants' cause.

The defense, led by British Lawyer Dennis Pritt, argued that the white settlers were trying to scapegoat Kenyatta and that there was no evidence tying him to the Mau Mau. The court sentenced Kenyatta on April 8, 1953 to seven years imprisonment with hard labor[7] The subsequent appeal was refused by the British Privy Council in 1954.
Kenyatta remained in prison until 1959, after which he was detained in Lodwar, a remote part of Kenya.

The state of emergency was lifted in December 1960.
On Feb 28 1960, a public meeting of 25, 000 in Nairobi demanded his release. On April 15, 1960, over a million signatures for a plea to release him were presented to the Governor. On May 14, 1960, he was elected Kanu President in absentia. On Mar 23 1961, Kenyan leaders, including Mr Daniel arap Moi, later his long time Vice President and successor as president, visited him at Lodwar.

On Apr 11 1961, he was moved to Maralal with daughter Margaret where he met world press for the first time in eight years.On Aug 14 1961, he was released and brought to Gatundu to a hero's welcome.
While contemporary opinion linked Kenyatta with the Mau Mau, historians have questioned his alleged leadership of the radical movement.[8]

Kenyatta was in truth a political moderate. His marriage of Colonial Chief's daughters, his post independence Kikuyu allies mainly being former colonial collaborators, and his short shrift treatment of former Mau Mau fighters after he came to power, all strongly suggest he had scant regard for the Mau Mau. .

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William J. Malecela · Jan 7, 2010

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Death

President Kenyatta had suffered a heart attack in 1966. He would in the mid -seventies lapse into periodic comas lasting from a few hours to a few days from time to time. In April 1977, then well into his 80s, he suffered a massive heart attack.[12]
On August 14, 1978, he hosted his entire family, including his son Peter Magana who flew in from Britain with his family, to a reunion in Mombasa.
On August 22, 1978, President Kenyatta died in Mombasa of natural causes attributable to old age.
Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was buried on August 31 1978 in Nairobi in a state funeral at a mausoleum on Parliament grounds. He was succeeded as President after his death by his vice-president Daniel arap Moi.[13]

Legacy

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, as he was popularly known, was an important and influential statesman in Africa. He is credited with leading Kenya to independence and setting up the country as a relatively prosperous capitalist state. He pursued a moderate pro-Western, anti-Communist economic philosophy and foreign policy.

 He oversaw a peaceful land reform process, oversaw the setting up of the institutions of independent Kenya, and also oversaw Kenya's admission into the United Nations. During his reign, the country was reasonably well governed, peaceful and stable, the economy developed and grew rapidly and attracted high levels of foreign investment, and a black Kenyan professional and business middle class was established.

However, Kenyatta was not without major flaws, and did also bequeath Kenya some major problems which continue to bedevil the country to date, hindering her development, and threatening her existence as a peaceful unitary multi-ethnic state. He failed to mold Kenya, being its founding father, into a homogenizes multi-ethnic state.

Instead, the country became and remains a de-facto confederation of competing tribes. Also, his resettlement of many Kikuyu tribesmen in the country's Rift Valley province is widely considered to have been done unfairly. His authoritarian style, with elements of patronage, favoritism, tribalism and/or nepotism drew criticism and dissent, and set a bad example followed by his successors.

He had the Constitution radically amended to expand his powers, consolidating executive power. Kenyatta has further been criticized for encouraging the culture of wealth accumulation by public officials using the power and influence of their offices, thereby deeply entrenching corruption in Kenya

He is also criticized for allocating large choice parcels of land to himself, his relatives, friends, and/or allies, with himself becoming the country's largest landowner. It is loudly whispered in Kenya that the Kenyatta Family land holding in the country is equivalent in area to the country's Nyanza province.

His policies are also criticized for leading to a large income and development inequality gap in the country. Development and resource allocation in the country during his reign was seen to have favored some regions of the country, mainly Nairobi and the Country's Central Highlands, over others.

The net summary of his legacy though, is that he contributed in no small measure to the decolonization of Africa, and molded Kenya into the regional power in East Africa, and into one of the more developed and prosperous countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Family

Kenyatta had two children from his first marriage with Grace Wahu: son Peter Muigai Kenyatta (born 1920), who later became a deputy minister; and daughter Margaret Kenyatta (born 192. Margaret served as mayor of Nairobi between 1970-76 and then as Kenya's ambassador to the United Nations from 1976 -86.

Grace Wahu died in April 2007. He had one son, Peter Magana Kenyatta (born 1943) from his short marriage with Edna Clarke. His third wife, Grace Wanjiku, died when giving birth in 1950. Daughter Jane Wambui survived. His fourth wife, the best known due to her role as First Lady, was Ngina Kenyatta (née Muhoho), also known as Mama Ngina.

She often accompanied him in public and also has some streets in Nairobi and Mombasa named after her. She bore Kenyatta four children: Christine Wambui (born 1952), Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta (born 1961), Anna Nyokabi (also known as Jeni) and Muhoho Kenyatta (born 1964).

Mama Ngina lives quietly as a wealthy widow in Kenya. Uhuru Kenyatta, Mzee Kenyatta's political heir, unsuccessfully vied for the Kenyan presidency as President Moi's preferred successor in 2002 and is today the Kenyan Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance. Muhoho Kenyatta runs his Mother's vast family business but lives out of the public limelight.

Kenyatta was the uncle of Ngethe Njoroge, Kenya's first representative to the United Nations and the great uncle of Tom Morello, the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine. His niece, Beth Mugo, married to a retired ambassador, is an MP and currently serving as Minister for Public Health.

He has also been criticized for ruling through a post colonial clique comprised largely of his relatives, other Kikuyus, mostly from his native Kiambu district, and African Kikuyu colonial collaborators and their offspring, while giving scant reward to those whom most consider the real fighters for Kenya's independence.

This clique became and remains the wealthiest, most powerful and most influential class in Kenya to date, and has held the country back, blocking reform and change, and the emergence of fresh progressive leadership, in its maneuvers to maintain its power and wealth.

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William J. Malecela · Jan 7, 2010

Patrice Lumumba: (Born 1925 - Died 1961).

First Legally Prime Minister (1961 - 1961 10 Weeks Only) Zaire, Congo DRC.

Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925–17 January 1961) was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960.

Only ten weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis.He was subsequently imprisoned and murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States.

Path to Prime Minister

Lumumba was born in Onalua in the Katakokombe region of the Kasai Belgian Congo, a member of the Tetela ethnic group. province of the Raised in a Catholic family as one of four sons, he was educated at a Protestant primary school, a Catholic missionary school, and finally the government post office training school, passing the one-year course with distinction. He subsequently worked in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) and Stanleyville (now Kisangani) as a postal clerk and as a travelling beer salesman. In 1951, he married Pauline Opangu.

In 1955, Lumumba became regional head of the Cercles of Stanleyville and joined the Liberal Party of Belgium, where he worked on editing and distributing party literature. After traveling on a three-week study tour in Belgium, he was arrested in 1955 on charges of embezzlement of post office funds. His two-year sentence was commuted to twelve months after it was confirmed by Belgian lawyer Jules Chrome that Lumumba had returned the funds, and he was released in July 1956.

After his release, he helped found the broad-based Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) in 1958, later becoming the organization's president. Lumumba and his team represented the MNC at the All-African People's Conference in Accra, Ghana, in December 1958. At this international conference, hosted by influential Pan-African President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Lumumba further solidified his Pan-Africanist beliefs.

In late October 1959, Lumumba as leader of the MNC was again arrested for allegedly inciting an anti-colonial riot in Stanleyville where thirty people were killed, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison. The trial's start date of 18 January 1960, was also the first day of a round-table conference in Brussels to finalise the future of the Congo. Despite Lumumba's imprisonment at the time, the MNC won a convincing majority in the December local elections in the Congo.

As a result of pressure from delegates who were enraged at Lumumba's imprisonment, he was released and allowed to attend the Brussels conference. The conference culminated on 27 January with a declaration of Congolese independence setting 30 June 1960, as the independence date with national elections from 11–25 May 1960. Lumumba and the MNC won this election and the right to form a government, with the announcement on 23 June 1960 of 34-year-old Lumumba as Congo's first prime minister and Joseph Kasa-Vubu as its president.

In accordance with the constitution, on 24 June the new government passed a vote of confidence and was ratified by the Congolese Chamber and Senate. Independence Day was celebrated on 30 June in a ceremony attended by many dignitaries including King Baudouin and the foreign press, Patrice Lumumba delivered his famous independence speech[4] after being officially excluded from the event programme, despite being the new prime minister.

The speech of King Baudouin praised developments under colonialism, his reference to the "genius" of his great-granduncle Leopold II of Belgium glossing over atrocities committed during the Congo Free State.[2] In contrast to the relatively harmless speech of President Kasa-Vubu, Lumumba's reference to the suffering of the Congolese under Belgian colonialism stirred the crowd while simultaneously humiliating and alienating the King and his entourage.

He famously ended his speech by ad-libbing, Nous ne sommes plus vos macaques! (We are no longer your monkeys!)--referring to a common slur used against Africans by Belgians.[2][5] Lumumba was later harshly criticised for what many in the West, but virtually none in Africa, described as the inappropriate nature of his speech.[6]
Actions as Prime Minister

A few days after Congo gained its independence, Lumumba made the fateful decision to raise the pay of all government employees except for the army. Many units of the army also had strong objections toward the uniformly Belgian officers, and rebelled in protest. The rebellions quickly spread throughout the country, leading to a general breakdown in law and order. Soon the country was overrun by gangs of soldiers and looters, causing a media sensation, particularly over Europeans fleeing the country.[7]

The province of Katanga declared independence under regional premier Moïse Tshombe on 11 July 1960 with support from the Belgian government and mining companies such as Union Minière.[8] Despite the arrival of UN troops, unrest continued. Since the United Nations refused to help suppress the rebellion in Katanga, Lumumba sought Soviet aid in the form of planes to help move troops to Katanga. Soviet troops were then used in an invasion, which failed due to poor intelligence and poor knowledge of local conditions. Lumumba's decisive actions alarmed his colleagues and President Kasa-Vubu, who preferred a more moderate political approach.[9]
Deposition and arrest

In September, the President dismissed Lumumba from government. Lumumba immediately protested the legality of the President's actions. In retaliation, Lumumba declared Kasa-Vubu deposed and won a vote of confidence in the Senate, while the newly appointed prime minister failed to gain parliament's confidence. The country was torn by two political groups claiming legal power over the country.

On 14 September, a coup d'état organised by Colonel Joseph Mobutu and endorsed by the CIA incapacitated both Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu.[7]

Lumumba was placed under house arrest at the prime minister's residence, although UN troops were positioned around the house to protect him. Nevertheless, Lumumba decided to rouse his supporters in Haut-Congo. Smuggled out of his residence at night, he escaped to Stanleyville, where he attempted to set up his own government and army.[10] Pursued by troops loyal to Mobutu he was finally captured in Port Francqui on 1 December 1960 and flown to Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) in handcuffs.

He desperately appealed to local UN troops to save him, but he was no longer their responsibility. Mobutu said Lumumba would be tried for inciting the army to rebellion and other crimes. United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld made an appeal to Kasa-Vubu asking that Lumumba be treated according to due process of law. The USSR denounced Hammarskjöld and the Western powers as responsible for Lumumba's arrest and demanded his release.

The UN Security Council was called into session on 7 December 1960 to consider Soviet demands that the UN seek Lumumba's immediate release, the immediate restoration of Lumumba as head of the Congo government, the disarming of the forces of Mobutu, and the immediate evacuation of Belgians from the Congo. Hammarskjöld, answering Soviet attacks against his Congo operations, said that if the UN forces were withdrawn from the Congo "I fear everything will crumble."

The threat to the UN cause was intensified by the announcement of the withdrawal of their contingents by Yugoslavia, the United Arab Republic, Ceylon, Indonesia, Morocco, and Guinea. The Soviet pro-Lumumba resolution was defeated on 14 December 1960 by a vote of 8-2. On the same day, a Western resolution that would have given Hammarskjöld increased powers to deal with the Congo situation (and perhaps intervene on Lumumba's behalf) was vetoed by the Soviet Union.

Lumumba was sent first on 3 December, to Thysville military barracks Camp Hardy, 150 km (about 100 miles) from Leopoldville. However, when security and disciplinary breaches threatened Lumumba's safety, it was decided that he should be transferred to the Katanga Province.

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William J. Malecela · Jan 7, 2010

Death.

Lumumba was forcibly restrained on the flight to Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi) on 17 January 1961. On arrival, he was conducted under arrest to Brouwez House and held there bound and gagged while President Tshombe and his cabinet decided what to do with him.
Later that night, Lumumba was driven to an isolated spot where three firing squads had been assembled.

According to David Akerman and Ludo de Witte, the firing squads were commanded by a Belgian, Captain Julien Gat, and another Belgian, Police Commissioner Verscheure, had overall command of the execution site.

The Belgian Commission has found that the execution was carried out by Katanga's authorities, but de Witte found written orders from the Belgian government requesting Lumumba's murder and documents on various arrangements, such as death squads.

It reported that President Tshombe and two other ministers were present with four Belgian officers under the command of Katangan authorities. Lumumba and two other comrades from the government, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, were lined up against a tree and shot one at a time. The execution probably took place on 17 January 1961 between 21:40 and 21:43 according to the Belgian report. Lumumba's corpse was buried nearby.

No statement was released until three weeks later despite rumours that Lumumba was dead. His death was formally announced on Katangese radio when it was alleged that he escaped and was killed by enraged villagers. On January 18, panicked by reports that the burial of the three bodies had been observed, members of the murder team went to dig up the bodies and move them to a place near the border with Rhodesia for reburial.

Belgian Police Commissioner Gerard Soete later admitted in several accounts that he and his brother led the first and a second exhumation. Police Commissioner Frans Verscheure also took part. On the afternoon and evening of January 21, Commissioner Soete and his brother dug up Lumumba's corpse for the second time, cut it up with a hacksaw, and dissolved it in concentrated sulfuric acid (de Witte 2002:140-143).

Only some teeth and a fragment of skull and bullets survived the process, kept as souvenirs. In an interview on Belgian television in a program on the assassination of Lumumba in 1999, Soete displayed a bullet and two teeth that he boasted he had saved from Lumumba's body. De Witte also mentions that Verscheure kept souvenirs from the exhumation: bullets from the skull of Lumumba (de Witte 2002: 140).

After the announcement of Lumumba's death, street protests were organised in several European countries; in Belgrade, capital of Yugoslavia, protesters sacked the Belgian embassy and confronted the police, and in London a crowd marched from Trafalgar Square[ to the Belgian embassy, where a letter of protest was delivered and where protesters clashed with police.

There is much speculation over any role that the Belgian and US governments played in the prime minister's murder. The Congo is a strategically placed region of Africa, and because of its resources and size, the Belgian and American governments feared Lumumba creating an anti-colonial Congo.

The Belgian Commission investigating Lumumba's assassination concluded that (1) Belgium wanted Lumumba arrested, (2) Belgium was not particularly concerned with Lumumba's physical well being, and (3) although informed of the danger to Lumumba's life, Belgium did not take any action to avert his death, but the report also specifically denied that Belgium ordered Lumumba's assassination.

Under its own 'Good Samaritan' laws, Belgium was legally culpable for failing to prevent the assassination from taking place and was also in breach of its obligation (under U.N. Resolution 290 of 1949) to refrain from acts or threats "aimed at impairing the freedom, independence or integrity of another state."

It was revealed that U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had said "something [to CIA chief Allen Dulles] to the effect that Lumumba should be eliminated".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba#cite_note-grauniad-16 This was revealed by a declassified interview with then-US National Security Council minutekeeper Robert Johnson released in August 2000 from Senate intelligence committee's inquiry on covert action.

The committee later found that while the CIA had conspired to kill Lumumba, it was not directly involved in the actual murder In 1975, the Church Committee went on record with the finding that Allen Dulles had ordered Lumumba's assassination as "an urgent and prime objective" (Dulles' own words).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba#cite_note-17 Furthermore, declassified CIA cables quoted or mentioned in the Church report and in Kalb (1972) mention two specific CIA plots to murder Lumumba:

the poison plot and a shooting plot. Although some sources claim that CIA plots ended when Lumumba was captured, that is not stated or shown in the CIA records. Rather, those records show two still-partly-censored CIA cables from Elizabethville on days significant in the murder: January 17, the day Lumumba died, and January 18, the day of the first exhumation.

The former, after a long censored section, talks about where they need to go from there. The latter expresses thanks for Lumumba being sent to them and then says that, had Elizabethville base known he was coming, they would have "baked a snake".

Significantly, a CIA officer told another CIA officer later that he had had Lumumba's body in the trunk of his car to try to find a way to dispose of it. This cable goes on to state that the writer's sources (not yet declassified) said that after being taken from the airport Lumumba was imprisoned by "all white guards" (CIA document #CO 1366116).

Plots by U.S. and Belgium

The report of 2001 by the Belgian Commission mentions that there had been previous U.S. and Belgian plots to kill Lumumba. Among them was a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored attempt to poison him, which may have come on orders from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb was a key person in this by devising a poison resembling toothpaste.

However, the plan is said to have been scrapped because the local CIA Station Chief, Larry Devlin, refused permission.[Congo Cables, the record shows that many communications by Devlin at the time urged elimination of Lumumba (p. 53, 101, 129-133, 149-152, 158-159, 184-185, 195).

Also, the CIA station chief helped to direct the search to capture Lumumba for his transfer to his enemies in Katanga, was involved in arranging his transfer to Katanga (p. 158, Hoyt, Michael P. 2009, "Captive in the Congo: A Consul's Return to the Heart of Darkness"), and the CIA base chief in Elizabethville was in direct touch with the killers the night Lumumba was killed.

Furthermore, a CIA agent had the body in the trunk of his car in order to try to get rid of it (p. 105, Stockwell, John 1978 In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story. Stockwell, who knew Devlin well, felt Devlin knew more than anyone else about the murder (71-72, 136-137). However, as Kalb points out in her book,

In February 2002, the Belgian government apologised to the Congolese people, and admitted to a "moral responsibility" and "an irrefutable portion of responsibility in the events that led to the death of Lumumba." In July, documents released by the United States government revealed that while the CIA had been kept informed of Belgium's plans, it had no direct role in Lumumba's eventual death.

This same disclosure showed that U.S. perception at the time was that Lumumba was a communist.] Eisenhower's reported call, at a meeting of his national security advisers, for Lumumba's elimination must have been brought on by this perception.

Both Belgium and the US were clearly influenced in their unfavourable stance towards Lumumba by the Cold War. He seemed to gravitate around the Soviet Union, although this was not because he was a communist but the only place he could find support in his country's effort to rid itself of colonial rule,.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba#cite_note-27

The US was the first country from which Lumumba requested help.East and West. Lumumba, for his part, not only denied being a Communist, but said he found colonialism and Communism to be equally deplorable, and professed his personal preference for neutrality between the

1961 USSR commemorative stamp

Legacy

<table class="cquote2" style="border-style: none; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: transparent;" align="center"> <tbody><tr> <td style="padding: 10px; color: rgb(178, 183, 242); font-size: 40px; font-family: serif; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;" width="20" valign="top">"</td> <td style="padding: 4px 10px;" valign="top">We must move forward, striking out tirelessly against imperialism. From all over the world we have to learn lessons which events afford. Lumumba's murder should be a lesson for all of us.</td> <td style="padding: 10px; color: rgb(178, 183, 242); font-size: 40px; font-family: serif; font-weight: bold; text-align: right;" width="20" valign="bottom">"</td> </tr> <tr> <td>
</td> <td valign="top">
<cite style="font-style: normal;">- Che Guevara, 1964 </cite>
</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Political

The results of his time in office are both mixed and polarising in their subsequent interpretation. To his critics, Lumumba bequeathed very few positive results from his term of office. Their critiques include his inability to promote development and failure to stave off or quell a civil war that erupted within days of his appointment as prime minister.

Instead, he behaved impetuously and followed expedients rather than policies that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, including himself.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba#cite_note-31 To his supporters, Lumumba represents a strong sense of altruism. He favoured a unitary Congo and opposed division of the country along ethnic or regional lines.Like many other African leaders, he supported pan-Africanism and liberation for colonial territories.

He proclaimed his regime one of "positive neutralism,"defined as a return to African values and rejection of any imported ideology, including that of the Soviet Union. In the eyes of supporters, Lumumba was a man of strong character who pursued his policies regardless of opposing viewpoints.

2006 Congolese elections

Nevertheless, the image of Patrice Lumumba continues to serve as an inspiration in contemporary Congolese politics. In the 2006 elections, several parties claimed to be motivated by his ideas,including the People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy Joseph Kabila. Antoine Gizenga, who served as Lumumba's Deputy Prime Minister in the post-independence period, was a 2006 Presidential candidate under the Unified Lumumbist Party (Parti Lumumbiste Unifié (PALU))

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba#cite_note-PALU-33and was named prime minister at the end of the year. Other political parties that directly utilise his name include the Mouvement National Congolais-Lumumba (PPRD), the political party initiated by the incumbent President (MNC-L) and the Mouvement Lumumbiste (MLP).

Family and Politics

Patrice Lumumba's family is actively involved in contemporary Congolese politics. Patrice Lumumba was married and had five children; François was the eldest followed by Patrice Junior, Julienne, Roland and Guy-Patrice Lumumba. François was 10 years old when Patrice died.

Before his imprisonment, Patrice arranged for his wife and children to move into exile Egypt, where François spent his childhood, then went to Hungary for education (he holds a doctorate in political economics). He returned to Congo in 1992 to oppose Mobutuhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba#cite_note-Fran.C3.A7ois-34 in since which time he has been the leader of the Mouvement National Congolais Lumumba (MNC-L), his father's original political party.

Lumumba's youngest son, Guy-Patrice, born six months after his father's death, was an independent presidential candidate in the 2006 elections, but received less than 1% of the vote.

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William J. Malecela · Jan 7, 2010

Mobutu Sese- seko: (Born 1930 - Died 1997)

Second President (1965-1996) Zaire, Congo DRC

Mobutu Sese Seko (1930-1997) was the second president of the Congo (at one time called Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo), taking office in late 1965. Mobutu Sese Seko was born Joseph Désiré Mobutu on Oct. 14, 1930, at Lisala. (He later abandoned those names in favor of African names.) Although his ascendancy was Ngbandi (a non-Bantu tribe of Sudanese origin), he grew up among the Bantu-speaking riverine peoples of the Congo who are commonly referred to as Bangala.

He attended a secondary school run by Catholic missionaries at Coquilhatville (later Mbandaka) and after being dismissed for insubordination was drafted into the Force Publique in 1950. Because of his educational qualifications, Mobutu was trained as a noncommissioned officer and given a desk job as an accountant.

He also tried his hand at journalism by writing a few pieces for army periodicals, and when he left the Force Publique in 1956, he became a stringer and then a regular staffer in Léopoldville, rising to the post of editor of the weekly Actualités Africaines. He received further training at the official Congo Information Office and then at a Brussels school of journalism.

During that period, Mobutu met Patrice Lumumba and became his representative in Belgium, while reportedly serving as an informer for the Belgian security police. Lumumba brought him back to the Congo in 1960, made him a presidential aide, and raised him to the rank of colonel and chief of staff of the Congolese army.

Within 2 months of his appointment, Mobutu used his position to unseat Lumumba and to install the College of Commissioners, made up of graduate students (Sept. 20, 1960).Mobutu consolidated his hold over a segment of the army, particularly over a commando battalion which he organized with the help of a right-wing Moroccan general serving in the UN force, turning it into a praetorian guard to control the capital city. He was instrumental in the decision to turn Lumumba over to the Katanga regime and thus bears a major responsibility for the death of the man who had been his political protector.

Thereafter, Mobutu concentrated his efforts on reunifying the fragmented army under his command and even managed to have Moïse Tshombe subscribe to his nominal paramountcy over Katanga forces after securing his release from the brief captivity into which the secessionist leader had allowed himself to be ensnared (June-July 1961).

Although civilian rule was officially restored in August 1961 under Premier Cyrille Adoula, Mobutu remained a major power broker. The army's position--and indirectly that of Mobutu--became seriously weakened as a result of its disastrous performance in attempting to control the Congo rebellion in 1963-1965. When Tshombe returned to the Congo as prime minister,Mobutu supported his decision to make use of foreign military support (foreign technicians had in any case been working with the Congolese army since 1960); and he maintained this position when Joseph Kasavubu, sensing international hostility to the presence of white mercenaries in the Congo, announced his intention to dismiss them in October 1965.

On Nov. 25, 1965, the army took power (officially for a period of 5 years), and Mobutu became president. Rather than follow Tshombe's policy of open subservience to Western interests, however, Mobutu assumed--at least initially--a nationalistic pose, rehabilitated Lumumba's memory, and challenged Belgian economic control of the Katanga mining industry. His confrontation with the Union Minière eventually led to a face-saving compromise, and his attempts to organize a mass party under the name of MPR (Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution) turned out to be somewhat less than impressive, but he was successful in beating back all attempts to unseat him.

Two such attempts (aiming at Tshombe's restoration) took the form of mutiny by Katanga forces and white mercenaries, leading to the latter group's final expulsion from the Congo at the end of 1967. Thereafter, theMobutu regime gradually inflected its course in a conservative direction (as witnessed by the October 1968 execution of rebel leader Pierre Mulele, who had returned to the Congo following assurances of amnesty) and had to face growing disaffection and unrest on the part of student circles.

Diplomatically, Mobutu tried to strengthen the Congo's influence on the African scene. He was consistently favorable to the United States and indeed was often accused of rising to power with CIA help and of being a Trojan horse for American influence in central Africa. In December 1971 he changed his country's name to Zaïre.

Like Stalin in the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Mobutu consolidated his power by developing a cult of his own personality. Pictures of him were printed by the tens of thousands and sent to every part of the country. His every word was recorded; his was the only official voice to speak for Zaire; orchestrated crowds cheered his speeches; and the Zairian media, all of it state censored, sang his praises and enlarged his stature in an unceasing bombardment.

As historian Michael Schatzberg noted, "Scarcely a day passed when the press did not hail even his most banal activities as the magnanimous paternal gestures of a man intent only on the well being of his children, the people of Zaire. Zairian television began its broadcasts with a surrealistic vision ofMobutu descending from the cloud-filled heavens."
Mobutu beat back threats from outside Zaire in the 1970s that took the form of invasions from Shaba (formerly Katanga) Province by rebels, some of whom were former Tshombe supporters from the independence era; others were refugees fromMobutu's terror.

Mobutu almost lost control of the mining districts for a while in 1978 during a second rebel offensive, and again was forced to offer vocal anti-Communist sentiments in order to obtain aid from American President Jimmy Carter, who was repelled by Mobutu's cynical approach to human rights.

Mobutu mishandled his nation's economy almost from the beginning. Once secure in power, he tried to exploit Zaire's natural mineral riches, but he and his backers lacked the personnel, infrastructure, and business ethos to make it work. Even worse, his decision in 1973 to nationalize all other economic assets owned by foreigners led to a catastrophic decline in national productivity and wealth.

Humiliated by his financial woes,Mobutu returned farms and factories to their original owners, but a fall in the world price of copper further devasted the Zairian economy. Through the 1980s and into the 1990s, Mobutu grew ever more entrenched and corrupt and ever more suspicious of attempts to liberalize his rule. He made some half-hearted concessions toward free speech and democracy in the early '90s, but was unable to yield any real power.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the breakdown of order in Burundi that began in 1993 indirectly helped cause Mobutu's final downfall. More than one million refugees fled into Zaire's eastern border regions, unsettling the local population and reviving dormant feuds. Out of this uncertainty another rebellion emerged led by the enigmatic Laurent Kabila. This rebel movement proved surprisingly successful and in mid-1997 succeeded in pushing to the outskirts of the capital.

Kabila became president and changed the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Mobutu, ailing with prostate cancer (he had undergone surgery on August 22, 1996) fled with his family and close supporters to Togo. On September 7, 1997, about four months after he left the Congo,Mobutu died in Morocco.

Mobutu's long hold on power had disastrous consequences for his people.

The Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka referred to Mobutu as Africa's leading "toad king," a monarchical ruler who lived in grotesque splendor while his people starved. Mobutu's Zaire was also the distressing model for novelist V.S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River(1979), a chilling account of life in an African dictatorship.

Indeed, it would be hard to think of Zaire under Mobutu as a developing country. Rather, it was a deteriorating society held together only by the iron-fisted and corrupt rule of its dictator.

Respect.

FMES!
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Kilbark · Jan 7, 2010

Baada ya kupitia sifa za hao wote naweza kusema Nyerere yuko juu sana kiuongozi he was very clever.

William J. Malecela · Jan 7, 2010

Jonas Malheiro Savimbi: (Born 1934 - Died 2002)

Rebell Leader UNITA (1966 - 2002) Angola.

Early years

Jonas Savimbi was born on August 3, 1934 in Munhango, Bié Province, a small town on the Benguela Railway and raised in Portuguese Angola's central province of Bié, which together with Huambo later, after independence of Angola, served as his power base during the Angolan Civil War (1975 - 2002). Savimbi's father, Lote, was a stationmaster on Angola's Benguela railway line and a Protestant preacher. Both of his parents were members of the Ovimbundu tribe, which later served as Savimbi's major political base.[4]

Savimbi was an unusually bright student and was accepted to a Portuguese high school, where he graduated at the top of his class. In 1958, he was accepted to the medical school of the University of Lisbon. In Lisbon, Savimbi studied and began his political involvement, calling for an end to Portuguese colonialism in Angola. His opposition drew the ire of the Estado Novo regime's secret police (PIDE), which tried to get Savimbi to reveal the names of those in Portuguese Angola who shared his view. Under this pressure, Savimbi fled Portugal for Lausanne, Switzerland. In Lausanne, Savimbi abandoned the study of medicine for that of politics, ultimately obtaining his doctorate in 1965 from the University of Lausanne, where his courses were taught in French.[4]

Following Angola's independence in 1975, Savimbi gradually drew the intrigue of powerful Chinese and, ultimately, American policymakers and intellectuals. Trained in China during the 1960s, Savimbi was a highly successful guerrilla fighter schooled in classic Maoist Red Army of Mao Zedong, Savimbi mobilized large segments of the rural peasantry as part of his military tactics. From a military strategy standpoint, he is generally considered one of the most effective guerrilla leaders of the 20th century. approaches to warfare, including baiting his enemies with multiple military fronts, some of which attacked and some of which consciously retreated. Like the Chinese

While Savimbi originally sought a leadership position in the Marxist MPLA, he later denounced Marxism and joined forces with the FNLA in 1964. The same year he conceived UNITA with Antonio da Costa Fernandes. Savimbi went to China for help and was promised arms and military training. Upon returning to Angola in 1966 he formally launched UNITA and began his career as an anti-Portuguese guerrilla fighter, but also fought the FNLA and MPLA, as the three resistance movements tried to position themselves to lead a post-colonial Angola. Portugal would later release PIDE archives revealing that Savimbi in fact signed a collaboration pact with Portuguese colonial authorities to fight the MPLA.[5][6]

Complementing his military skills, Savimbi also impressed many with his intellectual qualities. He fluently spoke seven languages, including four European languages and three African languages. In visits with foreign diplomats and in speeches before American audiences, he often cited classical Western political and social philosophy, ultimately becoming one of the most vocal anti-communists of the Third World.

Some dismiss this intellectualism as nothing more than careful handling by his politically savvy American supporters, who sought to present Savimbi as a clear alternative to Angola's regime. But others saw it as genuine and a product of the guerrilla leader's raw intelligence. Savimbi's biography describes him as "...an incredible linguist. He spoke four European languages, including English although he had never lived in an English-speaking country. He was extremely well read. He was an extremely fine conversationalist and a very good listener."[7]

These contrasting images of Savimbi would play out throughout his life, with his enemies calling him a power-hungry warmonger, and his American and other allies calling him a critical figure in the West's bid to win the Cold War.
Savimbi's Washington allies

Savimbi's war against Angola's Marxist government became a sub-plot to the Cold War, with both Moscow and Washington viewing the conflict as important to the global balance of power. In 1985, with the backing of the Reagan administration, Jack Abramoff and other U.S. conservatives organized the Democratic International in Savimbi's base in Jamba, in Cuando Cubango Province in southeastern Angola.[8]

The meeting included most of the anti-communist guerrilla leaders of the Third World, including Savimbi, Nicaraguan contra Adolfo Calero, and Abdul Rahim Wardak, then leader of Afghanistan's mujahideen leader who now serves as Afghanistan's Defense Minister.

Equally important, Savimbi also was strongly supported by the influential, conservative Heritage Foundation. Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst Michael Johns and other conservatives visited regularly with Savimbi in his clandestine camps in Jamba and provided the rebel leader with ongoing political and military guidance in his war against the Angolan government. Savimbi's U.S.-based supporters ultimately proved successful in convincing the Central Intelligence Agency to channel covert weapons and recruit guerrillas for Savimbi's war against Angola's Marxist government, which greatly intensified and prolonged the conflict.

During a visit to Washington, D.C. in 1986, Reagan invited Savimbi to meet with him at the White House. Following the meeting, Reagan spoke of UNITA winning "a victory that electrifies the world."

Two years later, with the Angolan Civil War intensifying, Savimbi returned to Washington, where he was filled with gratitude and praise for the Heritage Foundation's work on UNITA's behalf. "When we come to the Heritage Foundation", Savimbi said during a June 30, 1988 speech at the foundation, "it is like coming back home. We know that our success here in Washington in repealing the Clark Amendment and obtaining American assistance for our cause is very much associated with your efforts. This foundation has been a source of great support. The UNITA leadership knows this, and it is also known in Angola."[9]
Savimbi's military success

As U.S. support began to flow liberally and leading U.S. conservatives championed his cause, Savimbi won major strategic battles in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Moscow and Havana began to reevaluate their engagement in Angola, as Soviet and Cuban Luanda. Observers felt that the strategic balance in Angola had shifted and that Savimbi was positioning UNITA for a possible military victory.[10]

fatalities mounted and Savimbi's ground control increased. At the height of his military success, Savimbi controlled nearly half the country and was beginning, in 1989 and 1990, to launch attacks on government and military targets in and around the country's capital,
Signaling the concern that the former Soviet Union was placing on Savimbi's advance in Angola, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev raised the Angolan war with Reagan during numerous U.S.-Soviet summits.

In addition to meeting with Reagan, Savimbi also met with Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, who promised Savimbi "all appropriate and effective assistance."[11]In January 1990 and again in February 1990, Savimbi was wounded in armed conflict with Angolan government troops. But the injuries did not prevent him from again returning to Washington, D.C., where he met with his American supporters and President George H. W. Bush in an effort to further increase U.S. military assistance to UNITA.[12]

Savimbi's supporters warned that continued Soviet support for the MPLA was threatening broader global collaboration between Gorbachev and the U.S. Under military pressure from UNITA, the Angolan government negotiated a cease-fire with Savimbi, and Savimbi ran for president in the national elections of 1992. Foreign monitors claimed the election to be fair. But because neither Savimbi nor Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos obtained the 50 percent necessary to prevail, a run-off election was scheduled.[14]

In late October 1992, Savimbi dispatched UNITA Vice President Jeremias Chitunda and UNITA senior advisor Elias Salupeto Pena to Luanda to negotiate the details of the run-off election. But on November 2, 1992 in Luanda, Chitunda and Pena's convoy was attacked by government forces and they were both pulled from their car and shot dead. Their bodies were confiscated by government authorities and never seen again.[15] The offensive against Chitunda, Pena and other UNITA officials has come to be known as the Halloween Massacre.

Alleging governmental electoral fraud and questioning the government's commitment to peace, Savimbi withdrew from the run-off election and resumed fighting, mostly with foreign funds. UNITA again quickly advanced militarily, encircling the nation's capital of Luanda.[16]

One of Savimbi's largest sources of financial support was the De Beers diamonds in 1992-1993. Corporation, which bought between $500 and $800 million worth of illegally mined In 1994, UNITA signed a new peace accord, but Savimbi declined the vice-presidency that was offered to him and again renewed fighting in 1998. Savimbi also purportedly purged some of those within UNITA who he may have seen as threats to his leadership or questioned his strategic course.

Savimbi's foreign secretary, Tito Chingunji and his family, were murdered in 1991 after Savimbi suspected that Chingunji had been in secret, unapproved negotiations with the Angolan government during Chingunji's various diplomatic assignments in Europe and the United States. Savimbi denied his involvement in the Chingunji killing and blamed it on two UNITA dissidents.http://www.answers.com/topic/jonas-savimbi#cite_note-16
2002: Killed in combat

After surviving more than a dozen assassination attempts, Savimbi was killed on February 22, 2002, in a battle with Angolan government troops - and, reportedly, South African mercenaries and Israeli special forceshttp://www.answers.com/topic/jonas-savimbi#cite_note-17 - along riverbanks in the province of Moxico, his birthplace. In the firefight, Savimbi sustained 15 machine gun bullets to his head, throat, upper body and legs. While Savimbi returned gun fire, the blows proved immediately fatal.http://www.answers.com/topic/jonas-savimbi#cite_note-18

Savimbi's somewhat mystical reputation for eluding the Angolan military and their Soviet and Cuban military advisors led many Angolans to question the validity of reports of his 2002 death. Not until pictures of his bloodied and bullet-ridden body appeared on Angolan state television, and the United States State Department subsequently confirmed it, did the reports of Savimbi's death in combat gain credence in the country.

Savimbi was interred in Luena, Moxico Province, in east central Angola. In January 2008, his gravesite was vandalized by MPLA party activists, two of whom were arrested.http://www.answers.com/topic/jonas-savimbi#cite_note-19
UNITA after Savimbi

Savimbi was succeeded by António Dembo, who assumed UNITA's leadership on an interim basis in February 2002. But Dembo had sustained wounds in the same attack that killed Savimbi, and he ended up dying from them ten days later. Dembo was succeeded by Paulo Lukamba.

In 2003, Lukamba was succeeded by Isaías Samakuva, who served as UNITA's ambassador to Europe under Savimbi and has headed UNITA ever since. Six weeks following Savimbi's death, a ceasefire between UNITA and the MPLA was signed, but Angola remains deeply divided politically between MPLA and UNITA supporters. Parliamentary elections in September 2008 resulted in an overwhelming majority for the MPLA, but their legitimacy was questioned by international observers. http://www.answers.com/topic/angolan-presidential-election-2009

Savimbi's Dead Body.

Respect.

FMEs!

Ndahani · Jan 7, 2010

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b5/Savimbi.jpg

Savimbi's Dead Body.

Respect.

FMEs!

Thanks once again for this useful information FMES.We will all die, but not this shameful death as a result of having no respect for the rule of law and the will of people to choose their leaders

William J. Malecela · Jan 7, 2010

Kenneth Kaunda: (Born 1924 Still Living)

First President (1964 - 1991) Zambia.

Kaunda was the youngest of eight children. He was born at Lubwa Mission in Chinsali, Northern Province of Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. His father was the Reverend David Kaunda, an ordained Church of Scotland missionary and teacher, who was born in Malawi Lusaka (August 1941–1943). and had moved to Chinsali to work at Lubwa Mission. He attended Munali Training Centre in

Kaunda was a teacher at the Upper Primary School and Boarding Master at Lubwa and then Headmaster at Lubwa from 1943 to 1945. He left Lubwa for Lusaka to become an instructor in the army but was dismissed. He was for a time working at the Salisbury and Bindura Mine. In early 1948, he became a teacher in Mufulira for the United Missions to the Copperbelt (UMCB). He was then assistant at an African Welfare Centre and Boarding Master of a Mine School in Mufulira.

In this period, he was leading a Pathfinder Scout Group and was Choirmaster at a Church of Central Africa Congregation. He was also for a time Vice-Secretary of the Nchanga Branch of Congress.
Independence struggle

In April 1949 Kaunda returned to Lubwa to become a part-time teacher, but resigned in 1951. In that year he became Organising Secretary of the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress for Northern Province, which included at that time Luapula Province. On 11 November 1953 he moved to Lusaka to take up the post of Secretary General of the ANC, under the presidency of Harry Nkumbula.

The combined efforts of Kaunda and Nkumbula failed to mobilize the indigenous African people against the White-dominated Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In 1955 Kaunda and Nkumbula were imprisoned for two months with hard labour for distributing "subversive" literature. Such imprisonment and other forms of harassment were normal rites of passage for African nationalist leaders. The experience of imprisonment had a radicalizing impact on Kaunda.

The two leaders drifted apart as Nkumbula became increasingly influenced by white liberals and was seen as being willing to compromise on the issue of Black majority rule, waiting till the majority was 'ready' before extending the franchise. This was, however, to be determined by existing property and literacy qualifications, dropping race altogether. Nkumbula's allegedly autocratic leadership of the ANC eventually resulted in a split.

Kaunda broke from the ANC and formed the Zambian African National Congress (ZANC) in October 1958. ZANC was banned in March 1959. In June Kaunda was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, which he spent first in Lusaka, then in Salisbury (now called Harare).
While Kaunda was in prison, Mainza Chona and other nationalists broke away from the ANC and, in October 1959, Chona became the first president of the United National Independence Party (UNIP), the successor to ZANC. However, Chona did not see himself as the party's main founder.

When Kaunda was released from prison in January 1960 he was elected President of UNIP. In July 1961 Kaunda organized a civil disobedience Cha-cha-cha campaign, which consisted of burning schools and blocking roads. Kaunda ran as a UNIP candidate during the 1962 elections. This resulted in a UNIP–ANC Coalition Government, with Kaunda as Minister of Local Government and Social Welfare. In January 1964 UNIP won the General Election under the new Constitution beating the ANC under Nkumbula.

Kaunda was appointed Prime Minister. On 24 October 1964 he became the first President of independent Zambia. Reuben Kamanga was appointed as the first Vice President. campaign in Northern Province, the so called

Respect.

FMES!

William J. Malecela · Jan 8, 2010

Then, Mr Kaunda with Margaret Thatcher in 1979...

Presidency

In the year of independence, Kaunda had to deal with the independent Lumpa Church, led by Alice Lenshina in Chinsali, his home district in the Northern Province. The Lumpa Church tried to take up a neutral position in the political conflict between UNIP and the ANC, but was then accused by UNIP of collaboration with the White minority governments. Conflicts arose between UNIP youth and Lumpa members, especially in Chinsali District, where the headquarters of the church were.

Kaunda, as Prime Minister of an African majority Government, sent in two battalions of the Northern Rhodesia Regiment. The fight led to the deaths of about 1500 villagers and the flight to Katanga of tens of thousands of followers of Lenshina. Kaunda banned the Lumpa Church in August 1964 and proclaimed a state of emergency that was retained until 1991.

Educational policies

At the time of its independence, Zambia's modernization process was far from complete. It had just 109 university graduates and less than 0.5% of the population was estimated to have completed primary education. The nation's educational system was one of the most poorly developed in all of Britain's former colonies.

Because of this, Zambia had to invest heavily in education at all levels. Kaunda instituted a policy where all children, irrespective of their parents' ability to pay, were given free exercise books, pens and pencils. The parents' main responsibility was to buy uniforms, pay a token "school fee" and ensure that the children attended school. This approach meant that the best pupils were promoted to achieve their best results, all the way from primary school to university level. Not every child could go to secondary school, for example, but those who did were well educated.

The University of Zambia was opened in Lusaka in 1966, after Zambians all over the country had been encouraged to donate whatever they could afford towards its construction. Kaunda was appointed Chancellor and officiated at the first graduation ceremony in 1969. The main campus was situated on the Great East Road, while the medical campus was located at Ridgeway near the University Teaching Hospital.

In 1979 another campus was established at the Zambia Institute of Technology in Kitwe. In 1988 the Kitwe campus was upgraded and renamed the Copperbelt University, offering business studies, industrial studies and environmental studies. The University of Zambia offers courses in agriculture, education, engineering, humanities and social sciences, law, medicine, mining, natural sciences, and veterinary medicine.

Economic policies

At independence Kaunda received a country with an economy that was completely under the control of foreigners. Only by threatening to expropriate it, on the eve of independence, did Kaunda manage to get the BSAC to assign its mineral rights to the incoming Zambian government.

At independence, Salisbury, the capital of Southern Rhodesia, was much more developed than Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. This was what Northern Rhodesians called the "bamba zonke" A major switch in the structure of Zambia's economy came with the Mulungushi Reforms of April 1968: the government declared its intention to acquire an equity holding (usually 51% or more) in a number of key foreign-owned firms, to be controlled by the Industrial Development Corporation (INDECO). By January 1970,

Unfortunately for Kaunda and Zambia, these programs of nationalization, even assuming they could have worked, were ill-timed. Events that were beyond their control would wreck the country's plans for national development. In 1973 the massive increase in the price of oil was followed by a slump in copper prices in 1975 and a diminution of export earnings.

In 1973 the price of copper accounted for 95% of all export earnings; this halved in value on the world market in 1975. By 1976 Zambia had a balance-of-payments crisis, and rapidly became massively indebted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Third National Development Plan (1978–83) had to be abandoned as crisis management replaced long-term planning.

By the mid-1980s Zambia was one of the most indebted nations in the world, relative to its gross domestic product (GDP). The IMF was insisting that the Zambian government should introduce programs aimed at stabilizing the economy and restructuring it to reduce dependence on copper. The proposed measures included: the ending of price controls; devaluation of the kwacha (Zambia's currency);

cut-backs in government expenditure; cancellation of subsidies on food and fertilizer; and increased prices for farm produce. Kaunda's removal of food subsidies caused massive increases in the prices of basic foodstuffs; the country's urban population rioted in protest. In desperation, Kaunda broke with the IMF in May 1987 and introduced a New Economic Recovery Programme in 1988.

However, this did not help him and he eventually moved toward a new understanding with the IMF in 1989. In 1990, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (on which Kaunda's ideology, Zambian Humanism had been fashioned), Kaunda was forced to make a major policy shift: he announced the intention to partially privatize the parastatals. However, these changes came too late to prevent his fall from power, which was largely the result of the economic troubles.

One-Party State and "African Socialism"

In 1964 there was the Lumpa Uprising in Northern Zambia, four months before independence. Kaunda had a state of emergency declared which was not repealed until his fall from power. The state of emergency gave Kaunda absolute power. The Lumpa Church was destroyed and banned. It was a major source of opposition because it refused to allow church members to participate in politics which went against the 100% participation wanted by UNIP.

This created a lot of animosity between the two groups and violence that began on a small scale escalated into a small civil war in which more than a thousand people were killed. The crisis was brought about by a combination of complacency on the part of the Colonial administration and UNIP intransigence.

Kaunda tried to mediate the differences between the Church, local authorities and UNIP party members but was eventually unable to control party cadres in the North. Becoming increasingly intolerant of opposition, Kaunda banned all parties except UNIP, following violence during the 1968 elections.

In 1972, he made Zambia a one-party state, probably because he was worried by Simon Kapwepwe's decision to leave UNIP and found a rival party, the United Progressive Party, which Kaunda immediately banned. Next, he appointed the Chona Commission, which was set up under the chairmanship of Mainza Chona in February 1972. Its task was to make recommendations for the constitution of a 'one-party participatory democracy' (i.e. a one-party state).

The Commission's terms of reference did not permit it to discuss the pros and cons of Kaunda's decision. The sole surviving opposition party, the ANC, boycotted the Commission and unsuccessfully challenged the constitutional change in the courts. The Chona report was based on four months of public hearings and was submitted in October 1972. It was widely regarded as a 'liberal' document.

Finally, Kaunda neutralised Nkumbula by getting him to wind-up the ANC, join UNIP and sign a document called the Choma Declaration on 27 June 1973. The ANC ceased to exist after the dissolution of parliament in October 1973. Allegedly Kaunda "bought off" Nkumbula by offering him an emerald mine.

With no more opposition against him, Kaunda allowed the creation of a personality cult. He developed a left nationalist-socialist ideology, called Zambian Humanism. This was based on a combination of mid-twentieth-century ideas of central planning/state control and what he considered basic African values: mutual aid, trust and loyalty to the community.

Similar forms of African socialism were introduced inter alia in Ghana by Kwame Nkrumah ("Consciencism") and Tanzania by Julius Nyerere Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko was at a loss until he hit on the ideal ideology - 'Mobutuism'.

To elaborate his ideology, Kaunda published several books: Humanism in Zambia and a Guide to its Implementation, Parts 1, 2 and 3. Other publications on Zambian Humanism are: Fundamentals of Zambian Humanism, by Timothy Kandeke; Zambian Humanism, religion and social morality, by Cleve Dillion-Malone S.J. andZambian Humanism: some major spiritual and economic challenges, by Justin B. Zulu. ("Ujamaa"), while in
Freedom fighters

Although it was Kaunda's nationalization of the copper mining industry in the late 1960s that led to increased economic problems, matters were made worse by his economic and logistical support for the Black freedom fighters in the region: South Africa, the Portuguese colonies of Portuguese West Africa (now Angola) and Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique) and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Kaunda tried to solve the conflict in Southern Africa between the White minority governments of Rhodesia, South Africa and Angola and Mozambique and the African freedom fighters by mediation and boycotts.

On 25-26 August 1976, Kaunda met with the Prime Minister of South Africa, B.J. Vorster at Victoria Falls and again on 30 April 1982 with Prime Minister, Pieter Willem Botha on the Botswana border to discuss the political situation in South West Africa and South Africa. However, he did not manage to get serious concessions from the South African government. Kaunda was criticised in the African press for talking to representatives of the apartheid regime.

Foreign policy

During his early presidency he was an outspoken supporter of the anti-apartheid movement and opposed Ian Smith's white minority rule in Rhodesia. Kaunda allowed several African liberation fronts such as ZAPU ZANU of Rhodesia and African National Congress to set headquarters in Zambia.

Former ANC president Oliver Tambo spent a significant proportion of his 30 year exile living and working in Zambia. Joshua Nkomo the leader of ZAPU also stationed a military base in Zambia. In retaliation the white minority governments of Rhodesia and South Africa frequently led espionage and bombing attacks in Zambia. Herbert Chitepo, prominent ZANU leader, was killed in a car bomb in Lusaka in 1975.

The struggle in both Rhodesia and South Africa and its offshoot wars in Namibia, Angola Mozambique placed a huge economic burden on Zambia as these were the country's main trading partners. As a response, Kaunda negotiated the TAZARA Railway (Tanzam) linking Kapiri Mposhi Copperbelt Tanzania's port of Dar-es-Salaam on the Indian Ocean. on the Zambian

Completed in 1975, this was the only route for bulk trade which did not have to pass white-controlled territories. This precarious situation lasted more than 20 years, until the end of apartheid in South Africa. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, the first country he visited was Zambia on 27 February.http://www.answers.com/topic/kenneth-kaunda#cite_note-1

and and with During the Cold War, Kaunda was a strong supporter of the Non-Aligned Movement.[3] He hosted a NAM summit in Lusaka in 1970 and served as the movement's chairman from 1970 to 1973. He maintained a close friendship with Yugoslavia's long-time leader Tito and is remembered by many former citizens of Yugoslavia for weeping openly over his casket in 1980.

He even had a house built in Lusaka for Tito's visits to the country. Kaunda had frequent but cordial differences with US President Ronald Reagan whom he met 1983 and Margaret Thatcher mainly over what he saw as the West's blind eye to apartheid. He always maintained warm relations with the People's Republic of China who had provided assistance on many projects in Zambia including the TAZARA Railway.

In the late 1980s prior to the first Gulf War Kaunda developed a friendship with Saddam Hussein with whom he struck various agreements to supply oil to Zambia. He named streets in Saddam's honour (Saddam Hussein blvd., now Los Angeles blvd.). During the events that led to the Gulf War, Saddam became increasingly isolated.

In August 1989 Farzad Bazoft was arrested in Iraq for alleged espionage. He was accompanied by a British nurse, Daphne Parish who was arrested as well. Bazoft was an Iranian born British freelance journalist who was about to expose Saddam's gassing of the Kurds. Bazoft was later tried, sentenced to death and executed. Parish was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

But in 1990 just as the Gulf War was about to break out Kaundasuccessfully managed to negotiate the release of Parish with Saddam.. Kaunda served as chairman of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) from 1970 to 1973.

UNIP and Kaunda's autocracy during the Second Republic

After promulgation of the Second Republic, following Mainza Chona's recommendations for the constitution of a "one-party participatory democracy", Kaunda's leadership took on more autocratic characteristics. He personally appointed the Central Committee of UNIP, although the process was given a veneer of legitimacy by being "approved" by a National Congress of the party.

In theory, Kaunda's nominations could be discarded by Congress, but in practice they were always accepted without modification. The argument used was that "the President knows the people who can work well with him, so if we modify the nominations we will end up with a less effective team". In turn, the Central Committee nominated a sole candidate for the post of President of the party. Of course, since the members of the Central Committee had been nominated by him, Kaunda was always the sole presidential candidate.

After that charade, the rest of the Zambian population was given the opportunity to express approval or disapproval of the sole candidate's nomination by voting either "Yes" or "No". Since the presidential "election" was always accompanied by parliamentary elections, there was great pressure placed on parliamentary candidates to "campaign" for the president's "Yes" vote, in addition to their own campaigns.

Parastatals companies (which were controlled through ZIMCO - Zambia Industrial and Mining Corporation) were also under pressure to "campaign" for Kaunda by buying advertising space in the two national newspapers (Times of Zambia and Zambia Daily Mail) exhorting the electorate to give the president a "massive 'Yes' vote".

The parliamentary elections were also controlled by Kaunda: the names of candidates had to be submitted to UNIP's Central Committee, which then selected three people to stand for any particular constituency. Anyone could be vetoed without the Central Committee giving any reason, since UNIP was supreme and its decisions were unchallengeable. Using these methods, Kaunda kept any enemies at bay by ensuring that they never got into political power.

This was the tactic he used when he saw off Nkumbula and Kapwepwe's challenges to his sole candidacy for the 1978 UNIP elections. On that occasion, the UNIP's constitution was "amended" overnight to bring in rules that invalidated the two challengers' nominations: Kapwepwe was told he could not stand because only people who had been members for five years could be nominated to the presidency (he had only rejoined UNIP three years before);

Nkumbula was outmaneuvered by introducing a new rule that said each candidate needed the signatures of 200 delegates from each province to back his candidacy. Less creative tactics were used on a third candidate called Chiluwe; he was just beaten up by the UNIP Youth Wing to within an inch of his life. This meant that he was in no state to submit his nomination.

Fall from power

Eventually, however, economic troubles and increasing international pressure to bring more democracy to Africa forced Kaunda to change the rules that kept him in power. People who had been afraid to criticise him were now emboldened to challenge his competence.

His close friend Julius Nyerere had stepped down from the republican presidency in Tanzania in 1985 and was quietly encouraging Kaunda to follow suit. Pressure for a return to multiparty politics increased and Kaunda voluntarily yielded and called for multiparty elections in 1991, in which the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) won.

One of the issues in the campaign was a plan by Kaunda to turn over one quarter of the nation's land to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an Indian guru who promised that he would use it for a network of utopian agricultural enclaves that proponents claimed would create "heaven of earth".http://www.answers.com/topic/kenneth-kaunda#cite_note-6

Kaunda was forced in a television interview to deny practicing Transcendental Meditation.http://www.answers.com/topic/kenneth-kaunda#cite_note-8 Kaunda left office with the inauguration of MMD leader Frederick Chiluba as president on November 2, 1991. He was the second mainland African head of state to allow free multiparty elections and to have relinquished power when he lost: the first, Mathieu Kérékou of Benin, had done so in March of that year.

Post presidency

Chiluba later attempted to deport Kaunda on the grounds that he was a Malawian. The MMD dominated government under the leadership of Chiluba had the constitution amended, barring citizens with foreign parentage from standing for the presidency, to prevent Kaunda from contesting the next elections in 1996, and Kaunda retired from politics after he was accused of involvement in a failed 1997 coup attempt.

In 1999 Kaunda was declared stateless by the Ndola High Court in a Judgment delivered by Mr. Justice Chalendo Sakala. A full transcript of the judgment was published in the Times of Zambia edition of 1 April 1999. Kaunda however successfully challenged this decision in the Supreme Court of Zambia, which declared him to be a Zambian citizen in the year 2000.

After retiring, he has been involved in various charitable organizations. His most notable contribution has been his zeal in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS. One of Kaunda's children was claimed by the pandemic in the 1980s.From 2002 to 2004, he was an African President in Residence at Boston University.

Recently, he was seen in the attendance of an episode of Dancing With The Stars as Kaunda is an avid ballroom dancer. On 19 October 2007 Kaunda was the recipient of the 2007 Ubuntu Award.

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 8, 2010

Jean Bedel Bokassa: (Born 1922 - Died 1996)

Second President & Emperor (1965 - 1977) Central Africa.

Bokassa– 9 Orphaned at 6, Bokassa was educated at mission schools, joined the French colonial army in 1939, and fought in the Second World War and Indochina, receiving numerous medals for bravery. Commissioned as lieutenant in 1949, he rose rapidly to become Chief of Staff in the government led by President Dacko, whom he then ousted in a military coup d'état.

His regime rapidly degenerated into a brutal personal dictatorship, marked by the murder of numerous opponents in which Bokassa personally participated; he also indulged in ritual cannibalism. Not content with declaring himself President for Life, he decided to become an emperor, in emulation of Napoleon, and in 1977 organized a lavish but bizarre coronation ceremony which was alleged to cost a third of the annual national revenue.

Despite these excesses, he retained good relations with successive French governments, and notably that of President Giscard d'Estaing, until he became too embarrassing to be ignored. Public revelations about his gift of diamonds to Giscard, the value of which was hotly disputed, coupled with Bokassa's physical attack on the French ambassador, resulted in his overthrow in September 1979 in an operation by French paratroops which was thinly disguised as an internal coup.

On 1 January 1966, following a swift and almost bloodless coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa assumed power as president of the Republic. Bokassa abolished the constitution of 1959, dissolved the National Assembly, and issued a decree that placed all legislative and executive powers in the hands of the president. On 4 December 1976, the republic became a monarchy-the Central African Empire -- with the promulgation of the imperial constitution and the proclamation of the president as Emperor Bokassa I. His regime was characterized by numerous human rights atrocities.

Dacko counter-coup

On September 20, 1979, Dacko, with French support, led a bloodless coup that overthrew Bokassa while he was out of the country. The republic was restored, and Bokassa, who took refuge in Côte d'Ivoire and France, was sentenced to death in absentia for various crimes, including cannibalism.

Moreover, an African judicial commission reported that he had "almost certainly" taken part in the massacre of some 100 children for refusing to wear the compulsory school uniforms. In January 1981, six of his supporters, including two sons-in-law, were executed.

Bokassa made an unexpected return in October 1986 and was retried. On June 12, 1987, he was convicted of having ordered the murders of at least 20 prisoners and the arrest of the schoolchildren who were murdered. He was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to a life term in February 1988. He was released from prison on September 1, 1993, as a result of an amnesty. He died of a heart attack in Bangui on November 3, 1996 at age 75.

Kolingba coup

Dacko's efforts to promote economic and political reforms proved ineffectual, and on 20 September 1981, he in turn was overthrown in a bloodless coup by General André Kolingba. For four years, Kolingba led the country as head of the Military Committee for National Recovery (CRMN).

In 1985 the CRMN was dissolved, and Kolingba named a new cabinet with increased civilian participation, signaling the start of a return to civilian rule. The process of democratization quickened in 1986 with the creation of a new political party, the Rassemblement Démocratique Centrafricain (RDC), and the drafting of a new constitution that subsequently was ratified in a national referendum. General Kolingba was sworn in as constitutional President on 29 November 1986. The constitution established a National Assembly made up of 52 elected deputies, elected in July 1987.

Bozizé coup

On 15 March 2003 rebels who controlled part of the country moved into Bangui and installed their commander, General François Bozizé, as president, while President Patassé was out of the country. Bozize has since been elected President in an election considered by observers to be fair and free. Patasse has been found guilty of major crimes in Bangui and CAR has brought a case to the International Criminal Court against him and Jean Pierre Bemba from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo accusing them both of multiple crimes in suppressing one of the mutinies against Patasse.

On May 8, 2005, Bozizé gained yet a further victory when his coalition, Convergence Kwa Na Kwa won 42 parliamentary seats in the legislative run-off vote. The MLPC came in second with 11 seats while the RDC managed only eight seats. The remaining seats were won by independents or by smaller parties. In June later that year, the African Union (AU) lifted sanctions against the country, which had been applied after the 2003 usurpation of power.

In early 2006, Bozizé's government appeared stable. However, Patassé, who was living in exile in Togo, and whose supporters reportedly were joining or were prepared to join rebel movements in belief that their leader was still the official elected leader of the MLPC and the rightful head of state of the country, could not be ruled out as a leader of a future uprising. Further, members of Kolingba's Yakoma tribe in the south posed a potential threat to Bozizé's government because of their widespread boycott of the second round of the legislative elections.

Members of the Yakoma currently dominate the army.
delusory, and he was put on trial for murder and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life imprisonment .

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 8, 2010

Pictures of Bokassa/ Bilder von Bokassa

Wow!

The emperor's new clothes/ Des Kaisers neuer Anzug

Being a good Christian/ ein echter Christ

the holy man/ der Heiliger

with the crown/ mit der Krone

a military man at heart/ im Herzen ein Militärmann

as a young man/ als junger Mann

Fall of the empire

By 12:30 p.m. on 21 September, the pro-French Dacko proclaimed the fall of the Central African Empire. David Dacko remained president until he was overthrown on 1 September 1981 by André Kolingba. Bokassa fled to Ivory Coast where he spent four years living in Abidjan. He then moved to France where he was allowed to settle in his house at Haudricourt, west of Paris. France gave him political asylum because of the French Foreign Legion obligations.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Bédel_Bokassa#cite_note-Lentz-34

Trial and death

Bokassa had been sentenced to death in absentia in December 1980 for the murder of numerous political rivals. However he returned from exile in France on 24 October 1986. He was arrested and tried for treason, murder, cannibalism and embezzlement. Following an emotional trial that lasted seven months he was acquitted of the cannibalism charges but was convicted of the remaining charges and sentenced to death on 12 June 1987.

André Kolingba and then reduced further to twenty years. With the return of democracy in 1993, Kolingba declared a general amnesty for all prisoners as one of his final acts as President, and Bokassa was released on 1 August.

At the end of his life he proclaimed himself the 13th Apostle and claimed to have secret meetings with the Pope. He died of a heart attack on 3 November 1996 in Bangui, at the age of 75. He had 17 wives and a reported 50 children His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in February 1988 by President .

Respect.

FMEs!

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