Africa's Ex-Presidents & Leaders!

William J. Malecela · Jan 9, 2010

Simon Kapwepwe: (Born 1922 - Died 1980)

First Vice President ( 1967 - 1970) Zambia.

Early life

Simon Kapwepwe was born on 12 April 1922 in the Chinsali district of the Northern Province of Northern Rhodesia (which then included the present day Luapula Province) . Although Chinsali was remote from the country's urban centres, it was an area of early educational development, because of the presence of two rival missions, the Presbyterian Livingstonia Mission of the United Free Church of Scotland(based at Lubwa (next to the Kolwe River from 1913) and the Roman Catholic White Fathers' Mission (based at Ilondola from 1934).

Chinsali's first missionary was David Kaunda from Malawi, the father of Kenneth Kaunda Zambia in 1964). Simon Kapwepwe became the country's second vice-president. Kapwepwe started his primary education in Chinsali.

In September 1947 he went to Tanganyika, looking for work, together with Kenneth Kaunda and John Malama Sokoni. In June 1948 he became an Assistant Welfare Officer with the Kitwe Municipal Council, location Nchanga (now known as Chingola), and then a teacher at Wusakile Primary School in Mufulira.

Independence Struggle

Due to his dissatisfaction with the policies of the colonial Northern Rhodesian government, he became a founding member of the Northern Rhodesian African Congress in 1948. This party was soon renamed the Africa National Congress (ANC) under the leadership of Harry Nkumbula. Kapwepwe was a member of the national executive and became secretary of the Kitwe Branch.

Kapwepwe secured an Indian Village Industrial Scholarship in 1950. He stayed in Bombay from 1950 to 1954, after studying Hindi in Nairobi. Subjects he studied were pottery and journalism. In October 1953 the Central African Federation (or the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland) was created. T

he African majority's opposition to this new entity was organized by the ANC, but it was not very successful. On Kapwepwe's return to Northern Rhodesia in January 1955 he found the ANC leaderless, since both Harry Nkumbula and Kenneth Kaunda had been imprisoned for two months for distributing literature, considered subversive. Kapwepwe became then Acting President. When Nkumbula returned from prison, he appointed Kapwepwe to the position of Acting Provincial Organizer for Northern Province. In August 1956 Kapwepwe became Treasurer of the ANC, based in Lusaka.

Nkumbula's allegedly autocratic leadership and his willingness to accept in 1958 participation in national elections, which allowed the vote to only 25,000 Africans, led to a rift within the ANC. Kapwepwe, together with Kaunda, Sikota Wina and others, broke away and formed the Zambia African National Congress (ZANC) in October 1958. This party was declared illegal in March 1959, and its leaders were placed under a banning order or goaled.

Kapwepwe was sent to Mongu, in Barotseland. While the ZANC leadership was in jail or away, Mainza Chona and other nationalists from ZANC formed a new party, the United National Independence Party (UNIP) to replace ZANC. Kapwepwe and the other imprisoned leaders of ZANC joined the new party. When he was release from jail in December 1959, he helped organize provincial and district branches of UNIP in Barotseland.

In 1960 Kapwepwe and Kaunda attended the Federal Review Conference in London, together with Mainza Chona and Harry Nkumbula. This conference meant the beginning of the end of the Central African Federation, and laid the foundations for the independence of Zambia and Malawi, but not yet for Southern Rhodesia.

In October 1962 there were elections in Northern Rhodesia. Kapwepwe challenged Dauti Yamba and won convincingly. The result of the election was a UNIP/ANC coalition government, in which Kapwepwe was given the post of Minister of African Agriculture.

After Independence

The General Elections, held in January 1964, were won by UNIP with 55 seats, as opposed to the ANC's 10 seats. Kapwepwe was given the post of Minister of Home Affairs. In September 1964, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and held that post for three years. During that time he lambasted the British government for failing to intervene after Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Ian Smith, the leader of the Rhodesian Front, in 1965.

Despite their friendship from childhood, Kapwepwe and Kaunda drifted apart after leading Zambia to independence. In 1967 Kapwepwe led a rebellion within UNIP. He stood against Reuben Kamanga and won the position of deputy leader of UNIP. As a consequence, Kaunda promoted him to the position of Vice President.

He used his new position to put forward economic policies that differed from Kaunda's, but his views were sidelined. He also campaigned for the preservation of Zambian culture through the teaching of indigenous languages in schools. In August 1969, he offered to resign from the Vice Presidency as well as the deputy leadership of UNIP. This move was precipitated by tribal friction within UNIP.

Kaunda did not want to lose him and managed to dissuade him from taking that move. However, in October 1970 Kaunda replaced Kapwepwe with Mainza Chona for the post of Vice President. Kapwepwe was allowed to keep the posts of Minister of Culture and Minister of Local Government.

End of his political career

Kapwepwe's life in UNIP began drawing to an end when he was linked with rumours of a new party called the United Progressive Party (UPP) that had been formed on the Copperbelt. He did not own up until Kaunda dismissed four cabinet ministers on suspicion of being clandestine members of the new party. In August 1971, Kapwepwe resigned from UNIP and the government and announced that he was, indeed, the leader of UPP.

In December 1971 he won a by-election for the Mufulira West constituency, and became his party's sole representative in parliament. Kaunda was not pleased with this development. So, on 4 February 1972, he banned UPP and imprisoned 122 members of the party, including Kapwepwe. Kaunda's excuse was that UPP was an instrument of the Rhodesian, South African and Portuguese governments, which favoured White minority rule.

Kapwepwe was kept in prison until 31 December 1972. By then, Kaunda had neutralized any threat that Kapwepwe could pose: the Chona Commission, under the chairmanship of Mainza Chona, was appointed in February 1972 to make recommendations for the constitution of a ‘one-party participatory democracy' (i.e. a one-party state).

After collecting four months of public hearings, the commission's report was submitted to Kaunda in October 1972. The Second Republic (i.e., the one-party state) was inaugurated on 1 January 1973, the day after Kapwepwe was released from detention.

Kapwepwe was harassed even after he had been politically emasculated. He was arrested in February 1973 for illegal possession of two guns. He received a two-years suspended sentence. The UNIP-controlled Zambian media reported that Kapwepwe had sent people for military training outside Zambia. He sued the Zambia Broadcasting Services, the Times of Zambia and the Zambia Daily Mail for libel and won when he proved that they had made false reports.

Kapwepwe turned his back on politics and went to live on his farm in Chinsali. In the spirit of national unity, Kaunda asked Kapwepwe to return to UNIP in September 1977, which he did. To test his erstwhile friend's sincerity, Kapwepwe stood for the 1978 UNIP's one-party presidential nomination against Kaunda. He was disqualified by last-minute changes to UNIP's constitution. He retired for good from politics and returned to Chinsali.

He died on 26 January 1980, after suffering from a stroke two days earlier.

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 9, 2010

Milton Obote: (Born 1925 - Died 2005)

First President (1966 - 1971/1980 - 1985) Uganda.

(Far Left Idd Amin)

Apolo Milton Obote (December 28, 1925 – October 10, 2005[1]), Prime Minister of Uganda from 1962 to 1966 and President of Uganda Uganda to in from 1966 to 1971 and from 1980 to 1985, was a Ugandan political leader who led dependence from the British colonial administration in 1962.

He ruled by harassing, terrorizing, and torturing opponents. Obote also started ethnic persecution. During Obote's regime, flagrant and widespread corruption emerged in the name of socialism.

He was overthrown by Idi Amin in 1971, but regained power in 1980. His second rule was marred by repression, and the deaths of many civilians as a result of a civil war known as the Ugandan Bush War.

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 9, 2010

Milton Obote was born at Akokoro village in Apac district in northern Uganda. He was the son of a local chief of the Lango ethnic group. He began his education in 1940 at the Protestant Missionary School in Lira, and later attended Gulu Junior Secondary School, Busoga College and eventually university at Makerere University. At Makerere, Obote honed his natural oratorical skills, but was expelled for participating in a student strike (Obote claimed he left Makerere voluntarilyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Obote#cite_note-1.

He worked in Buganda in southern Uganda before moving to Kenya, where he worked as a construction worker at an engineering firm. While in Kenya, Obote became involved in the Kenyan independence movement. Upon returning to Uganda in 1956, he joined the political party Uganda National Congress (UNC), and was elected to the colonial Legislative Council in 1957.

In 1959, the UNC split into two factions, with one faction under the leadership of Obote merging with Uganda People's Union to form the Uganda People's Congress (UPC). In the run up to independence elections Obote formed a coalition with the Buganda royalist party, Kabaka Yekka. The two parties controlled a Parliamentary majority and Obote became Prime Minister in 1962.

He assumed the post on April 25, 1962, appointed by Sir Walter Coutts, then Governor-General of Uganda. The following year the position of Governor-General was replaced by a ceremonial Presidency to be elected by Parliament. Mutesa, the Kabaka (King) of Buganda, became the ceremonial President, with Obote as executive Prime Minister.
Obote expelled the Kenyans in 1965.

As prime minister, Obote was implicated in a gold smuggling plot, together with Idi Amin, then deputy commander of the Ugandan armed forces. When the Parliament demanded an investigation of Obote and the ousting of Amin, he suspended the constitution and declared himself President in March 1966, allocating to himself almost unlimited power under state of emergency rulings. Several members of his cabinet, who were leaders of rival factions in the party, were arrested and detained without charge.

In May the Buganda regional Parliament passed a resolution declaring Buganda's incorporation into Uganda to be de jure null and void after the suspension of the constitution. Obote responded with an armed attack upon Mutesa's palace, which ended with Mutesa fleeing to exile. In 1967, Obote's power was cemented when Parliament passed a new constitution which abolished the federal structure of the independence constitution, and created an executive Presidency.

Obote's regime, described as "dictatorial and barbaric", terrorized, harassed, tortured people. Obote's secret police General Service Unit, led by Obote's cousin, was responsible for many cruelties. Food shortages sent prices through the ceiling. Obote's persecution of Indian traders
In 1969 there was an attempt on Obote's life. In the aftermath of the attempt all opposition political parties were banned, leaving Obote as an effectively absolute ruler.

A state of emergency was in force for much of the time and many political opponents were jailed without trial but life. In 1969-70 Obote published a series of pamphlets which were supposed to outline his political and economic policy. "The Common Man's Charter" was a summary of his approach to socialism. The government took over a 51% share in major private corporations and banks in the country in 1970.

During Obote's regime, flagrant and widespread corruption emerged in the name of socialism.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Obote#cite_note-mutibwa-3The population increasingly hated Obote's rule.
In January 1971 Obote was overthrown by the army while on a visit to Singapore, and Amin became President. In the two years before the coup Obote's relations with the West had become strained.

Some have suggested that Western Governments were at least aware of, and may have aided, the coup.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Obote#cite_note-4 Obote fled to Tanzania. The fall of Obote's regime was welcomed and celebrated by many Ugandans.

Second term

In 1979, Idi Amin was ousted by Tanzanian forces aided by Ugandan exiles. By 1980, Uganda was governed by an interim Presidential Commission. At the time of the 1980 elections, the chairman of the commission was a close associate of Obote, Paulo Muwanga. Muwanga had briefly been the de facto President of Uganda from 12 May to 20 May in 1980. Muwanga was the third of three Presidents who served for short periods of time between Amin's ouster and the setting up of the Presidential Commission.

The other two presidents were Yusuf Lule and Godfrey Binaisa.
The elections in 1980 were won by Obote's Uganda People's Congress (UPC) Party. However, the UPC Party's opposition believed that the elections were rigged and this led to a guerrilla rebellion led by Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA) and several other military groups.

It has been estimated that approximately 100,000 people died as a result of fighting between Obote's Uganda National Liberation Army On 27 July 1985, Obote was deposed again. As in 1971, he was overthrown by his own army commanders in a military coup d'état. (UNLA) and the guerrillas.This time the commanders were Brigadier Bazilio Olara-Okello and General Tito Okello. The two men briefly ruled the country through a Military Council, but after a few months of near chaos, Museveni's NRA seized control of the country.

Death in exile

After his second removal from power, Obote fled to Tanzania and later to Zambia. For some years it was rumoured that he would return to Ugandan politics. In August 2005, however, he announced his intention to step down as leader of the UPC. In September 2005, it was reported that Obote would return to Uganda before the end of 2005.

Milton Obote's grave

On October 10, 2005, Obote died of kidney failure in a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. Milton Obote was given a state funeral, attended by president Museveni in the Ugandan capital Kampala in October 2005, to the surprise and appreciation of many Ugandans, since he and Museveni were bitter rivals.

Other groups, such as the Baganda survivors of the "Luwero Triangle" massacres, were bitter that Obote was given a state funeral.
He was survived by his wife and five children. On November 28, his wife Miria Obote was elected UPC party president.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Obote#cite_note-12 One of his sons Jimmy Akena is a member of parliament for Lira Municipality. contributed to this.

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 9, 2010

Oscar Kambona: (Born 1928 - Died 1997)

First Foreign Minister (1961 - 1967) Tanzania.

Oscar Salathiel Kambona was the first foreign affairs minister of Tanganyika and the second most influential and most popular leader in the country after President Julius Nyerere. He was born on 13 August 1928 on the shores of Lake Nyasa in a small village called Kwambe near Mbamba Bay in the district of Mbinga near Songea in southern Tanganyika. He died in London in July 1997.

Kambona received his primary school education at home under a mango tree in his home village. The tree still stands today. He was taught by his parents and by an uncle, all of whom were teachers. He was then sent to St Barnabas Middle School in Liuli in southern Tanganyika not far from his home. He also attended Alliance Secondary School in Dodoma in central Tanganyika.

A British Anglican bishop paid Oscar Kambona's school fees because his father could not afford to do so. The school fees was 30 Pounds per year. Kambona is reported to have said he convinced the Anglican bishop to pay his school fees by reciting the Lord's Prayer in English. He was then selected to attend Tabora Boys' Senior Government School where he first met Julius Nyerere who was already teaching at St. Mary's, a Catholic school in the town of Tabora.

Political career

Kambona became the secretary-general of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) during the struggle for independence and worked closely with Nyerere who was president of TANU, the party which led Tanganyika to independence. Tanganyika won independence from Britain on 9 December 1961. The two were the most prominent leaders of the independence movement in Tanganyika in the 1950s. Oscar Kambona was a charismatic leader who also had great influence among the leaders of the African liberation movements based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, second only to Nyerere, after the country won independence.

He was a shining star in the constellation of Tanganyikan (later Tanzanian) politicians and it was widely believed that he would be the next president of the country if Nyerere no longer ran for office or stepped down for whatever reason. His stature as Nyerere's heir apparent or successor was enhanced when, as defence minister, he calmed down soldiers who could have overthrown the government.

That was during the army munity in January 1964 when President Nyerere and Vice President Rashid Kawawa were taken to a safe place by the members of the intelligence service in case the soldiers wanted to harm them. It was Oscar Kambona, alone, who confronted the soldiers and negotiated with them. He drove himself to the army barracks to talk to the army mutineers and listen to their demands. The soldiers wanted their salaries increased and British army officers replaced by African officers.

There was, however, suspicion that some elements in the government and in the labour movement secretly worked with the soldiers to create a tense situation in an attempt to overthrow President Nyerere. Kambona obviously was not one of them. Had he wanted to, he could have used the opportunity to seize power. He was popular with the soldiers and they trusted him.

He was also, during that time, minister of defence. Soldiers in neighbouring Kenya and Uganda also mutinied around the same time, within the next two days after Tanganyika's army mutiny which took place on 20 January, and made the same demands their counterparts did in Tanganyika. The army mutinies in the three East African countries were suppressed by British troops who had been flown from Aden and Britain at the request of the three East African leaders (Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, and Milton Obote of Uganda). Other British troops came from neighbouring Kenya. The mutinies were over in only a few days.

After Nyerere came out of seclusion, he publicly thanked Oscar Kambona, whom he called "my colleague," for defusing a potentially dangerous situation. In fact, when the soldiers remained defiant, it was Oscar Kambona who persuaded Nyerere to seek immediate assistance from the former colonial power, Britain, to suppress the mutiny. The two leaders had been close political allies and personal friends since the days of the independence struggle when they were the main leaders of the independence movement.

In fact, when Kambona got married to a former Miss Tanganyika at a cathedral in London, Nyerere was his best man. But the two leaders started drifting apart a few years after independence. The first rift occurred in 1964 during the army mutiny, and then in 1965 when Tanzania officially became a one-party state. As a cabinet member, Oscar Kambona supported the transition to a one-party state but did so reluctantly, only as a team player.

He was opposed to the change because he said there was no mechanism guaranteeing change of government by constitutional means in a country dominated by one party. He also contended that there were no constitutional safeguards to make sure that the country did not drift into dictatorship.

The next split with Nyerere came in February 1967 when Tanzania adopted the Arusha Declaration, an economic and political blueprint for the transformation of Tanzania into a socialist state. Kambona was opposed to this fundamental change and argued that the government should first launch a pilot scheme to see if the policy was going to work on a national scale.

Tanzania's socialist policy was mainly based on the establishment of ujamaa villages, roughly equivalent to communes or the Kibbutz in Israel, so that the people could live and work together for their collective well-being and make it easier for the government to provide them with basic services such as water supply, medical treatment at clinics, and education by building schools which could be within short distance from the villages.

Oscar Kambona argued that it was important, first, to show the people that living in ujamaa villages, or collective communities, was beneficial and a good idea. He said that could be done by establishing a few ujamaa villages in different parts of the country as a pilot scheme to demonstrate the viability of those villages and show the people the benefits they would get if they agreed to live together and work together on communal farms.

The debate, conducted mostly in private when the delegates of the ruling party TANU were discussing in a public forum the document of the Arusha Declaration, was between Oscar Kambona on one side and Julius Nyerere as well as Vice President Rashid Kawawa on the other side. They were the country's three main and most powerful and most influential leaders and met privately away from the delegates at the conference in Arusha to resolve their differences.

The private meeting and debate went on for quite some time during the duration of the conference and whenever the subject came up, whether or not Tanzania should adopt socialist policies and establish ujamaa villages, Kawawa always supported Nyerere against Kambona.
The two (Kambona and Kawawa) became bitter enemies thereafter. In fact, they started going separate ways even before then because Kambona saw Kawawa as no more than a "puppet" of Nyerere, manipulated at will, and who agreed with everything Nyerere said and wanted.

However, when he was interviewed shortly after Kambona's death, Kawawa made a public statement that he "had no disagreement with Kambona and worked well with him as a colleague throughout." The interview was broadcast by Radio Tanzania in 1997. Kambona was the only cabinet member who challenged Nyerere and stood up to him and saw him as his equal. There was probably another cabinet member, Chief Abdallah Said Fundikira, Tanganyika's first minister of constitutional affairs, who not long after independence left the cabinet over disagreements with Nyerere. Fundikira had known Nyerere since their student days at Makerere University College in Uganda in the early 1940s.

But the differences between Kambona and Nyerere were fundamentally ideological and more than just a dispute over the way ujamaa villages should be established. Kambona was opposed to socialism. He was not a socialist like Nyerere. He was a capitalist. He was also opposed to Chinese communist influence in Tanzania and believed that Nyerere's brand of socialism would be patterned after Chinese communist policies. He also believed that Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung had undue and profound influence on Nyerere. He attributed that to Nyerere's first visit to the People's Republic of China in 1965, contending that it was after this trip that Nyerere decided to establish a one-party state after he returned to Tanzania.

But Kambona lost. The Arusha Declaration, Tanzania's socialist manifesto and political blueprint, was adopted in February 1967 and socialism became Tanzania's official policy.

Exile

A few months later, in July 1967, Oscar Kambona left Tanzania with his wife and children and went into "self-imposed" exile in London. It was first reported that he sneaked out of the country and drove all the way to Nairobi, Kenya, a neighbouring country. But it is highly unlikely that the members of the Tanzania's intelligence service were not aware of his departure. The government simply let him go.

They could have stopped him, and could even have arrested him, if they wanted to. After he left and when his departure was reported in Tanzania's newspapers and on the radio, President Nyerere himself at a public rally in Dar es Salaam, the capital, talked about Kambona and said "Let him go."

He also said Kambona left with a lot of money and wondered how he got all that money which did not match his salary. There were rumours that one of the ways he enriched himself when he was in office was by taking some of the money which was intended to go to the liberation movements based in Tanzania. He was during that period also chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Liberation Committee overseeing liberation movements based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in addition to his ministerial position as minister of external affairs.

The allegations that he misappropriated some of the funds intended for the liberation struggle in Southern Africa, and got more money from other sources illegally or by unscrupulous means, was repeated on 12 January 1968, when President Nyerere challenged Oscar Kambona to return to Tanzania and testify before a judicial commission that he had not deposited large sums of money in his account, and explain where he got it from since it far exceeded his salary.

Kambona responded to the allegations by requesting the Tanzanian government in a press conference in London in 1968 to hold a public investigation into his personal wealth and publish the findings. The government did not do that. It is also highly unlikely that Kambona misappropriated wealth since he spent most of his life in exile living in subsidised council housing for poor income families.

Tony Laurence, in his book The Dar Mutiny of 1964 published by Book Guild Publishing, states that, fearing for his life, Kambona went to live in exile in Britain without any financial support and took a number of low-paying jobs to support himself and his family. Yet, during all that time, Kambona conducted himself with dignity, and with a sense of humour in spite of the hardship, and was a friend of other people also living in exile. Some of them were in a better financial position than he was.

Nyerere's challenge to Kambona, asking him to account for his money, was reported in Tanzania's newspapers and by Radio Tanzania Dar es Salaam (RTD) during that time. It has also been documented by Jacqueline Audrey Kalley in her voluminous work, Southern African Political History: A Chronology of Key Political Events from Independence to Mid-1997.

There was also disagreement on the way Kambona's exile was described.
Reports in Tanzania said he went into "self-imposed" exile but, to Kambona and his supporters as well as other observers, he was forced to leave Tanzania because he had fallen out with Nyerere and did not feel that he would be safe or lead a normal life in a hostile political climate.

Speculation that he may have been in imminent danger just before he left was somewhat confirmed when his house in Magomeni, Dar es Salaam, was destroyed by the security forces and the soldiers of the Tanzania People's Defence Forces (TPDF) although not demolished. The destruction is shown in a photograph on the web site of the Kambona Foundation.

The destruction of the house, after Kambona left, seemed to have been some kind of warning or simply a scare tactic and it probably achieved its purpose, especially with regard to Kambona's supporters in Tanzania. It probably meant, "this is what we have in store for you," or "this is what you are going to get," if you continue to support Kambona. And "this is what would have happened to him had he stayed."

That may be just one of the interpretations - why his house was destroyed. There may be other interpretations of the government's motives for sanctioning that. But fear for his security and freedom was real, further confirmed when his two younger brothers, Mattiya Kambona and Otini Kambona, were arrested around the same time he fled to London. They were detained for many years until President Nyerere released them.

From his sanctuary in London, Oscar Kambona became a bitter critic and opponent of President Nyerere and his policies. He was even invited by the Nigerian military government of Yakubu Gowon in June 1968 to go and lecture in Nigeria after Tanzania recognised Biafra (the first country to do so in April that year), thus infuriating Nigerian leaders for supporting the secession of the Eastern Region of the Nigerian Federation.

During his lecture tour of Nigeria in June 1968, Kambona denounced Nyerere as a dictator and accused the Tanzanian government of supplying weapons to Biafra. In a lecture in Lagos on 14 June 1968, he also said weapons and ammunition sent to Tanzania for the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) freedom fighters had been diverted by Nyerere and sent to Biafra; and went on to say that Tanzania's recognition of Biafra as a sovereign nation had damaged the country's reputation in Africa and elsewhere.

Tanzania recognised Biafra for moral reasons because of the refusal and unwillingness of the local and the federal authorities to stop the massacre of Igbos and other Easterners in Northern Nigeria and other parts of the country, but especially in the North. Nigerian leaders were also quick to remind Nyerere that it was Nigerian troops who had saved him and provided security and defence for Tanganyika after the army mutiny in Tanganyika in 1964 when Nyerere appealed to fellow Africans for troops to temporarily provide defence while the Tanganyikan government was building a new army.

Nigeria, under the leadership of President Nnamdi Azikiwe and Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, immediately responded to Nyerere's request.
Kambona was also quick to remind his listeners in Nigeria, and even in Britain where lived, that it was he who calmed down the soldiers when they mutinied while President Nyerere and Vice President Kawawa went into hiding, "in a grass hut," as he put it.

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 9, 2010

Oscar Kambona

Coup Leader

Not long after Kambona got ample publicity during his lecture tour of Nigeria in 1968 denouncing Nyerere, he was again in the news in Tanzania and other African countries and elsewhere. He was accused of masterminding a coup attempt to overthrow Nyerere. The coup was to take place in October 1969. But all the alleged conspirators were arrested before the fateful date, except Kambona who was living in London.

The alleged plotters were charged with treason. The chief witness for the prosecution was Potlako Leballo, president of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), a South African liberation group based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Leballo took over the leadership of the organisation after its first president, Mangaliso Roberto Sobukwe, were imprisoned by the apartheid regime.

Leballo had gained the confidence of the coup plotters while he was working for Tanzania's intelligence service. His testimony proved critical in securirng a conviction of the accused during the treason trial presided over by Chief Justice Phillip Telfer Georges, a Trinidadian. The leading government attorney, besides Attorney-General Mark Bomani, was Nathaniel King, also from Trinidad.

Kambona was the first accused and was charged in absentia.
There were reports that he would be extradited to Tanzania but he never was. The Tanzanian government did not seek his extradition. It is also highly unlikely that the British government would have sent him back to Tanzania even if the two countries had an extradition treaty.
And since he did not appear in court during the treason trial, he was not convicted.

He could not have been convicted in a fair trial without himself being there to defend himself. During the trial, prosecuting attorney, Nathaniel King, said the coup plotters also intended to assassinate President Nyerere. He asked one of the accused, John Lifa Chipaka, what he meant when he said - in their secret communications obtained by the Tanzania intelligence service - they were going "to eliminate" Nyerere.

Chipaka responded by saying, "Eliminate him politically, not physically."
Chief Justice Phillip Telfer Georges asked him the same question and was not convinced that Chipaka was telling the truth. Also the Chief Justice said the list of names found on the younger brother of John Chipaka, Eliya Dunstan Chipaka who was a captain, was not the kind of list one would expect to be a list of guests invited to a wedding.

It was a list of army officers, potential participants in the planned coup, who were going to be approached or had already been approached by the conspirators to see if they could take part in the plot to overthrow the government. The list included officers from both sides of the union: Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar. The Chipaka brothers were cousins of Oscar Kambona.

The court proceedings were reported in the newspapers and on the radio and they were open to the public. The records of those proceedidngs can be obtained from different sources, including newspapers from that period, and many documented works. They quote what the accused, the prosecuting attorneys, and the chief justice said during the trial.
The transcript of the court proceedings, reported in Tanzanian newspapers and elsewhere, is also reproduced in Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era.

While his co-conspirators were languishing in prison after being convicted of treason, Oscar Kambona continued to criticise Nyerere from his safe haven in London through the years, while nurturing ambitions to return into the political arena in his home country where he once was a bright star in the 1960s before he fled to London.

Return of the "prodigal son"

It was not until 1992 after Tanzania adopted multiparty democracy that Kambona returned to lead one of the opposition parties after 25 years living in exile. He was the most prominent figure on the opposition side during that time after he returned to his home country. And he was in a combative mood. Even before he left London, he challenged the Tanzanian government to arrest him on his arrival in Tanzania, vowing that he was returning to Tanzania regardless of consequences and to clear his name before the people of Tanzania . He was not arrested.
But that was not the end of his ordeal.

The beginning of the end

A campaign by the government was started to vilify him again. First was the claim that he was not a citizen of Tanzania and had never been one even though he had served as the country's minister of home affairs, minister of defence, and minister of foreign affairs, and even led the struggle for independence with Nyerere in the 1950s. Yet nothing was said in all those years that he was not a citizen of Tanganyika.

It was only decades later, in the 1990s, that the government said he was not a Tanzanian but a Malawian. Others said he was a Mozambican.
The government even withdrew his passport on the same grounds that he was not a Tanzanian citizen. He could not even travel outside the country after his passport was withdrawn. The vilification campaign against him by the Tanzanian government made the government look bad and it finally relented and gave the passport back to him.

Kambona himself had his own "revelations" concerning the national identities of other Tanzanian leaders including President Nyerere himself. He said Nyerere's father was a Tutsi from Rwanda who was a porter for the Germans and settled in Tanganyika and that he could prove it.
He also said Vice President Rashid Kawawa came from Mozambique, and John Malecela - who once served as Tanzania's foreign affairs minister, prime minister and vice president among other posts at different times - came from Congo where his grandparents were captured as slaves before they settled in Dodoma, central Tanzania.

But few people took any of those claims seriously anymore than they did the claim that Kambona himself was not a Tanzanian citizen but a Malawian, from Likoma Island, or a Mozambican. When Kambona returned to Tanzania, he also promised that he would tell the public how much money President Nyerere and Vice President Kawawa had stolen through the years and where they hid it. Many people were anxious to hear that. But when he addressed a mass rally in Dar es Salaam, he had nothing to say about the money he claimed President Nyerere and Vice president Kawawa stole. And many people were disappointed.

It also cost him credibility among many people who believed that he simply did not tell the truth and had nothing to say about Nyerere and Kawawa with regard to their "misappropriation" of public funds.

End of his life

Kambona was indeed a luminary in Tanzanian politics. But he was no longer the star he once was, when he was second only to Nyerere in influence and popularity in the sixties when many people even copied his hair style, which came to be known as "Kambona style." He died in London in July 1997, almost exactly 30 years after he first went into exile in Britain in July 1967 where he lived for 25 years before returning to his home country in 1992 to spend the last few years of his life.

Despite his political misfortunes, Oscar Kambona will always be remembered as one of the most prominent leaders of Tanzania who also played a leading role in the struggle for independence and who relentlessly campaigned for the adoption of multiparty democracy in Tanzania. But he will also always be remembered as the most prominent Tanzanian leader who tried to overthrow President Julius Nyerere.

It is, of course, anybody's guess how he would have been, as a leader, had he become president of Tanzania. Even his most bitter opponents can not prove he would have been a bad leader. He could have been one of the best presidents Tanzania ever had. We will never know. Or to put it another way, Oscar Kambona was one of the best presidents Tanzania never had.

And it is very much possible that under his leadership, Tanzania's economy would probably not have suffered as much as it did under Nyerere during his years of socialist rule. Socialism ruined Tanzania's economy and Kambona was opposed to socialism right from the beginning, although many Tanzanians believed that Nyerere meant well but pursued the wrong policies.

Even Kambona himself probably believed that Nyerere meant well but pursued the wrong policies and that the country would have done better had Nyerere and his colleagues been willing to listen to those who had different views on how the country should be run.

Today, Tanzania is pursuing free-market policies after renouncing socialism, and has adopted multiparty democracy, the same policies and kind of political system Kambona had advocated all along. He has probably been vindicated by history. Both Nyerere and Kambona served their country well at different times. They also made mistakes. And both will be judged by history .

Respect.

FMEs!

nguvumali · Jan 9, 2010

FMEs! heshima kwako mkuu.
mimi naamini nyinyi mlioko nnje ya Afrka /Tanzania mnachangamoto za kuwaelimisha watoto wenu juu ya za Afrika na Uafrika wenyewe. Je wewe umeanza kuwafundisha watoto wako juu ya ukweli, je wanajikubali kuwa wao ni WATANZANIA/WAAFRIKA ?

William J. Malecela · Jan 9, 2010

nguvumali said:
FMEs! heshima kwako mkuu.
mimi naamini nyinyi mlioko nnje ya Afrka /Tanzania mnachangamoto za kuwaelimisha watoto wenu juu ya za Afrika na Uafrika wenyewe. Je wewe umeanza kuwafundisha watoto wako juu ya ukweli, je wanajikubali kuwa wao ni WATANZANIA/WAAFRIKA ?

- Samahani mkuu hivi kuna mahali nimewahi kusema location yangu, au wewe umewahi kuweka location yako hapa JF?

- I am lost hapo, mimi nilidhani location na ID za members hapa JF ni siri, au? Otherwise samahani sana mkuu mimi sipo nje na wala sijawahi kusema ninapoishi licha ya mimi ni nani au kama nina watoto!

- Heshima ni kitu cha bure sana mkuu!

es!

nguvumali · Jan 9, 2010

Field Marshall ES said:
- Samahani mkuu hivi kuna mahali nimewahi kusema location yangu, au wewe umewahi kuweka location yako hapa JF?

- I am lost hapo, mimi nilidhani location na ID za members hapa JF ni siri, au? Otherwise samahani sana mkuu mimi sipo nje na wala sijawahi kusema ninapoishi licha ya mimi ni nani au kama nina watoto!

- Heshima ni kitu cha bure sana mkuu!

es!

Pole Mkuu mimi niko Mpwapwa kwenye mafuriko ila Naishi Mwanza .
binafsi sikudhamiria kukukera ila kupanua wigo wa mjadala badala ya kukopi na kupaste hizo taarifa za waheshimiwa hao....otherwise good JOB.

William J. Malecela · Jan 9, 2010

nguvumali said:
Pole Mkuu mimi niko Mpwapwa kwenye mafuriko ila Naishi Mwanza .
binafsi sikudhamiria kukukera ila kupanua wigo wa mjadala badala ya kukopi na kupaste hizo taarifa za waheshimiwa hao....otherwise good JOB.

- Sasa aliyekereka ni nani hasa mkuu, maana huu ni uwanja wa ku-copy picha na ku-paste, sasa sielewi tatizo lako vipi mkuu are you okay au?

Badala ya ku-paste picha wewe unaleta maneno ya location, sasa aliyekereka hapo ni nani hasa mkuu mbona unachekesha? au? Bwa! ha! si jana tu nimekupa ujumbe kule kwenye topic ya Ngeleja, bado hujasikia tu mkuu vipi unataka nini hasa?

- Kama umekwazika pole sana mimi ninaendelea hapa kuweka vitu vizito, kama vimekuzidi kimo kaa pembeni waachie wengine wanaotaka kuelimika, pole sana mkuu!

- Yaaani mijadala yote ya picha uliyoiweka so far haikutoshi kuipanua mpaka uje kuleta fujo kwenye huu, vipi mkuu tafuta professionla help bado mapema!

es!

nguvumali · Jan 9, 2010

Field Marshall ES said:
- , sasa aliyekereka hapo ni nani hasa mkuu mbona unachekesha? au? Bwa! ha! si jana tu nimekupa ujumbe kule kwenye topic ya Ngeleja, bado hujasikia tu mkuu vipi unataka nini hasa?

- Kama umekwazika pole sana mimi ninaendelea hapa kuweka vitu vizito, kama vimekuzidi kimo kaa pembeni waachie wengine wanaotaka kuelimika, pole sana mkuu!

es!

imenipasa kurejea maelezo yako ya kile ulichokitaja katika post ya NGELEJA, uwelewa wako na wenyeji wako humu JF ndio unaokufanya uwaze kua kila anaekua tofauti nawe katika kufikiri kuwa ni mjinga ama si muelewa, bado naamini siijui location yako kiundani ila kwa muda unaoingiaga humu jamiiforums inaleta tafsiri fulani juu ya mahala ama lolote, ila hoja yangu haikulalia kwenye utoto wa location , dhamira yangu ni jeewanaokuzunguka nje ya jamii forums wanakuelewa juu ya Uafrika/Utanzania wao, uwe Iringa, ama Kilosa kwenye mafuriko hilo si la msingi kwangu.......
mimi si yule uliemtusi kwa kukukosoa kwenye hizo blahblah za Ngeleja, kwanza jana hata kuisoma hiyo post sikuisoma , ni leo baada ya maelezo yako imenipasa niisome, punguza jazba mambo mengine ni madogo sana.

William J. Malecela · Jan 10, 2010

nguvumali said:
nguvumali said:

imenipasa kurejea maelezo yako ya kile ulichokitaja katika post ya NGELEJA, uwelewa wako na wenyeji wako humu JF ndio unaokufanya uwaze kua kila anaekua tofauti nawe katika kufikiri kuwa ni mjinga ama si muelewa,

Click to expand...

- Haya mimi sikuyasema ni wewe wasema, pole sana mkuu!

bado naamini siijui location yako kiundani ila kwa muda unaoingiaga humu jamiiforums inaleta tafsiri fulani juu ya mahala ama lolote, ila hoja yangu haikulalia kwenye utoto wa location ,

Click to expand...

- Yaani wengine tunakuja kukata ishus wewe unakuja kuangalia muda wa members walioingia hapa, duh! makubwa sana hayo kwa hiyo wewe mkuu unajua muda wa kila member hapa JF na unaweza kutabiri alipo kwa kutumia muda tu wanaoingia hapa? Wewe mkuu nimekuvulia kofia na ni baabu kubwa, haya sasa huu muda wa sasa ninaoandika ina maana nipo wapi mkuu? Bwa! ha! ha! ha!

dhamira yangu ni jeewanaokuzunguka nje ya jamii forums wanakuelewa juu ya Uafrika/Utanzania wao, uwe Iringa, ama Kilosa kwenye mafuriko hilo si la msingi kwangu.......

Click to expand...

- Wanaonizunguka wanakuhusu nini au wanahusika vipi na JF? Samahani hapa tunaingia na majina ya bandia nia na madhumini ni kuficha kila kitu kinachotuhusu, sasa ningetegemea ukate ishu za viongozi wa Africa kama hii topic inavyosema, wewe unatafuta wanaonihusu ndio sielewi vipi mkuu are you okay? Maana mimi wanaikuhusu hawanihusu wala sina sababu ya kujua! au?

mimi si yule uliemtusi kwa kukukosoa kwenye hizo blahblah za Ngeleja, kwanza jana hata kuisoma hiyo post sikuisoma , ni leo baada ya maelezo yako imenipasa niisome, punguza jazba mambo mengine ni madogo sana.

Click to expand...

- Ni vyema umeliona hili la jazba maana kila mwenye macho hapa hahitaji kuambiwa ona kwamba nani mwenye jazba, anyways naomba kuendelea na kupast na ku-copy kama kamawaida yangu na hii thread, pole sana!

- Wasalimie mkuu hapa sasa naomba kuendelea na kuelimishana na wengine kuhusu ni kwa nini Africa ipo ilipo sasa, the more ninavypo paste na ku-copy ni the more ninavyo zidi kujifunza kwamba Africa hatukufika hapa kwa bahati mbaya.

-sitakujibu tena, sasa ninaendelea na vitu hapa kama kawa! Wasalimie!

es

William J. Malecela · Jan 10, 2010

Idd Amin Dada: (Born 1925 - 2003 Died)

2nd President (1971 - 1979) Uganda.

Idi Amin Dada (c.1925http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin#endnote_Birthday16 August 2003) was the military dictator and President of Uganda British colonial regiment, the King's African Rifles, in 1946, and eventually held the rank of Major General and Commander of the Ugandan Army. He took power in a military coup of January 1971, deposing Milton Obote. from 1971 to 1979.

Amin joined the
Amin's rule was characterised by human rights abuses, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption and gross economic mismanagement.

The number of people killed as a result of his regime is estimated by international observers and human rights groups to range from 100,000] to 500,000.

Notable backers of Amin included Muammar al-Gaddafi's Libya, the Soviet Union and East Germany,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin#cite_note-libya1-1 with early support for his regime coming from Great Britain, Israel, and Apartheid South Africa.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin#cite_note-4

In 1975–1976, Amin became the Chairman of the Organisation of African Unity, a pan-Africanist group designed to promote solidarity of the African states During the 1977–1979 period, Uganda was appointed to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin#cite_note-6 From 1977 to 1979, Amin titled himself as "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC,[C] DSO, MC, Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin#cite_note-guardian_obit-7

Dissent within Uganda and Amin's attempt to annex the Kagera province of Tanzania in 1978 led to the Uganda-Tanzania War and the demise of his regime. Amin fled first to Libya, then to Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003.

Respect.

FMEs!

tgeofrey · Jan 10, 2010

Hii maada yaani inabidi ufe alafu ufufuke maana hawa ndio waliotukomboa bahati mbaya ukoloni mamboleo hauna mkombozi kila unayemtegemea ndio mhangamizaji

Nyambala · Jan 10, 2010

Kuna huyu kamanda hapa chini, outside zim history ime m-sideline lakini the zimbabweans knows well what Jongwe did to him. For those who knows Mugabe hawashangai anayofanya sasa hivi kwa opponents wake like Tsvangirai. I have also attached the letter he sent Mugabe in 83, it is long but worth to read it all.

Nyerere aliplay part kubwa sana kumkonvinsi huyu jamaa kuwork together na Mugabe and was very dissapointed true colors za Mugabe zilipoanza kuwa revealed. Tht is why I always believe Mwalimu angekuwa hai probably Mugabe would have not bn a Zim Pres in the present date.

RIP JMN

Joshua M Nkomo

Hapa yupo na Mugabe

DR. JOSHUA M. NKOMO
2 Stevenage Road
East Ham E6 2WL
London E6 2WL
United Kingdom
7th June, 1983

INFORMATIVE LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER MUGABE

Dear Robert,

1. I write to you as a citizen of Zimbabwe and one of the leaders of our country, to you not just as one of the leaders of Zimbabwe, but above all, as Prime Minister of the Government of Zimbabwe as provided for by the Constitution, that you and me, as well as other leaders signed in December 1979.

2. I write because I feel that our country is in danger of complete disintegration, to the detriment of all its citizens now living and of generations to come.

3. Not least, I write to you because I am convinced that you believe I am the main contributory factor to this dangerous situation.

4. You have stated publicly on several occasions that I have plotted, and continue to plot, to overthrow you and your government, that I have conspired, and continue to conspire, with South Africa to do that, that I have organized and continue to organize dissident groups for the purpose of destabilizing the country and finally to overthrow you.

5. You now say I have run to Britain, ostensibly because I thought my life was or is in danger, but that I have done so for the purpose of recruiting mercenaries and/or assassins to wrest power from you.

6. I also know that you and your party believe that because ZAPU lost in the last election we feel wounded, and therefore plan to wrest power from you by means, fair or foul.

7. You say we did all I have stated above despite the fact that we agreed to take part in your Government when you as Prime Minister, invited us to.

8. This whole series of accusations against me and ZAPU, which are false and without any foundation whatsoever started on the 6th February, 1982 when caches of arms were discovered at Escort Farm, and later at Hampton Farm, both of which were owned by Nitram, a private company, I assisted former ZIPRA combatants to form for occupation and use by those of them who were not incorporated into the (ZNA) Zimbabwe National Army and the (ZRP) Zimbabwe Republic Police.

9. The discovery of arms on the 6th February was followed by a number of categoric and definitive statements, by yourself, to the effect that arms were discovered in Nkomo and
ZAPU owned properties and that the cache of arms were part of a plot to overthrow you and your government; and that all those properties were being used for subversive purposes.

You said in Marondera on the 14th February, 1982: "ZAPU had bought more than 25 farms and more than 30 business enterprises throughout the country. We have now established they were not genuine business enterprises, but places of hiding military weapons to start another war at an appropriate time". You added, "Dr. Nkomo was trying to overthrow my government". "ZAPU and its leader, Dr. Joshua Nkomo, were like a cobra in a house. The only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head".

10. You will remember that you met me and three of my colleagues at your official residence on the 5th February to discuss a number of issues, and at the end of that meeting I mentioned to you that I had received a telephone message from Bulaway to the effect that two Nitram Farms, Ascot and Woody Glen Farm had been invaded by the police the previous night and you said, you had also got information and you would inform me later what it was all about.

11. That evening I travelled with two of your Ministers on a plane to Bulawayo, Emmerson Munangagwa and Sydney Sekeramai. Little did I know that you had sent these two men to Bulawayo to display to the press arms allegedly unearthed in one of those farms, namely Ascot Farm.

12. I would have expected that as Minister under you, you would, after finding arms in Nitram owned properties, to have summoned me to your office to find out from me as to whether I knew anything about the arms.

13. I would have expected further, that you would have instructed me to have joined Munangagwa and Sekeramai in an attempt to uncover information about those arms. I am sure, you realize how important it was for me to have physically seen the location, the quantity and nature of the arms that was discovered, especially at a time when I was still Minister. While I do not dispute that arms were found on these farms, how else would I have been expected to believe the quantity, and nature of the arms unearthed and displayed to the press were authentic.

14. As it is now, I cannot be made to believe that the quantities, quality and nature of arms presented to the press were in fact all unearthed just in those two farms. It is quite clear for the discovery to make an impact on the people of Zimbabwe and the world in general, it was necessary for those who assisted you, to ferry arms from elsewhere so as to make this accusation of a plot to overthrow the government to appear real. To quote a statement made at a press briefing at Brady Barracks on the 8th February 1982: "Arms and ammunitions so far recovered in the joint police and army search operation in
Matebeleland are sufficient to equip a force of 5,000 men". Note, in 'Matebeleland' and not in Ascot and Hampton Farms. However, this is neither here nor there.

15. By Monday the 15th February 1982, the two properties owned by Nitram, the only properties on which arms were found, together with properties owned by ZAPU and those owned by companies whose members were ZAPU, including properties owned by me and my family, were confiscated under the notorious Unlawful Organisations Act, which was enacted by settler regimes to suppress liberation organizations.

16. I would like to emphasise that no other property, even those others owned by Nitram, which were all confiscated, had any arms found on them.

17. Having reminded you that arms were discovered in only two Nitram owned farms, Ascot Farm near Bulawayo and Hampton Farm near Gweru, let me further remind you that in the course of your marathon speeches round the country, telling the story of having found caches of arms meant to perpetrate a plot to overthrow you and your government, you said among other things, "If all arms cached by ZIPRA were found in or near Assembly Camps only, my government and I would not have minded". "But that", you continued, "a large quantity of arms was found in ZAPU owned properties, it is clear they were intended for use against my government". You said this because you knew that ZANLA had cached a lot of arms in and near their former Assembly Camps, and there was the question of a trainload of arms that had disappeared between the [Mozambiquean] border and Mutare.

18. It appears to me you have conveniently forgotten that Ntumbane in Bulawayo, was in fact an Assembly Point for both ZIPRA and ZANLA, that after the first Ntumbane disturbances every type of weapon not allowed there, was found in that assembly point.

The same happened after the second disturbances there; heavy weapons were found in both ZIPRA and ZANLA camps in Ntumbane. Why then did you find it surprising to have found arms at Ascot farm which is hardly seven miles from Ntumbane assembly point?

19. The same applies to Hampton Farm which is not far from Connemara Barracks where there were disturbances at the same time as there were disturbances in Ntumbane the second time. As a matter of fact, Comrade Munangagwa on 26th February, said, "Four caches of arms including 600 G3 rifles stolen during the mutiny in Connemara more than a year ago were discovered on a farm near Gweru".

20. Over and above what I have stated regarding arms caches I quote a statement by (PF) ZAPU Central Committee held in Bulawayo on the 15 February, 1982, "The Central Committee is dismayed at the deliberate attempt to build a case on an issue whose background the Prime Minister very well knows emanates from a war situation. The Central Committee denies the allegation that ZAPU had any prior knowledge of the arms caches anywhere. The administration of the army and all military issues, including former combatants' assembly camps, were placed under the responsibility of the Joint Military Command, thus removing ZAPU and ZANU of responsibility over military affairs. We wish to categorically deny the allegation of a plot to overthrow the government. On the contrary, PF ZAPU did everything, and still does for the consolidation and success of our independence" (Herald).

21. On Thursday, February 17, you announced at a press conference that I and three of my colleagues, J.M. Chinamano, J.W. Msika and J.G. Ntuta were dismissed from your government. You made your announcement at a press conference and we learnt of our dismissal from your government by press, television and radio. I was completely flabbergasted and astounded by your accusations, your actions and the manner in which they were made. What stunned and bemused me even more is that I was convinced that you knew in your heart of hearts that all accusations were false.

22. I was also convinced that you could not have been unaware of the repercussions of your statements and actions on former ZANLA and ZIPRA combatants in the National Army and in the police, and the feelings of divisiveness and hostility they would arose.

23. You must know that it was soon after your initial statements and actions that there was talk of polarization of ZANLA and ZIPRA former combatants within the National Army. Mutual suspicion and mistrust was maximized, and clashes between the two groups became commonplace.

24. Meanwhile, former ZIPRA Commanders were summoned by the Army Command, at your instruction, for questioning and investigation. This was done, it is said, by the military police and/or the C.I.O. Later, ordinary former ZIPRA men, irrespective of rank were also taken for investigation.

25. Information has it that during these investigations there was a lot of beatings and torture of all types, that a number of these young people were killed and others maimed.

26. These actions were followed by desertions and defections from the National Army not only by former ZIPRA combatants, but also by former ZANLA.

27. It was then that we learnt from your public speeches, and those of your Ministers, that a number of armed robbers and bandits in the country was growing, especially in the Western Province of Matebeleland.

28. Later your public statements and those of your Ministers began to stress that these armed bandits were infact politically inspired dissidents.

29. Information has it also, that some 300 or so ZIPRA combatants and a few ZANLA who were arrested after the troubles in a battalion camp near Karoi were detained secretly somewhere near Harare and are taken in small batches to be court martialed and executed, with no right of appeal and without informing their next of kin. It is further known that the last of these executions that has come to light took place on February 14, 1983.

30. It was when in your Parliamentary Speech you openly and blatantly accused me personally and ZAPU as a party of organising, maintaining and directing such armed dissident activities that I met you, and after thorough discussion, that I thought you accepted our position that we were not in any manner connected with these elements.

31. I found it necessary to meet you because despite the fact that I had continuously and persistently denounced and condemned the activities of these dissidents and had demanded that you appoint a Parliamentary Select Committee, without success, to investigate who these dissidents are and who succours them, instead you found it necessary to accuse us in parliament the way you did.

32. During December, overtures on unity between ZAPU and ZANU were ma de to me by your emissaries in the persons of President Canaan Banana and Minister Enos Nkala. After two meetings with them I thought we had made progress and suggested to them that the next meeting should be with yourself.

33. A meeting between us was accordingly held at State House, Bulawayo early in January 1983. The meeting did not go as well as I had expected because it appeared to me that you were averse to what I discussed with President Banana and Enos Nkala. However, despite that, we agreed between ourselves to form a Committee of 6, comprising three ZANU and three ZAPU representatives.

34. Although nothing much was achieved at the meeting between us, I believed nonetheless that moves towards an understanding between ZAPU and ZANU were making progress.

35. Yet on Tuesday, the 25th of January [1983], I received information from people who were fleeing from Mbembesi that mass beatings and killings were being perpetrated by young men in camouflage uniforms who were calling themselves the 'Fifth Brigade'.

36. By the 26th January, the numbers had grown and the information given us was that more people were being brutally beaten and killed by these young men.

37. On the 27th of January, I decided to take 12 of the people, who had themselves experienced violence at the hands of members of the Fifth Brigade, to Harare so that they may themselves explain to government what in fact was talking place.

38. When I arrived in Harare, I presented the matter to Comrade Muzenda who, in the absence of the Prime Minister, was acting Prime Minister. After I informed him of the situation in Mbembesi, which by that time had spread to Bubi and Tsholotsho, the acting Prime Minister delegated his Minister of Home Affairs, Ushewonkunze, who had expressed ignorance of these happenings, to go and meet the afflicted people in Highfields.

39. When Ushewonkunze failed to turn up until Friday afternoon, I decided to call a press conference and informed the conference of the mass killings by the Fifth Brigade; by that time the numbers reported killed by the Fifth brigade had risen to 95.

40. The following week a government spokesman made much play of the fact that Josiah Gumede; who I had told the conference that I understood by reports from Mbembesi, was among those who were killed; but because he had survived his ordeal, the spokesman completely ignored the fact that many more other people were killed, a fact Gumede himself had made known to you and president Banana.

41. During the first week of February a censure motion was presented to parliament by the chief whip of ZANU-PF against ZAPU and its leadership because of exposure of the carnage by the Fifth Brigade. Almost every ZANU member who spoke abused and scorned ZAPU, and more particularly myself, for having exposed the killings, which now had spread to Nkayi and Lupane. It was quite evident that ZANU-PF had full knowledge of what was happening but was not prepared to intervene or call a halt to those most barbarous actions which the Fifth Brigade, in the name of security, perpetrated against fellow citizens of Zimbabwe in the so-called 'curfew' areas.

42. On Saturday February the 19th, I was prevented from travelling to Prague to attend an executive meeting of the World Peace Council (which your press called Soviet sponsored) and which was to take place on the 21st and 22nd of that month. My ticket and passport and those of my three colleagues who were travelling with me were seized by the police when we were arrested. When I was released seven hours later, my three colleagues remained in custody and were later issued with detention orders which remain in force to this day.

43. On the 19th February, I was taken to the Bulawayo Charge Office where the police demanded that I make two 'Warned and Cautioned' statements to the effect that they were investigating the possibility that I had committed certain crimes: under the Law and Order Maintenance Act, because they had found on me, two sets of notes containing:

(a) a statement I made in Parliament in connection with the serious situation in Matebeleland Province created by killings and other atrocities, and

(b) notes prepared for a meeting I was to have had held with you about the same situation but did not come off.

2. That they were investigating a possible contravention of the Currency Exchange Control Act because they found on me $300 Zimbabwe dollars; meant for my wife, but in the packing rush was forgotten in my brief case. Later that day, I was called back to the Charge Office and told that they (the police) had received a telegram from the Harare police to the effect that I should make another 'Warned and Cautioned' statement in reply to a possible charge that the police in Harare were investigating a possible contravention of the Precious Minerals Act in that the police had found emeralds in my Highfields residence when they were searching for arms in that house on the 5th October 1982.

44. About three weeks earlier, I had been made to make a 'Warned and cautioned' statement by the Harare police to the effec t that they were investigating a possible breach of the Law and Order Maintenance Act when I addressed a press conference in Harare, in which I had revealed the killings of people in Mbembesi, Bubi and Tsholotsho.

45. I made those 'Warned and Cautioned' statements denying those possible charges. It was clear to me, as it could be, to any responsible person that these were trumped up possible charges designed by your government to harass and embarrass me.

46. Is it reasonable for anybody to believe that possession of a copy of a speech made in parliament and unpublished notes to be used in a meeting with the Prime minister could be a breach of the Law and Order Maintenance Act? Is it reasonable for anyone to believe that I would export from the country $300 Zimbabwe dollars. To what purpose? Is it reasonable to believe that the so-called possession of emeralds in early October, 1982 could still be for investigation by the police in mid-February, 1983? What investigation after four months of physical so-called 'possession of emeralds'.

47. On Sunday the 27th February, 1983, I received a letter from the police informing me that before leaving my house for any place, I should report to the Police Station. I refused doing this because I had no charge preferred against me, and could not understand why the police should have been so interested in my movements.

48. About the 1st or the 2nd of March, 1983, security forces, including the Fifth Brigade, were deployed in Bulawayo western suburbs and on the 5th March, 1983: my house was raided by the Fifth Brigade. Three people were killed and property, including three cars, was vandalized by the raiders. It was after this act that I realized why the police were interested in my movements.

49. I then decided to leave the country for the time being as it was clear to me that my life was threatened.

50. During the weeks that followed the deployment of the Fifth Brigade in the Western Province of Matebeleland, right up to the day I departed from Zimbabwe, hundreds of brutally assaulted people from the so-called 'curfew' areas of Mbembesi, Nyathi, Nkayi, Lupane and Tsholotsho had come to my home and related horrible accounts of brutal beatings, mass rapings, mass killings, maiming of hundreds of innocent unarmed, unresisting men, women and children as well as looting and burning of villages and houses.

51. Before leaving my house and finally Bulawayo on the 8th March, 1983, reports had come to me of untold brutalities and inhuman and degrading treatment of people within Bulawayo itself and of people being marched in their hundreds to the adjacent bush areas on the outskirts of Bulawayo, to be shot and their bodies left rotting and some taken away to unknown destinations and never to return.

52. Now that I have attempted to give an account of some of your publicly expressed opinions and beliefs about me and ZAPU, and have also tried to summarise the more important events that took place as well as actions or non-actions during the course of the three years since our independence, and have some bearing on your attempt to impose a one-ZANU Party State on the people of Zimbabwe, I give hereunder my reactions.

53. In retrospect, I now believe that I and ZAPU were deceived and cheated by you and your party when you talked of unity, reconciliation, peace and security. I now honestly and sincerely believe that when you invited us to take part in your government you believed that we would reject your offer and set ourselves up in strong opposition to you and thereby label us disgruntled rejected plotters.

54. I can now see that your insistence on establishing assembly camps in Bulawayo and Harare, and of your Ministers Nkala and others coming to Bulawayo to make inflammatory statements which sparked off the first Ntumbane incident, was all part of a plan and strategy to destabilize the country, especially the Western Province of Matebeleland, so that you could use incidents there as an excuse for using military action to crush me and my party.

55. It is now obvious to me that when you demoted me from the Ministry of Home Affairs which you knew was negotiated for a purpose at the time you invited us to take part in your government; that while you knew that we felt it was necessary for us to take part in one of the security ministries (Defence or Home Affairs) so that the former ZIPRA men drafted into the ZNA and ZRP may feel confident, thereby solidify both the army and the police, you deliberately took that action. It is clear you wanted us to pull out of your government at that time so as to destabilize the army and the police, create dissidents out of the deserting ZIPRA men and then call us plotters against your government.

56. It is clear you thought you had struck a political bonanza by the arms caches fiasco and you handled it the way you did, to achieve the following: To make the country believe that I and ZAPU wanted to overthrow your government.

That the world at large should view us as a group of people who had lost the elections and now wanted to wrest power from you and your government. To polarize the population into bad guys and good guys and so destabilize the country. To polarize the former ZIPRA and ZANLA combatants both inside and outside the army and police, so as to create a former ZIPRA grouping to be labelled dissidents. To create within ZAPU a group that would believe there was a group within the party, that in fact, was plotting to overthrow the government.

As a pretext, to use discredited and archaic settler imperialist legislation, the Unlawful Organisations Act, to confiscate ZAPU supporters's property.

57. When you announced the confiscation of ZAPU and Nitram properties, property belonging to Companies of individual ZAPU members and to me and my family, you said it was because all these properties were acquired for hiding arms. Now that it is known no arms were found on any property other than the two farms belonging to Nitram, Ascot and Hampton Farms, how do you justify the blatant and arbitrary forced acquisition of all these properties?

58. Even the confiscation of the two farms on which arms were discovered is questionable. Nitram as a Co-operative company, whose membership was more than 4,000 former ZIPRA combatants, who had contributed towards the purchase of these farms, and therefore, could not be held responsible for action or actions of a few people, who have not been identified even at the High Court trial that ended in the acquittal of six of the seven people accused of treason and caching arms.

59. With regards properties owned by ZAPU formed companies as well as those formed by us individuals, I can only say your action against them was even much more obscure. I do hope Mr. Prime Minister, you realize the harm inflicted by your ill-considered action on these properties including those owned by Nitram. Thousands of people were thrown out of resident-employment; this includes former combatants as well as former employees of those farms, who had become members of co-operatives established there. The Herald of 17th February, 1982 says, about projects at Mguza, "The co-operative venture and Secretarial training centers for women ex-combatants have been hailed by several people, including the Minister of Finance, Enos Nkala, as a model of its kind".

60. All this is gone; with hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of movable property of all types including over-head irrigation equipment worth $700,000 [Zimbabwe dollars] is ruined and some of it missing. Other movable property which was looted from Mguza Complex is what Dr. Sekeramai referred to as, "The other equipment, such as a very modern operating theatre lamp with its own generator, and a sophiscated dental unit, in excellent condition and not used at all was found". This equipment meant for the College and co-operative farm inmates and people who attended a co-operative clinic there.

61. Among the most important properties of ZAPU that were taken away by the army and the C.I.O. from the Nitram farms, i.e. Nest Egg, were ZAPU Archives which were stored there for safe-keeping. They contained all ZAPU records covering the whole period of our struggle outside and inside the country, including the list of all ZAPU and ZIPRA war casualties. As a result of this, no names of ZIPRA dead were available for inclusion at the Heroes' Acre Roll of Honor list on the 10th and 11th August, 1982. This, you will agree is a very serious matter.

62. What disturbs me most, is that when you banned the companies that ran various properties and projects you said, "ZAPU had bought more than 25 farms and more than 30 business enterprises throughout the country. We had now established they were not genuine business enterprises, but places to hide military weapons to start another war at an appropriate time", (Sunday mail, 7th February, 1982). This was a deliberate distortion.

63. At the time you made the above statement ZAPU had only 2 farms, one near Harare and the other near Gweru; and had only 5 business enterprises, 2 in Harare, 2 in Gweru and 1 in Masvingo. If by ZAPU you meant farms and businesses run by companies such as Nitram and those owned by individual members of ZAPU: the position is as follows: Nitram had only 4 farms and 4 business enterprises. Companies owned by individual members of ZAPU had 3 farms near Harare, 2 near Bulawayo and two business enterprises in Bulawayo and 1 in Mbalabala. All these ventures Mr. Prime Minister, cannot be said to be, "throughout the country", nor, "more than 25 farms and more than 30 business enterprises" as you said in your statement.

64. You deliberately gave the impression to the country that, projects on those properties were run clandestinely; and yet you knew, I had, without success, several times invited you, to visit Nijo Products, 1.2 million dollar ZAPU Composite Agricultural Project, just outside Harare. I said your visit to that particular project was important and necessary because I felt it could be used as a model for resettlement purposes.

65. You were aware further that the Mguza Secretarial Training College was officially opened by Minister Shaba and that that College and the Mguza Co-operative Farming Project were visited by President Banana and Enos Nkala a few weeks before your banning order was issued. I am certain, you must have been aware that the Lido Motel in Queens Park, Bulawayo was being used as a hostel for over 300 former ZIPRA war disabled, as government had failed to house them anywhere.

66. You will remember when I met you in your office in August, 1982, you made known to me that the involvement of my family property Walmer Ranch, where we built our Makwe home, would be revealed in evidence during the Masuku, Dabengwa trial at the High Court. The trial has come and gone, Masuku and Dabengwa acquitted. However, I was told by a defence lawyer of a bizarre story about some military training supposed to have been conducted at Makwe Farm which was presented by the prosecution and was later unconditionally withdrawn by them without argument. You will know that our home at Makwe has been surrounded by the army and police ever since you made your announcement of the 16th February, 1982. All meaningful activity came to a complete halt and incalculable damage was done to all we were trying to do there.

67. I am certain you should recall what I told you when we met in your office in August, that what I had at Makwe outside the working of the farm was a big gathering where I met members of the Gwanda Community Co-operative, to discuss a grand settlement scheme in which the Makwe Irrigation Scheme and our Makwe farm would be the core of the project.

White farmers had been approached to either donate or sell at very reduced prices their farms within the area, and the response was promising. This scheme had been forwarded to the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement by the Gwanda Co-op through the local district council machinery. It was hoped that the Scheme would be presented to Government through appropriate channels for funding through ZIMCORD.

68. You must have known through your respective Government departments, local authorities and your various devices of information collection, that Kennellworth-Carisbrook Farm near Harare, Lingfield near Gweru and Mbalabala Village near Esigodini were all being processed to be handled in the same way as above, and as the Mguza complex had shown, be it in a small way, that it was feasible to implement such schemes, it was believed that the Makwe Project would succeed.

69. All these schemes were in the spirit of what I had discussed with you in December, 1981. I had made it plain to you Prime Minister, when I met you in your official residence; that your Resettlement policy was a national disaster, and you agreed with me. These schemes were meant to present practical approach models, to both rural and peri-urban resettlement, that would embrace everybody and not just a few who are said to 'qualify'.

70. But, with full knowledge of all this, you chose to tell a crowd of more than 18,000 people at the Rudaka Stadium in Marondera on the 13th February, 1982, that, "We desire a new richer life for all and we wish to see changes in people's way of living standards and economic status. But in the midst of all our endeavours our colleagues in Government, were stockpiling and building enough weapons of war to arm 20,000 men".

71. What baffles me even more, is that, you said all the above when you knew that less than 2 months prior to your Marondera meeting, I had offered myself to take over your Ministry of Lands and Resettleme nt in an effort to assist you and through you, the country to make a success of its most vital development programme. You turned down my offer, saying I was too old to handle that Ministry, however, you said you would invite me to be one of the members of a resettlement Ministerial Committee you were about to institute. To you all this meant plotting.

72. You also had knowledge that on December 29, 1982; while I was on holiday, was requested by Brigadier Chinenge to assist him to demobilize more than 5,000 former ZIPRA combatants at Gwaai River Mine Assembly Point and willingly drove over 150 miles to help. How could I have done all these things if I was bent on overthrowing you?

Who do you think I would have called on to use all those arms after assisting to integrate some ZIPRA combatants in the ZNA and ZRP and assisted in dispersing others to their respective homes.

73. It is now very clear to me that you were very unhappy with the extent of my cooperation and that of ZAPU because you did not want peace and tranquility. You did not want stability, progress and development, because such conditions would not give you the turmoil and instability you required for your political-military action to liquidate those you chose to, and thereby impose your one-ZANU Party State.

74. It is obvious to me why you decided to form the Fifth Brigade outside the structure and command of the National Army, so that you may use it as a party and Tribal Brigade for eliminating and liquidating, as you have many times said, those you chose to destroy. As a matter of fact, when I questioned the formation of the Fifth Brigade outside the Zimbabwe National Army without consultation, you angrily replied and said, "Who are you to be consulted? This Brigade", you said, "has been formed to crush those who try to subvert my government, and if you attempt that, they will crush you too".

75. You took action against what you called ZAPU sponsored dissidents. But because you wanted to maintain this show of subversion, you have not, for almost one year and 4 months, arrested and put on trial a single dissident. Yet you have continuously, for all this period, persistently accused the ZAPU structure and those who support that structure for organising, maintaining, feeding and directing the dissidents so as to justify an armed attack on the masses.

76. It is known through information given by the masses in the affected curfew areas, that in fact the people who go about killing, maiming, raping and burning government property are in fact organized provocateurs planted by ZANU-PF in the form of undercover pseudodissidents.

It is further known that government property destroyed by dissidents was property used by district councils who were made up of 100 ZAPU members, who were known to have worked hard to use this equipment for developing their areas vigorously and with great enthusiasm.

77. It is known that about 90% of the victims killed by dissidents were either top ZAPU officials, ZAPU businessmen and teachers, ZAPU local government officials and generally ZAPU supporters. The remaining 10% appear to be white people. Not a single ZANU supporter was killed during this period. Does not this fact speak for itself? One does not know what the position is or would be after the Fifth Brigade's bloody escapade in the Western Province of Matebeleland.

78. It can be said without hesitation that to have used the police as if they were ZIPRA officers in the Dr. Bertrand case was an abominable and fascist like attempt to portray to the country and the world at large that former ZIPRA combatants had plotting tendencies so as to blemish the name of ZIPRA.

79. I believe that the notes that were purported to have been sent by former 'ZIPRA dissidents' to the police, when foreign tourists were abducted near Bulawayo in July 1982, were in fact an effort to show ZAPU and former ZIPRA combatants in bad light. Having said that, I would like to make it clearly understood that former ZIPRA combatants are not the responsibility of ZAPU but of the Zimbabwe government, like anybody else. Despite this I found it necessary to activate and involve the masses in the areas where it was thought kidnappers may be hiding with the tourists, but before I concluded the exercise government declared a curfew in those areas, making them nogo places, causing an abrupt end to that effort. Why that was done I do not know to this day.

80. I now understand why you have maintained legislation such as the Law and Order Maintenance Act, the Unlawful Organisation Act and the Emergency Powers Act; which was enacted by former regimes specifically for the suppression and oppression of the black population of Zimbabwe, and for use against their effort to struggle for independence, social justice, enjoyment of freedom and human rights. You now seem to enjoy and justify the use of these notorious laws to deny your own people that which they fought and died to achieve.

What is it that makes you believe that this independence, which you and I and indeed the masses of Zimbabwe fought for, for so long should now be maintained and protected by this type of legislation? Don't you think there is something wrong?

81. I am not surprised that you have decided to maintain a state of emergency which was declared by Ian Smith on the 5th November, 1965 in preparation for his illegal action to declare, control and protect his type of independence.

82. During the protracted war our people were subjected to every kind of cruelty and oppression. No man's life was safe, it was the frequent fate of an innocent villager to be shot out hand, to be arbitrarily arrested and often to be tortured, to suffer the burning of his village, the massacre of his women and children, the destruction of crops and livestock, to suffer long years of imprisonment or to endure the pangs of long exile. The legal basis of this campaign of terror was the 'State of Emergency'.

83. You well know that in point of fact the Law and Order maintenance Act was used to undermine and subvert law and order to quite a horrendous degree, and the declaration of a 'state of emergency' itself was instrumental in creating an acute state of emergency by unleashing forces which inflicted a wave of murder and brutality upon our people which, in its savagery and disregard for humanitarian considerations, had no precedent among our people.

84. Taken together, these facts indicate clearly that for many years an unparalleled campaign of barbarism and terror was waged against the masses. Yet this campaign failed; our people did not submit, they fought back until finally victory was won and independence achieved. But what in fact has been achieved? It is painful to ask this question, for it springs from events which have increasingly darkened the horizons of Zimbabwe over the past year or more, events I am trying to summarise in this letter.

85. You knew that having created the confusion, you would then be able to take military and legal action against deliberately created 'political and armed dissid ents'; hence the arrest of men like Lookout Masuku, Dumiso Dabengwa and others, and decided to charge them with treason. It is a shame to all of us who fought for liberty, freedom and the rule of law, to see Dumiso, Masuku and others being immediately arbitrarily detained after acquittal by the High Court.

86. It is a well known fact that in Zimbabwe today, there are more people detained without trial than in fascist South Africa. Most of these people are also without formal detention orders and the next of kin have no idea as to whether they are alive or dead.
These people are not enemies of Zimbabwe, but patriots who have suffered, like us and many others, in the struggle to free their country, Zimbabwe, peasant men, women as well as young men and women who only happen to be caught, in a conflict the government itself created.

87. The double tragedy of Zimbabwe today is, firstly, that the routine and administrative use of detention, torture and arbitrary repression has been adopted by an independent government, and secondly, that this government uses the very same mercenaries and torturers as the former regime used against the struggling people. In fact the situation today is in some respects is even worse, as our government has abandoned even those standards of bourgeois legality which the Smith regime generally attempted to hide their repression behind. Under that regime you could be detained but a least you were more likely to be issued with a detention order. You were therefore, less likely to simply disappear as is the case today. The mercenaries and torturers used by the former regime are known and are very few, and therefore their exclusion from our security organs could not have disrupted those organs.

88. There are, in Zimbabwe today, so many different groups of armed men with power to do virtually anything to people. People get arrested by the C.I.O., the Law and Order Section of the police, the so-called ZIMPOLIS, the so-called ZANU Intelligence Service (which is not an arm of government), the Military Police of the Zimbabwe National Army, the Fifth Brigade (which seems to regard execution as the most effective method of arresting people), the Youth Brigade (which is also an arm of the party, but used as if it were part of the machinery of government), the Militia, by ZANU party officials, by undercover pseudo-dissidents the list is endless. In fact, the rights of the Zimbabwe citizen as defined in the Constitution are meaningless.

89. One of the most disgraceful and shaming aspects of our independence which is difficult to defend, is that we have taken the methods and men used to oppress, torture and kill our people and tried to use them to consolidate our 'independence'. You cannot take weapons, methods and people designed to defend colonial fascism and try to use to them defend the people. It is just not possible. Today in Zimbabwe the same torturers that Smith used against the people are back in business 'defending a people's government'. They must smile to themselves when they are ordered to continue their torture of patriots by an independent government.

90. The methods of torture are also the same: electric shocks, beatings, burning with cigarettes, suffocation using wet sacks, and psychological torture. In the recent case of the State vs Dabengwa and others, the government must surely have been embarrassed when the activities of Fraser, Arnold (of CIO) and DSO Kaurayi were revealed in court. These men whose record of torture and atrocities against the people during the liberation war are well known, were brought into this case by our government to use their same techniques against the heroes of the liberation struggle.

91. In court it was revealed that Fraser assaulted, tortured and threatened ZIPRA men to tell lies against their commanders. DSO Kaurayi did the same to workers on the NITRAM farms. Arnold, the so-called chief of the investigation offered bribes and threats to witnesses to try to get them to change their evidence. Fraser has now run back to his masters in Pretoria. Arnold and Kaurayi remain to be used again to prostitute justice and bring disgrace on the memories of the fallen heroes of our struggle.

92. Under the terms of the Indemnity Act, which we condemned as barbaric and fascist during the liberation struggle, a citizen has no right of appeal or redress against those who illegally torture, maim, kill, destroy property or do any illegal act on him or against him. I am sure you realize that the result of this use of Smith's laws and torturers has been to create in an independent Zimbabwe a climate of terror and fear even more discriminate than that created by the Smith regime. Remember, there is no war in Zimbabwe today.

93. As it is in Zimbabwe, everyone faces this fear. It is a fear created by the fear the government itself obviously feels. What is it that the government is in fear of is not very clear, but the fact that our government lives in daily fear cannot be doubted. Ministers fear to walk the streets without armed men around them, roads are sealed off, convoys of armed men race through the streets sirens wailing announcing this fear.

94. The real victims of this climate of fear are the people themselves. How can the people get on with the vital task of building the nation when all around them they feel this insecurity and fear? At any moment they know that this machinery of fear and repression may be turned against them. The people of Murewa may have not yet felt the bayonets of the Fifth Brigade, but they have already heard the stories. In their faces is the fear that one day this party army may be turned against them. It is certain that some ZANU members fear that the Fifth Brigade may be turned against ZANU and that it may even turn against its creators. Is this the climate of a confident, free, proud and independent people and government? You do not teach young people to be contemptuous of human life and expect them to respect yours.

95. Mr. Prime Minister, as I have mentioned above, the way the sec urity organs of Government in their generality is being used has created fear and despondency in the minds of a wide section of our people. But, let me stress, that the activities of the Fifth Brigade in particular are something I never expected could happen in Zimbabwe. I could not make myself believe that such activities could have been carried out with your knowledge and approval.

96. It was when you were reported to have given an astounding declaration at a rally in Zhombe that I realized you support what the Fifth Brigade has done and continue to do in Matebeleland; quote "When men and women provide food for dissidents, when we get there we eradicate them. We do not select who we fight, because we cannot tell who is a dissident and who is not " (Financial Times, Telegraph and The Times, 15.4.83).

97. Comrade Prime Minister, you know that about two weeks before election day in March 1980, then Governor of Southern Rhodesia, Lord Soames, called all leaders of political parties contesting in the election and told them that "because of the security situation in the eastern Districts of Zimbabwe there could be no free and fair election there", which meant election would in fact not take place.

98. You will remember, I am sure, that about four or three days before polling day, Lord Soames unilaterally and without consultation, announced that elections will take place in all districts in the country, including the Eastern Districts. I am sure you will agree with me that, with all the goodwill in the world, the Good Governor, could not have made the 'Security Situation' in the Eastern Districts so stable in less than two weeks, to be able to conduct 'free and fair elections'.

99. You know as well as I do, that the unstable and dangerous security situation in the Eastern Districts was caused by your party, ZANU (PF) which maintained armed former ZANLA combatants throughout that area; who terrorized by beatings, tortures and even killing anyone who did not comply with ZANU (PF) directions. It was made impossible for any party other than ZANU (PF) to operate in the Eastern Districts area.

100. We in ZAPU tried to canvass support for elections in those districts, and ended up with two candidates killed, 18 party workers killed and several others severely beaten up, some of them permanently maimed, and while others disappeared to this day. I approached you and told you what your party was doing with little or no effect at all on the situation there.

101. Now that the 1985 elections are approaching ZANU (PF) has begun using the same tactics as were used in the Eastern Districts before and during the 1980 elections. This time the Fifth Brigade is being used as state machinery to terrorise and coerce the people in Matebeleland. Some believe that you are doing all this not just for electoral advantage, but that your aim is genocide.

102. As an effective coercive stunt, the Fifth Brigade was deployed in the area ostensibly to root out dissidents but in fact to terrorise the masses by beatings, torture, killings, rapings, looting, burning of villages, and literally doing anything atrocious on such a large scale as to instill fear into the people, not only in the affected areas, but that the effects of the action would pervade the entire population of Zimbabwe.

103. This has been followed by maintenance in every area of sizeable groups of the Fifth Brigade and reinforced by armed Youth Brigades in areas like Gokwe and Zhombe to organize forced 'Pungwes' (rallies held from dusk to dawn) at which the old and the young are forcibly given doses of ZANU (PF) indoctrination. This group has continued to carry out selective beatings, torture, killings and kidnappings in their respective areas. In areas like Nkayi, Lupane and Tsholotsho only sizeable groups of the Fifth Brigade are maintained. It is general practice during these 'Pungwes' that young women, schoolgirls and residents' wives are forced to have sexual intercourse with Brigadiers.

104. District Councillors, Chiefs and Headmen are o rdered by these armed young men to give numbers of people under them, and then given corresponding number of ZANU (PF) membership cards and told to return with cash and lists of names on a given day. These are the methods used for organising rallies for ZANU (PF) Ministers and other officials.

105. I know and accept that the Fifth Brigade was deployed in these areas after the murder of about 200 people in about a year and the destruction of thousands of dollars worth of government equipment by dissidents. But Mr. Prime Minister, I am sure you appreciate the absurdity of trying to protect people who have had 200 of their number killed in 12 months by dissidents while the Fifth Brigade in the process of that protection kills 3,000 to 5,000 people in six weeks.

106. I know that you have denied that any such things have taken place in Matebeleland, but the fact is that the evidence of this is irrefutable and based on the testimony of numerous firsthand witnesses, not least on that of many of the victims who survived. These victims include teachers, nurses, District Councillors, etc. Apart from victim witnesses, there are among others well known international aid organizations who were friends of Zimbabwe during the war and after independence, came to work with our people on the ground level. Added to these witnesses are different Churches which work in the affected areas. I would refer especially to the testimony of no less than 6 Catholic Bishops who were moved to issue a joint signed pastoral statement at their Easter 1983 conference. They did this, I would remind you, after I made my own disclosure at a Press Conference and in parliament late in February.

107. It has to be appreciated that, a Bishop of the Catholic Church, indeed any Christian Bishop, is a person who has devoted his life to the service of God. In order that his ministry shall be effective, he has an obvious interest in maintaining friendly and cordial relations with the government of the day. It is certainly not in his interest, or that of his flock, to act in any way which will make such relations difficult or discordant. We may conclude therefore that when he is so moved he acts from a deep sense of personal conviction and from motives which can scarcely be said to spring from self-interest.

108. The following is an extract from their statement:
"We entirely support the use of the army in a peace-keeping role. What we view with dismay are methods that have been adopted for doing so. Methods which should be firm and just have degenerated into brutality and atrocity. We censure the frightful consequences of such methods. Violent reaction against dissident activity has, to our certain knowledge, brought about the maiming and death of hundreds and hundreds of innocent people who are neither dissidents nor collaborators. We are convinced by incontrovertible evidence that many wanton atrocities and brutalities have been and are still being perpetrated. We have already forwarded such evidence to the Government".

109. I would remind you of the basis on which this testimony is made. It stems from the firsthand reports of numerous parish priests, priests who are articulate and responsible officers of their church and who are in close daily contact with the people of their parishes. Again in the interest of their work they have everything to gain from maintaining good relations with the government of the day, and much to lose from a failure to do so.

110. Hence their testimony is surely to be judged to be disinterested, just as their motives for offering it can spring from nothing but a desire to serve their people. In this light is it possible for anyone in a position of authority and hence responsibility for these outrages, and possessed of the merest sense of human sensibility and compassion to feel other than a deep sense of shame and a desire to make amends for all this grievous suffering?

111. I was amazed and bewildered when Dr. Nathan Shamuyarira dismissed the Catholic Bishop's statement as 'irresponsible, contrived propaganda'. But I thought because as Minister of Information, he would swallow what the Bishops in their well-considered statement said about his government -controlled mass media which has, to quote the same pastoral statement:

"singularly failed to keep the people of Zimbabwe properly informed of the facts which are common knowledge, both in areas concerned and outside them through the reports of reliable witnesses. The facts point to a reign of terror caused by wanton killings, woundings, beatings, burnings and rapings. Many homes have been burnt down. People in rural areas are starving, not only because of the drought, but because in some cases supplies of food have been deliberately cut off and in other cases access to food supplies has been restricted or stopped. The innocent have no recourse or redress, for fear of reprisals".

112. I was shattered when you as Prime Minister said of the Bishops' well thought and constructive pastoral letter: quote:

"The seven Catholic Bishops's pastoral statement sermonizing my Government on the morality of our military operations in Matebeleland as they affect human rights and our policy of reconciliation is the latest pronouncement on the subject. You further said the Bishops were playing to the international gallery and you are mere megaphone agents of your external masters" "this band of Jeremiahs". "In these circumstances, your allegiance and loyalty to Zimbabwe becomes extremely questionable" considering that the Church in general and the Catholic Bishops in particular on the question of human rights, were very outspoken during our war of independence, one wonders where we are being headed to.

113. Looking at your attitude towards this most serious occurrence in your country, it appears that for many of our people the result of a 15-year armed struggle has not been to achieve the liberties for which they fought, but an increase in the oppression against which they took up arms in the first place. I agree completely with the Bishops when they declare, "These brutal methods will have the opposite effect to what the Government is intending to achieve", and we would add that terror did not work under Smith and it will not work today under us.

114. As a direct result of Government terrorism thousands of people have fled into neighbouring territory and many, many more have left their villages and gone into hiding. In keeping with the worst excesses of the Smith era there has been the burning of villages and other barbarities referred to in the report, as well as the widespread practice of extortion and attempts at compulsory indoctrination as stated in preceding paragraphs.

115. This is not government, it is the abuse of government, an abuse which transforms the rule of law into the law of rule. As such it cannot lead to a free, united, peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe. But to one in which oppression, division, violence and poverty will shadow all our hopes, and make a mockery of the freedom struggle in which so many heroes gave their lives.

116. In the final section of their statement the Bishops appeal to the Government to use its authority to stop these excesses and call for the establishment of a judicial commission. We fully support this call. But I feel that the problem facing us in Zimbabwe today requires an approach much more resolute, much more embracing than ever attempted by ZANU and ZAPU before. A judicial commission as proposed by the Bishops should be a part of wider machinery composed of a wide spectrum of our society, who should examine our composite problems together with government, seek and find solutions which should be implemented jointly by the people and government. If the people of Zimbabwe and their government fail to find a solution to this serious situation in which we find ourselves, our enemies will exploit the situation and destroy us.

117. Remember, Prime Minister, Zimbabwe and the people have to defend the country from these enemies. But today Zimbabwe is defenceless because the people live in fear, not of these enemies, but of their own government. What has happened to the brave and determined, confident and fearless people of Zimbabwe and their soldiers of liberation, who showed the world that no power on earth could prevent us from achieving our freedom?

That was a time when even our enemies had to admire us for our courage and determination. Today our enemies laugh at us. What they see is a divided, confused and frightened people, led by a divided, confused and frightened government. Government which has the love, respect and confidence of the people does not have to use the laws and weapons of colonial regimes to protect itself. The people themselves will protect their government if they have full trust in it. Fear is a weapon of despair, used by those who fear the people. This is the time and opportunity to rebuild trust, find the solution to our problems and defend the country as a united people.

Yours sincerely,

Joshua M.

Nyambala · Jan 10, 2010

Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo (June 19, 1917[1]–July 1, 1999) was the leader and founder of the Zimbabwe African People's Union and a member of the Kalanga tribe.[2] He was affectionately known in Zimbabwe as Father Zimbabwe, Umdala Wethu, Umafukufuku or Chibwechitedza (the slippery rock). The Kalanga are descendents of Shona who were conquered and assimilated by the Ndebele. Although Nkomo's ZAPU political party represented the Ndebele minority his National Executive Committee were in fact mostly Kalanga.
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Early life

Nkomo was born in Semokwe Reserve, Matabeleland South in 1917 and was one of eight children. His father (Thomas Nyongolo Letswansto Nkomo) worked as a preacher and a cattle rancher and worked for the London Missionary Society. After completing his primary education in Rhodesia he took a carpentry course at the Tsholotsho Government Industrial School and studied there for a year before becoming a driver. He later tried animal husbandry before becoming a schoolteacher specialising in carpentry at Manyame School in Kezi. In 1942, aged 25 and during his occupation as a teacher, he decided that he should go to South Africa to further his education and do carpentry and qualify to a higher level. He attended Adams College and the Jan Hofmeyer School of Social Work in South Africa.[1] There he met Nelson Mandela and other regional nationalist leaders at the University of Fort Hare, though he did not attend that university. It was at the Jan H. Hofmeyr School of Social Work that he was awarded a B.A. Degree in Social Science in 1952. Nkomo married his wife Johanna MaFuyana on 1 October 1949.
After returning to Bulawayo in 1947, he became a trade unionist for black railway workers and rose to the leadership of the Railway Workers Union and then to leadership of the African National Congress in 1952. In 1960 he became president of the National Democratic Party which was later banned by the Rhodesian government. He also became one of Rhodesia's wealthiest self-made entrepreneurs.

Armed struggle

Nkomo was detained at Gonakudzingwa Restriction Camp by Ian Smith's government in 1964, with fellow revolutionaries Ndabaningi Sithole, Edgar Tekere, Maurice Nyagumbo and Robert Mugabe, until 1974 when they were released due to pressure from South African president B.J. Vorster. Following Nkomo's release, he went to Zambia to continue the liberation struggle through the dual process of armed conflict and negotiation. Unlike ZANU's armed wing, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, ZAPU's armed wing, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army, was dedicated to both guerrilla warfare and conventional warfare. At the time of independence ZIPRA had a modern military stationed in Zambia and Angola, consisting of Soviet-made Mikoyan fighters, tanks and armoured personnel carriers, as well as well trained artillery units.[dubious – discuss]
Joshua Nkomo was the target of two attempted assassinations. The first one, in Zambia, by the Selous Scouts, a pseudo-team. But the mission was finally aborted, and attempted again, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Air Service (SAS). In one such raid that targeted Nkomo's home, the obese leader attempted to escape but was found by his bodyguards stuck in his bathroom window. [3].
ZAPU forces committed many acts of violence during their war to overthrow the Rhodesian government. The most widely reported and possibly the most notorious were when his troops shot down two Air Rhodesia Vickers Viscount civilian passenger planes with surface-to-air missiles. The first, on September 3, 1978, killed 38 out of 56 in the crash, with a further ten survivors (including children) shot by ZIPRA ground troops dispatched to inspect the burned-out wreckage. The eight remaining survivors managed to elude the guerrillas and walked 20 km into Kariba from where the flight had taken off (it was headed for Salisbury, Rhodesia's capital, now renamed Harare). Some of the passengers had serious injuries, and were picked up by local police and debriefed by the Rhodesian army. The second shootdown, on February 12, 1979, killed all 59 on board. The real target of the second shootdown was General Peter Walls, head of the COMOPS (Commander, Combined Operations), in charge of the Special Forces, including the SAS and the Selous Scouts. Due to the large number of tourists returning to Salisbury a second flight had been dispatched. General Walls received a boarding card for the second flight which departed Kariba 15 minutes after the doomed aircraft. No-one has been brought to trial or charged with shooting down the aircraft due to amnesty laws passed by both Smith and Mugabe. In a televised interview not long after the first shootdown, Nkomo laughed and joked about the incident while admitting ZAPU had indeed been responsible for the attack on the civilian aircraft. In his memoirs, Story of My Life, published in 1985, Nkomo expressed regret for the shooting down of both planes.

Politics

ZAPU election badge, c1980

Nkomo founded the National Democratic Party (NDP), and in 1960, the year British prime minister Harold Macmillan spoke of the "Wind of Change" blowing through Africa, Robert Mugabe joined him. The NDP was banned by Smith's white minority government, and it was subsequently replaced by the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU), also founded by Nkomo and Mugabe, in 1962, itself immediately banned. ZAPU split in 1963 and while some have claimed this split was due to ethnic tensions, more accurately the split was motivated by the failure of Sithole, Mugabe, Takawira and Malianga to wrest control of ZAPU from Nkomo. ZAPU would remain a multi-ethnic party right up until independence.
An unpopular government called Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, led by Abel Muzorewa, was formed in 1979 between Ian Smith and Ndabaningi Sithole's ZANU, which by now had also split from Mugabe's more militant ZANU faction. However, the civil war waged by Nkomo and Mugabe continued unabated, and Britain and the USA did not lift sanctions on the country. Britain persuaded all parties to come to Lancaster House in September 1979 to work out a constitution and the basis for fresh elections. Mugabe and Nkomo shared a delegation, called the Patriotic Front (PF), at the negotiations chaired by Lord Carrington. Elections were held in 1980, and to most observers' surprise Nkomo's ZAPU lost in a landslide to Mugabe's ZANU.[dubious – discuss] The effects of this election would make both ZAPU and ZANU into tribally-based parties, ZANU with backing from the Shona majority, and ZAPU the Ndebele minority. Nkomo was offered the ceremonial post of President, but declined.

Coup d'état

Despite reaching their ultimate goal, overthrowing Ian Smith and the minority white Rhodesian Front party, Mugabe and Nkomo never did get along. Nkomo was always trying to improve relationships between the two parties but Mugabe never responded as he believed that ZAPU were more interested in overthrowing ZANU. Allegedly, When Julius Nyerere summoned the two to a meeting to improve relations between the two party leaders, they entered Nyerere's office separately, first Nkomo, then Mugabe. When Mugabe was offered a seat, he refused and instead went up close to Nyerere's face and told him "If you think I'm going to sit right where that fat bastard just sat, you'll have to think again". As a result of this strained relationship, fighting between ZANLA and ZIPRA soldiers increased and widened the gap between the two men.
Finally after much debate and refusals, Nkomo was appointed to the cabinet, but in 1982 was accused of plotting a coup d'état after South African double agents in Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organization, attempting to cause distrust between ZAPU and ZANU, planted arms on ZAPU owned farms, and then tipped Mugabe off to their existence.
In a public statement Mugabe said, "ZAPU and its leader, Dr. Joshua Nkomo, are like a cobra in a house. The only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head."[4] He unleashed the Fifth Brigade upon Nkomo's Matabeleland homeland in Operation Gukurahundi, killing ca. 3000 Ndebele civilians in an attempt to destroy ZAPU and create a one-party state. Nkomo fled the country. Mugabe's government claimed that he had "illegally" left dressed as a woman:
<TABLE style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; MARGIN: auto; WIDTH: auto; BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none" class=cquote><TBODY><TR><TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; PADDING-BOTTOM: 10px; PADDING-LEFT: 10px; PADDING-RIGHT: 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman', serif; COLOR: #b2b7f2; FONT-SIZE: 35px; FONT-WEIGHT: bold; PADDING-TOP: 10px" vAlign=top width=20>"</TD><TD style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 4px; PADDING-LEFT: 10px; PADDING-RIGHT: 10px; PADDING-TOP: 4px" vAlign=top>NKOMO FLEES: ZAPU leader, Joshua Nkomo, fled in self-imposed exile to London after illegally crossing the Botswana frontier disguised as a woman on March 7th. 1983, claiming that his life was in danger, and that he was going to look for "solutions" to Zimbabwean problems abroad." (Government Printer, Harare 1984)[5].</TD><TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: right; PADDING-BOTTOM: 10px; PADDING-LEFT: 10px; PADDING-RIGHT: 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman', serif; COLOR: #b2b7f2; FONT-SIZE: 36px; FONT-WEIGHT: bold; PADDING-TOP: 10px" vAlign=bottom width=20>"</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Nkomo ridiculed the suggestion that he escaped dressed as a woman. "I expected they would invent stupid stories about my flight..... People will believe anything if they believe that".[5] He added that "...nothing in my life had prepared me for persecution at the hands of a government led by black Africans."[5]

After the Gukurahundi massacres, in 1987 Nkomo consented to the absorption of ZAPU into ZANU, resulting in a unified party called ZANU-PF, leaving Zimbabwe as effectively a one-party state, and leading some Ndebeles to accuse Nkomo of selling out. These Ndebele individuals were, however, in such a minority that they did not constitute a meaningful power base within the cross-section of ZAPU. In a powerless post, and with his health failing, his influence declined.
When asked late in his life why he allowed this to happen, he told historian Eliakim Sibanda that he did it to stop the murder of the Ndebele (who supported his party) and of the ZAPU politicians and organizers who had been targeted by Zimbabwe's security forces since 1982. "Mugabe and his Shona henchmen have always sought the extermination of the Ndebele," he said.
Nkomo had been an inactive member of the Missionary Church for most of his life. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1999, shortly before he died of prostate cancer on July 1 at the age of 82 in Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare.[6]


National Hero status
In 1999 Nkomo was declared a National Hero and is buried in the National Heroes Acre in Harare.
On 27 June 2000, a set of four postage stamps were released by the Post and Telecommunications Corporation of Zimbabwe featuring Joshua Nkomo. They had denominations of ZW$2.00, $9.10, $12.00 and $16.00 and were designed by Cedric D. Herbert.

Nyambala · Jan 11, 2010

Mkuu FMES huwa nikikumbuka haya maneno ya Joshua Nkomo yaliyoandikwa 1983, nashindwa kuelewa ni kwa nini SADC wanaendelea kumbeba Mugabe

"This is not government, it is the abuse of government, an abuse which transforms the rule of law into the law of rule. As such it cannot lead to a free, united, peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe. But to one in which oppression, division, violence and poverty will shadow all our hopes, and make a mockery of the freedom struggle in which so many heroes gave their lives".

William J. Malecela · Jan 11, 2010

Mobutu Sese se ko: Zaire Congo DRC.

Mobutu Sésé Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (14 October 1930– 7 September 1997), commonly known as Mobutu or Mobutu Sésé Seko (pronounced /məˈbuːtuː ˈsɛseɪ ˈsɛkoʊ/ in English), born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, became the President Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) after deposing Joseph Kasavubu.

He remained in office for 31.5 years. While in office, he formed a totalitarian regime in Zaire which attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence and entered wars to challenge the rise of communism in other African countries.

Early years

Mobutu, a member of the Ngbandi ethnic group, was born in Lisala, Belgian Congo. Mobutu's mother, Marie Madeleine Yemo, was a hotel maid who fled to Lisala to escape the harem of a local village chief. There she met and married Albéric Gbemani, a cook for a Belgian judge. Two months later she gave birth to Mobutu. The name "Mobutu" was selected by an uncle. Gbemani died when Mobutu was eight.

The wife of the Belgian judge took a liking to Mobutu and taught him to speak, read and write fluent French. Yemo relied on the help of relatives to support her four children, and the family moved often. Mobutu's earliest studies were in Léopoldville, but his mother eventually sent him to an uncle in Coquilhatville, where he attended the Christian Brothers School, a Catholic mission boarding school.

A physically imposing figure, he dominated school sports. He also excelled in academics, and ran the class newspaper. He was also known for his pranks and impish sense of humor; a classmate recalled that when the Belgian priests, whose first language was Dutch, misspoke in French, Mobutu would leap to his feet in class and point out the mistake.

In 1949 Mobutu stowed away aboard a boat to Léopoldville and met a girl. The priests found him several weeks later, and at the end of the school year he was sent to the Force Publique (FP), the Belgian Congolese army. Enlistment, which came with a seven-year commitment, was a punishment for rebellious students.

Mobutu found discipline in army life, as well as a father figure in Sergeant Joseph Bobozo. Mobutu kept up his studies by borrowing European newspapers from the Belgian officers and books from wherever he could find them, reading them on sentry duty and whenever he had a spare moment. His personal favorites were the writings of French President Charles de Gaulle, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.

After passing a course in accounting, he began to dabble professionally in journalism. Still angry after his clashes with the school priests, he did not wed in a church. His contribution to the wedding festivities was a crate of beer, all his army salary could afford.

As a soldier, Mobutu wrote pseudonymously on contemporary politics for a new magazine set up by a Belgian colonial, Actunigalités Africaines. In 1956, he quit the army and became a full-time journalist, writing for the Léopoldville daily L'Avenir. Two years later, he went to Belgium to cover the 1958 World Exposition and stayed to receive training in journalism. By this time, Mobutu had met many of the young Congolese intellectuals who were challenging colonial rule.

He became friends with Patrice Lumumba and joined Lumumba's Mouvement National Congolais (MNC). Mobutu eventually became Lumumba's personal aide, though several contemporaries indicate that Belgian intelligence had recruited Mobutu to be an informer by this point.

During the 1960 talks in Brussels on Congolese independence, the U.S. Embassy held a reception to gain a better sense of the Congolese delegation. Embassy staff were each assigned a list of delegation members to meet and then discuss their impressions.

The ambassador noted, "One name kept coming up. But it wasn't on anyone's list because he wasn't an official delegation member, he was Lumumba's secretary. But everyone agreed that this was an extremely intelligent man, very young, perhaps immature, but a man with great potential."

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 11, 2010

Nyambala said:
Mkuu FMES huwa nikikumbuka haya maneno ya Joshua Nkomo yaliyoandikwa 1983, nashindwa kuelewa ni kwa nini SADC wanaendelea kumbeba Mugabe

"This is not government, it is the abuse of government, an abuse which transforms the rule of law into the law of rule. As such it cannot lead to a free, united, peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe. But to one in which oppression, division, violence and poverty will shadow all our hopes, and make a mockery of the freedom struggle in which so many heroes gave their lives".

- Ni kweli Mkuu, haya ni maneno mazito sana hasa ukizingatia the time yalipoandikwa na reality ya Zaimbabwe sasa, lakini as usual politics za Africa zina a lot of confusion, kwa sababu at one point Nkomo hakuelewana tena hata na Mwalimu, sasa sielewi what happened,

- Lakini one thing for sure, somebody who matters should have paid attention to haya maneno ya Nkomo na hasa the West.

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 11, 2010

Mobutu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisis

Congo Crisis

Following the granting of independence on 30 June 1960, a coalition government was formed, led by Prime Minister Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu. The new nation quickly lurched into the Congo Crisis as the army mutinied against the remaining Belgian officers. Lumumba appointed Mobutu as Chief of Staff of the Armee Nationale Congolaise (ANC), the Congolese Army, and in that capacity, Mobutu toured the country convincing soldiers to return to their barracks.

Encouraged by a Belgian government intent on maintaining its access to rich Congolese mines, secessionist violence erupted in the south. Concerned that the United Nations force Soviet Union for assistance, receiving massive military aid and about a thousand Soviet technical advisers in six weeks. The U.S. government saw the Soviet activity as a maneuver to spread communist influence in Central Africa.

Kasavubu, riled by the Soviet arrival, dismissed Lumumba. An outraged Lumumba declared Kasavubu deposed. Both Lumumba and Kasavubu then ordered Mobutu to arrest the other. As Army Chief of Staff, Mobutu came under great pressure from multiple sources. The embassies of Western nations, which helped pay the soldiers' salaries, as well as Kasavubu and Mobutu's subordinates favored getting rid of the Soviet presence.

On 14 September 1960 Mobutu took controlin a CIA-sponsored coup. The new regime placed Lumumba under house arrest for the second time and kept Kasavubu as president. All Soviet advisers were ordered to leave. Next, Mobutu accused Lumumba of pro-communist sympathies, thereby hoping to gain the support of the United States. Lumumba tried to flee to Stanleyville, but he was captured and sent to Katanga where he was assassinated.

In 1964, Pierre Mulele led partisans in another rebellion. They quickly occupied two thirds of The Congo, but the Congolese army, led by Mobutu, was able to reconquer the entire territory in 1965.

Second coup and consolidation of power

On November 25, 1965, General Mobutu seized power for the second time in a bloodless coup, following another power struggle between Kasavubu and his prime minister Moise Tshombe. According to Mobutu, it had taken "the politicians" five years to "ruin" the country; therefore, said Mobutu, "For five years, there will be no more political party activity in the country". Under the auspices of a regime d'exception (the equivalent of a state of emergency), Mobutu assumed sweeping, almost absolute, powers. Parliament was reduced to a rubber-stamp, before being abolished altogether though it was later revived. The number of provinces was reduced, and their autonomy curtailed, resulting in a highly centralized state.

Initially, Mobutu's government was decidedly apolitical, even anti-political. The word "politician" carried negative connotations, and became almost synonymous with someone who was wicked or corrupt. Even so, 1966 saw the debut of the Corps of Volunteers of the Republic, a vanguard movement designed to mobilize popular support behind Mobutu, who was proclaimed the nation's "Second National Hero" after Lumumba.

Ironic given the role he played in Lumumba's ousting, Mobutu strove to present himself as a successor to Lumumba's legacy and one of the key tenets early in his rule was "authentic Congolese nationalism."
1967 marked the debut of the Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR) which until 1990 was the nation's only legal political party. Membership became obligatory for all citizens.

That same year, all trade unions were consolidated into a single union, the National Union of Zairian Workers, and brought under government control. By Mobutu's own admission, the union would serve as an instrument of support for government policy, rather than as a force for confrontation. Independent trade unions were illegal until 1991.

Facing many challenges early in his rule, Mobutu was able to turn most opposition into submission through patronage; those he could not, he dealt with forcefully. In 1966 four cabinet members were arrested on charges of complicity in an attempted coup, tried by a military tribunal, and publicly executed in an open-air spectacle witnessed by over 50,000 people. Uprisings by former Katangan gendarmeries were crushed, as was an abortive revolt led by white mercenaries in 1967. By 1970, nearly all potential threats to his authority had been smashed, and for the most part, law and order was brought to nearly all parts of the country.

That year marked the pinnacle of Mobutu's legitimacy and power. The Belgian monarch, King Baudouin I, made a highly successful state visit to Kinshasa. As he consolidated power Mobutu set up several military forces whose sole purpose was to protect him. These included the Special Presidential Division, Civil Guard and Service for Action and Military Intelligence (SNIP).

Authenticity campaign

Embarking on a campaign of pro-Africa cultural awareness, Mobutu renamed the country the Republic of Zaire in October 1971. Africans were ordered to drop their Christian names for African ones, and priests were warned that they would face 5 years' imprisonment if they were caught baptizing a Zairean child with a Christian name. Western attire and ties were banned, and men were forced to wear a Mao-style tunic known as an abacost.

In 1972, Mobutu renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga ("The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-10, Mobutu Sese Seko for short.

One-man rule

Mobutu Sese Seko in 1973 sporting his signature leopardskin toque and glasses Early in his rule, Mobutu consolidated power by publicly executing political rivals, secessionists, coup plotters, and other threats to his rule. To set an example, many were hanged before large audiences, including former Prime Minister Evariste Kimba, who, with three cabinet members - Jérôme Anany (Defense Minister), Emmanuel Bamba (Finance Minister), and Alexandre Mahamba (Minister of Mines and Energy) - was tried in May 1966, and sent to the gallows on May 30, before an audience of 50,000 spectators. The men were executed on charges of being in contact with Colonel Alphonse Bangala and Major Pierre Efomi, for the purpose of planning a coup. Mobutu explained the executions as follows: "One had to strike through a spectacular example, and create the conditions of regime discipline. When a chief takes a decision, he decides - period."

In 1968 Pierre Mulele, Lumumba's Minister of Education and later a rebel leader during the 1964 Simba rebellion, was lured out of exile in Brazzaville on the assumption that he would be amnestied, but was tortured and killed by Mobutu's forces. While Mulele was still alive, his eyes were gouged out, his genitals were ripped off, and his limbs were amputated one by one.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-12

Mobutu later moved away from torture and murder, and switched to a new tactic, buying off political rivals. He used the slogan "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer still" to describe his tactic of co-opting political opponents through bribery. A favorite Mobutu tactic was to play "musical chairs," rotating members of his government, switching the cabinet roster constantly to ensure that no one would pose a threat to his rule.

Another tactic was to arrest and sometimes torture dissident members of the government, only to later pardon them and reward them with high office. The most famous example of this treatment is Jean Nguza Karl-i-Bond, who was fired as foreign minister in 1977, sentenced to death, and tortured. Mobutu then commuted his sentence to life imprisonment, released him after a year, and later appointed him prime minister. Nguza fled the country in 1981 only to return in 1985, first serving as Zaire's ambassador to the U.S. and later as foreign minister.

In 1972 Mobutu tried unsuccessfully to have himself named president for life.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-14 In 1983, Mobutu promoted himself to the rank of Field Marshal.
He initially nationalized foreign-owned firms and forced European investors out of the country. In many cases he handed the management of these firms to relatives and close associates who stole the companies' assets.

Katangan rebels based in Angola invaded Zaire in 1977 in retaliation for Mobutu's support for anti-MPLA France airlifted 1,500 Moroccan paratroopers into the country and repulsed the rebels, ending Shaba I. The rebels attacked Zaire again, in greater numbers, in the Shaba II invasion of 1978. The governments of Belgium and France deployed troops with logistical support from the United States and defeated the rebels again.

He was re-elected in single-candidate elections in 1977 and 1984. He worked hard on little but to increase his personal fortune, which in 1984 was estimated to amount to US$5 billion, most of it in Swiss banks (however, a comparatively small $3.4 million has been found after his ousting [). This was almost equivalent to the country's foreign debt at the time, and, by 1989, the government was forced to default on international loans from Belgium.

He owned a fleet of Mercedes-Benz vehicles that he used to travel between his numerous palaces, while the nation's roads rotted and many of his people starved. Infrastructure virtually collapsed, and many public service workers went months without being paid. Most money was siphoned off to Mobutu, his family, and top political and military leaders. Only the Special Presidential Division - on whom his physical safety depended - was paid adequately or regularly. A popular saying that the civil servants pretended to work while the state pretended to pay them expressed this grim reality.

Marshal Mobutu was known to charter a Concorde from Air France for personal use, including shopping trips to Paris for himself and his family. He had an airport constructed in his hometown of Gbadolite with a runway long enough to accommodate the Concorde's entended take off and landing requirements. In 1989, Mobutu chartered Concorde aircraft F-BTSD for a June 26-July 5 trip to give a speech at the United Nations in New York City, July 16 for French bicentential celebrations in Paris (where he was a guest of President François Mitterrand), on September 19 for a flight from Paris to Gbadolite, and another nonstop flight from Gbadolite to Marseille with the youth choir of Zaire.

Mobutu's rule earned a reputation as one of the world's foremost examples of kleptocracy nepotism. Close relatives and fellow members of the Ngbandi tribe were awarded with high positions in the military and government, and he groomed his eldest son, Nyiwa, to one day succeed him as President;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-21 however, this was thwarted by Nyiwa's death from AIDS in 1994.

10 Makuta coin depicting Mobutu Sese Seko

He was also the subject of a massive personality cult. The evening news on television was preceded by an image of him descending through clouds from the heavens, portraits of him adorned many public places, government officials wore lapels bearing his portrait, and he held such titles as "Father of the Nation," "Savior of the People," and "Supreme Combatant."

In the 1996 documentary of the 1974 Foreman-Ali fight in Zaire, dancers receiving the fighters can be heard chanting "Sese Seko, Sese Seko." At one point, in early 1975, the media was even forbidden from mentioning by name anyone but Mobutu; others were referred to only by the positions they held.Mobutu was able to successfully capitalize on Cold War tensions and gain significant support from Western countries like the United States and international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund.

Foreign policy Main article: Foreign policy of Mobutu Sese Seko

Relations with the United States

Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington D.C., 1973.

For the most part, Zaire enjoyed warm relations with the United States. The United States was the third largest donor of aid to Zaire (after Belgium and France), and Mobutu befriended several U.S. presidents, including Nixon, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush.

Relations did cool significantly in 1974-1975 over Mobutu's increasingly radical rhetoric (which included his scathing denunciations of American foreign policy), and plummeted to an all-time low in the summer of 1975, when Mobutu accused the CIA of plotting his overthrow and arrested eleven senior Zairian generals and several civilians, and condemned (in absentia) a former head of the Central Bank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-26 However, many people viewed these charges with skepticism; in fact, one of Mobutu's staunchest critics, Nzongola-Ntalaja, speculated that Mobutu invented the plot as an excuse to purge the military of talented officers who might otherwise pose a threat to his rule. In spite of these hindrances, the chilly relationship quickly thawed when both countries found each other supporting the same side during the Angolan Civil War.

But during the second Shaba invasion, the U.S. played a much more active and decisive role by providing transportation and logistical support to the French and Belgian paratroopers that were deployed to aid Mobutu against the rebels. Carter echoed Mobutu's (unsubstantiated) charges of Soviet and Cuban aid to the rebels, until it was apparent that no hard evidence existed to verify his claims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-30 In 1980, the House of Representatives voted to terminate military aid to Zaire, but the Senate reinstated the funds, in response to pressure from Carter and American business interests in Zaire. Mobutu enjoyed a very warm relationship with the Reagan Administration, through financial donations.

During Reagan's presidency, Mobutu visited the White House three times, and criticism of Zaire's human rights record by the U.S. was effectively muted. During a state visit by Mobutu in 1983, Reagan praised the Zairian strongman as "a voice of good sense and goodwill."
Mobutu also had a cordial relationship with Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush; he was the first African head of state to visit Bush at the White House.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-33

Even so, Mobutu's relationship with the U.S. radically changed shortly afterward with the end of the Cold War. With the Soviet Union gone, there was no longer any reason to support Mobutu as a bulwark against communism. Accordingly, the U.S. and other Western powers began pressuring Mobutu to democratize the regime. Regarding the change in U.S. attitude to his regime, Mobutu bitterly remarked: "I am the latest victim of the cold war, no longer needed by the U.S. The lesson is that my support for American policy counts for nothing."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-34 In 1993, Mobutu was denied a visa by the U.S. State Department after he sought to visit Washington, D.C. Mobutu also had friends in America outside Washington. Mobutu was befriended by televangelist Pat Robertson, who promised to try to get the State Department to lift its ban on the African leader.

Relations with Belgium

Relations between Zaire and Belgium wavered between close intimacy and open hostility during the Mobutu years. Relations soured early in Mobutu's rule over disputes involving the substantial Belgian commercial and industrial holdings in the country, but relations warmed soon afterwards.

Mobutu and his family were received as personal guests of the Belgian monarch in 1968, and a convention for scientific and technical cooperation was signed that same year. During King Baudouin's highly successful visit to Kinshasa in 1970, a treaty of friendship and cooperation between the two countries was signed. However, Mobutu tore up the treaty in 1974 in protest of Belgium's refusal to ban an anti-Mobutu book written by left-wing lawyer Jules Chomé.

Relations with France

As the second largest French speaking country in the world and the largest one in sub-Saharan Africahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-autogenerated1-37 Zaire was of great strategic interest to France. During the First Republic era, France tended to side with the conservative and federalist forces, as opposed to unitarists such as Lumumba. Shortly after the Katangan secession was successfully crushed, Zaire (then called the Republic of the Congo), signed a treaty of technical and cultural cooperation with France. During the presidency of de Gaulle, relations with the two countries gradually grew stronger and closer.

In 1971, then-Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing paid a visit to Zaire; later, after becoming President, he would develop a close personal relationship with President Mobutu, and became one of the regime's closest foreign allies. During the Shaba invasions, France sided firmly with Mobutu: during the first Shaba invasion, France airlifted 1,500 Morrocan troops to Zaire, and the rebels were repulsed; a year later, during the second Shaba invasion, France itself would send french foreign legion paratroopers(2REP) to aid Mobutu (along with Belgium).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-40

Relations with the Soviet Union

Mobutu's relationship with the Soviet Union was frosty and tense. Mobutu, a staunch anticommunist, was not anxious to recognize the Soviets; he remembered well their support, albeit mostly vocal, of Lumumba and the Simba rebels.

However, to project a non-aligned image, he did renew ties in 1967; the first Soviet ambassador arrived and presented his credentials in 1968 (Mobutu did, however, join the U.S. in condemning the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that year). Mobutu viewed the Soviet presence as advantageous for two reasons:

it allowed him to maintain an image of non-alignment, and it provided a convenient scapegoat for problems at home. For example, in 1970, he expelled four Soviet diplomats for carrying out "subversive activities," and in 1971, twenty Soviet officials were declared persona non grata for allegedly instigating student demonstrations at Lovanium University.

Moscow was the only major world capital Mobutu never visited, although he did accept an invitation to do so in 1974. For reasons unknown, he cancelled the visit at the last minute, and toured the People's Republic of China and North Korea, instead. Relations cooled further in 1975, when the two countries found themselves on opposing sides in the Angolan Civil War.

This had a dramatic effect on Zairian foreign policy for the next decade; bereft of his claim to African leadership (Mobutu was one of the few leaders who denied the Marxist government of Angola recognition), Mobutu turned increasingly to the U.S. and its allies, adopting pro-American stances on such issues as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Israel's position in international organizations.

Relations with the People's Republic of China

Initially, Zaire's relationship with the People's Republic of China was no better than its relationship with the Soviet Union. Memories of Chinese aid to Mulele and other Maoist rebels in Kwilu province during the ill-fated Simba rebellion remained fresh in Mobutu's mind. He also opposed seating China at the United Nations. However, by 1972, he began to see the Chinese in a different light, as a counterbalance to both the Soviet Union as well as his intimate ties with the United States, Israel, and South Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-callagy-43 In November 1972, Mobutu extended the Chinese (as well as East Germany and North Korea) diplomatic recognition. The following year, Mobutu paid a visit to Beijing, where he met personally with Chairman Mao and received promises of $100 million in technical aid. In 1974, Mobutu made a surprise visit to both China and North Korea, during the time he was originally scheduled to visit the Soviet Union.

Upon returning home, both his politics and rhetoric became markedly more radical; it was around this time that Mobutu began criticizing Belgium and the United States (the latter for not doing enough, in Mobutu's opinion, to combat white minority rule in southern Africa), introduced the "obligatory civic work" program called salongo, and initiated "radicalization" (an extension of 1973's "Zairianization" policy).

Mobutu even borrowed a title - the Helmsman - from Mao. Incidentally, late 1974-early 1975 was when his personality cult reached its peak.
China and Zaire shared a common goal in Central Africa, namely doing everything in their power to halt Soviet gains in the area.

Accordingly, both Zaire and China covertly funneled aid to the FNLA (and later, UNITA) in order to prevent the MPLA, who were supported and augmented by Cuban forces, from coming to power. The Cubans, who exercised considerable influence in Africa in support of leftist and anti-imperialist forces, were heavily sponsored by the Soviet Union during the period.

In addition to inviting Holden Roberto and his guerrillas to Beijing for training, China provided weapons and money to the rebels. Zaire itself launched an ill-fated, pre-emptive invasion of Angola in a bid to install a pro-Kinshasa government, but was repulsed by Cuban troops.

The expedition was a fiasco with far-reaching repercussions, most notably the Shaba I and Shaba II invasions, both of which China opposed. China sent military aid to Zaire during both invasions, and accused the Soviet Union and Cuba (who were alleged to have supported the Shaban rebels, although this was and remains speculation) of working to de-stabilize Central Africa.

Coalition government

In May 1990, due to the ending of the Cold War and a change in the international political climate, as well as economic problems and domestic unrest, Mobutu agreed to end the ban on other political parties and appointed a transitional government that would lead to promised elections, but he retained substantial powers.

Following riots in Kinshasa by unpaid soldiers, Mobutu brought opposition figures into a coalition government, but he still connived to retain control of the security services and important ministries. Factional divisions led to the creation of two governments in 1993, one pro and one anti-Mobutu.

The anti-Mobutu government was headed by Laurent Monsengwo and Étienne Tshisekedi UDPS. The economic situation was still dreadful, and, in 1994, the two groups joined as the High Council of Republic - Parliament of Transition (HCR-PT). Mobutu appointed Kengo Wa Dondo, an advocate of austerity and free-market reforms, as prime minister. Mobutu was becoming increasingly physically frail and during one of his absences for medical treatment in Europe, Tutsis captured much of eastern Zaire.

Overthrow

Mobutu was overthrown in the First Congo War by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who was supported by the governments of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.
Tutsis had long opposed Mobutu, due to his open support for Rwandan Hutu extremists responsible for the Rwandan genocide in 1994. When his government issued an order in November 1996 forcing Tutsis to leave Zaire on penalty of death, they erupted in rebellion.

From eastern Zaire, with the support of President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Rwandan Minister of Defense Paul Kagame, they launched an offensive to overthrow Mobutu, joining forces with locals opposed to him as they marched west toward Kinshasa. Ailing with cancer, Mobutu was unable to coordinate the resistance, which crumbled in front of the march, the army being more used to suppressing civilians than defending a large country.

On May 16, 1997, following failed peace talks, the Tutsi rebels and other anti-Mobutu groups as the Alliance des Forces Democratiques pour la Liberation du Congo-Zaire (AFDL) captured Kinshasa. Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Burial of Juvénal Habyarimana

On 12 May 1997, as Laurent-Désiré Kabila's ADFL rebels were advancing on Gbadolite, Mobutu had the remains of assassinated Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana flown by cargo plane from his mausoleum to Kinshasa where they waited on the tarmac of Kinshasa International Airport for three days.

On 16 May the day before Mobutu fled Zaire (and the country was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Habyarimana's remains were burned under the supervision of an Indian Hindu leader.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-44

Exile

Mobutu went into temporary exile in Togo but lived mostly in Morocco. Laurent-Désiré Kabila became the new president on the very same day. Kabila was killed in 2001 under unclear circumstances; the new President is his son Joseph Kabila.

Death

Mobutu died on September 7, 1997, in exile in Rabat, Morocco, from prostate cancer. He is buried in Rabat, in the Christian cemetery known as "Pax." In December 2007, the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Legacy

According to Transparency International, Mobutu embezzled over $5 billion USD from his country, ranking him as the third-most corrupt leader in the past two decades and the most corrupt African leader during the same period. He is a constantly recurring theme in Advance fee fraud (419) scams in emails sent to anybody worldwide. A 419er may claim to be Mobutu's wife, son, or daughter and promise a percentage of his wealth to the email recipient if the recipient does a few things first, including pay advance fees.

Mobutu also was one of the men who was instrumental to bringing the famous Rumble in the Jungle fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman to Zaire on October 30, 1974. According to the documentary When We Were Kings, promoter Don King promised both fighters $5,000,000 USD for the fight, and no other group would put up that kind of money for the fight. Mobutu, wanting to expand the image of the nation of Zaire, put up the nation's money to do so.

According to a quote in the film, Ali supposedly said: "Some countries go to war to get their names out there, and wars cost a lot more than $10,000,000."

Family

Mobutu was married twice. His first wife, Marie-Antoinette Mobutu, died of heart failure on October 22, 1977 in Genolier, Switzerland at age 36. On May 1, 1980, he married his mistress, Bobi Ladawa, on the eve of a visit by Pope John Paul II, thus legitimizing his relationship in the eyes of the Church.

Four of his sons from his first marriage died: Nyiwa (d. September 16, 1994), Konga (d. 1995), Kongulu (d. September 24, 199, and Manda (d. November 27, 2004). A son from his second marriage, François Joseph Nzanga Mobutu Ngbangawe, was a candidate in the 2006 presidential elections and currently serves in the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as Minister of State for Agriculture.

A daughter, Yakpwa (nicknamed Yaki), was briefly married to a Belgianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko#cite_note-50 which described Mobutu's lifestyle in vivid detail. Altogether, Mobutu had seventeen children. man named Pierre Janssen, who later wrote a book

Respect.

FMEs!

William J. Malecela · Jan 14, 2010

Francisco Macías Nguema (1 January, 1924 - 29 September, 1979) was the first [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Equatorial_Guinea"]President[/ame] of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_Guinea"]Equatorial Guinea[/ame], from 1968 until his overthrow in 1979.

Nguema: Few mintues before his execution

He rose to the position of mayor of Mongomo under the Spanish colonial government, and later served as a member of the territorial parliament. He was elected president in two rounds before independence in 1968. During his presidency, his country was nicknamed "the Dachau of Africa," and became notorious for political executions and virulent anti-Spanish radio speeches.

The country's pre-independence prime minister, Bonifacio Ondó Edu, was starved and executed in prison shortly after Macías came to power. Other officials, including a former vice president, "committed suicide" while in detention. Macías Nguema's violations of human rights during his reign caused more than a third of Equatorial Guinea's population to flee to other countries.

Three important pillars of his rule were the United National Workers' Party (PUNT which he formed to replace the pre-independence parties), the Juventud en Marcha con Macías militia/youth group, and the Esangui clan of Río Muni. The country's instruments of repression (military, presidential bodyguard) were entirely controlled by Macías Nguema's relatives and clan members.

The president's paranoid actions included banning use of the word "intellectual" and destroying boats (fishing was banned). He "Africanized" his name to Masie Nguema Biyogo Ñegue Ndong in 1976 after demanding that the rest of the Equatoguinean population do the same.

Macías Nguema had an extreme cult of personality, perhaps fueled by his consumption of copious amounts of bhang and iboga, and assigned himself titles such as the "Unique Miracle" and "Grand Master of Education, Science, and Culture." The island of Fernando Pó

Expansion of Power

On 7 May 1971, Macías Nguema issued Decree 415, which repealed parts of the 1968 Constitution and granted him "all direct powers of Government and Institutions", including powers formerly held by the legislative and judiciary branches, as well as the cabinet of ministers. On October 18, 1971, Law 1 was issued which imposed the death penalty as punishment for threatening the President or the government.

Insulting or offending the President or his cabinet was punishable by 30 years in prison. On 14 July 1972, he declared himself President for Life with Constitutional Decree 1. He completely repealed the 1968 Constitution on 29 July 1973, instituting a new Constitution that gave Macías Nguema and his party absolute power.

Macías Nguema declared private education subversive, and banned it entirely with Decree 6 on 18 March 1975. During Macías Nguema's regime, the country had neither a development plan nor an accounting system for public funds. Once Nguema had killed the governor of the Central Bank, he carried everything that remained in the national treasury to his house in a village.

Coup

On 3 August 1979 he was overthrown by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who was previously the military governor of Bioko and Vice-Minister of the Armed Forces. Macías Nguema and a contingent of loyal forces initially resisted the coup, but his forces eventually abandoned him, and he was captured in a forest on August 18

Trial and execution

The Supreme Military Council opened Case 1/979 on 18 August 1979, and began interviewing witnesses and collecting evidence against the Macías Nguema regime. The Council subsequently convened a military tribunal on 24 September to try Macías Nguema and several members of his regime. The charges for the ten defendants included genocide, mass murder, embezzlement of public funds, violations of human rights, and treason

The state prosecutor requested that Macías Nguema receive the death penalty, five others to receive thirty years in prison, and four others to receive a year in prison. Macías Nguema's defense council countered that the other co-defendants were responsible for specific crimes, and asked for acquittal.

Macías Nguema himself delivered a statement to the court outlining what he viewed as the extensive good deeds he had performed for the country. At noon on 29 September 1979, the Tribunal delivered its sentences, which were more severe than what the prosecution had requested. Macías Nguema and six of his co-defendants were sentenced to death and the confiscation of their property. Two defendants were sentenced to fourteen years in prison, and two others to four years
With no higher court available to hear appeals, the decision of the Special Military Tribunal was final.

Macías Nguema and the six other defendants sentenced to death were executed by a Moroccan firing squad at Black Beach Prison at 6pm on the same day Today, Macías Nguema is regarded as one of the most kleptocratic, corrupt and dictatorial Pol Pot because of the violent, unpredictable, and anti-intellectual nature of both regimeshad its name 'africanized' after him to Masie Ngueme Biyogo Island; on his overthrow in 1979 it was named Bioko. leaders in post-colonial African history.

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Africa's Ex-Presidents & Leaders!

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