Hastings Kamuzu Banda

Who is Hastings Kamuzu Banda?

Hastings Kamuzu Banda was Malawi's first president and the dominant figure in its transition from British colonial rule to independence. Born in the Kasungu district of what was then the Nyasaland Protectorate, he left as a young man to work in South African mines before pursuing education in the United States, where he trained in medicine, and later in Scotland and England, where he practiced as a doctor. In the 1950s he emerged as an outspoken opponent of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which many Nyasas saw as entrenching white settler rule. Invited home in 1958 to lead the Nyasaland African Congress, he was imprisoned by British authorities in 1959 during a state of emergency, then released in 1960 to lead negotiations toward self-government. Nyasaland became independent Malawi in 1964 with Banda as prime minister, and he was declared president for life in 1971, ruling through the one-party Malawi Congress Party until multiparty elections ended his rule in 1994. He died in South Africa in 1997.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Hastings Banda" · BBC News obituary, "Malawi's Kamuzu Banda dies" (1997) · Short, Philip, "Banda" (1974 biography)