Flax Katoba Musopole

Last updated

Flax Katoba Musopole (1918 - 1989) was a radical and militant African nationalist in late colonial Malawi, who was imprisoned after conducting a campaign of sabotage and intimidation for several months in the north of the country in 1959. After Malawi's independence, he became a member of the Malawi parliament and an advocate of the authoritarian and centralising policies of its first President, Hastings Banda. He was rewarded with posts as a junior minister and in Malawi’s diplomatic service, but retired from politics in 1969, spending the rest of his life in relative obscurity.

Contents

Musopole was born in the Northern Province of what was then Nyasaland. He went to South Africa as a labour migrant in the 1940s, and became radicalised there, forging links to the South African Communist Party. He returned to Nyasaland in 1955 and began a campaign against colonialism and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland that capitalised on existing popular discontent with colonial agricultural measures, developing a radical, peasant-based anti-government movement in the north of the country. Musopole promoted mass membership of the Nyasaland African Congress throughout the Northern Province and organised boycotts of the agricultural regulations. In February 1959, he led a campaign designed to paralyse colonial rule in Northern Province through unauthorised demonstrations and clashes with police. These disturbances were one of the triggers for the declaration of a State of emergency in March 1959, which led to the arrest and imprisonment of most Nyasaland African Congress leaders. However, Musopole and a number of his followers evaded arrest and conducted an armed campaign against the security forces until his capture in Tanganyika in August 1959. He was convicted of sedition and imprisoned for two years.

After his release from prison, he was elected to the Malawi Parliament in 1964. At the time of the Cabinet Crisis of 1964 in Malawi, he supported President Hastings Banda against the ministers, many from the Northern Region, who sought to restrict Banda’s power. He was subsequently appointed as a junior minister and, in 1967, was assigned to the Malawian mission to the United Nations. After two years, Musopole was sent to the Malawi Labour Office in Botswana and soon after, he returned to Malawi, left politics and became a businessman in his home district of Chitipa.

Early life and education

Much of Flax Musopole’s early life is obscure and is known only through his own or his relatives’ later accounts. [1] He was born in the Misuku Hills area of Chitipa District, Malawi, which was then part of the Karonga District of Nyasaland in 1918 and attended local elementary schools and then a Senior Primary school run by the Church of Scotland on the Karonga lakeshore. [2] He may also have attended a senior school at the Livingstonia Mission [3]

Musopole’s activities before he migrated to South Africa in the 1940s are unclear, but in South Africa he worked as a clerk in several businesses in the Johannesburg area and passed the South Africa university matriculation examinations through correspondence study. [4] [5] This qualified him to enter the University of Cape Town in 1952 and he either entered the university in that year, leaving without graduating two years later, [6] or interacted with students at the universities of Cape Town and Witwatersrand without matriculating in either. [7] During his time in South Africa, Musopole became an atheist and a strong advocate of anti-colonialism, becoming involved in the Defiance Campaign there, and forming links to the South African Communist Party (SACP). Although he returned to Nyasaland in 1955, Musopole maintained links with the SACP, which in 1957 sponsored him for a scholarship the Moscow State University, which he did not take up. [8]

Opposing the colonial government

In 1954, there were less than 1,000 paid-up members of the Nyasaland African Congress, which had been founded in 1944. The membership consisted mainly of clerks and businessmen based in the south of the protectorate and prosperous tobacco-growers from the Central Province. Northern branches were few and Congress did not seek mass membership. The growth of Congress from a moribund talking-shop in 1955, when Musopole returned to Nyasaland, to a dynamic mass party in 1959 was less through the activities of educated members in the south than expansion through the recruitment of peasants in Nyasaland's north. Musopole was central to this growth, which resulted in 48 out of Nyasaland’s 63 Congress branches being in the Northern Province by 1959, even though this was the least populous of the three provinces. [9]

Musopole was described by the Nyasaland police in 1957 as ‘a known Communist sympathiser’. He was later joined in the Northern Province by Gilbert Kumtumanje, who had lived in Southern Rhodesia for ten years and had been President of the Mashonaland Province branch of the Nyasaland Congress before his expulsion from Southern Rhodesia in December 1957. Kumtumanje and Musopole were supported by the younger Kanyama Chiume and R. R. Chumia, and these four reinvigorated Congress throughout the Northern Province, opening new branches and building up a substantial following in the towns along Lake Malawi. Chiume, Musopole and Chumia were described by the police as ‘the main driving force’ behind Congress in the Northern Province. [10]

Musopole and his associates were able to find many supporters because peasant farmers in the north were adversely affected by colonial agricultural and land conservation policies. Firstly, government agricultural officers targeted a local system of cultivating millet that involved cutting down and burning trees and planting millet in the wood ash. As the millet was mainly used to brew beer, it was widely condemned by administrators and agricultural officers in the north as both morally and environmentally destructive. From 1938, a comprehensive soil conservation scheme, the Misuku Land Usage Scheme, was introduced in the Misuku Hills in the extreme north of the Northern Province. This scheme involved attempts to stop deforestation, to promote the growing of coffee, to restrict the growing of millet and to reduce the numbers of cattle and the extent of grazing land for them. Soil erosion on hilly areas was to be countered by the construction of contour ridges, which took significant amounts of land out of cultivation and involved onerous and unpaid work by the local people to create them. [11] Contour ridging was not applied on the flat Karonga Lakeshore, but owners of the many cattle there had to register their animals and take them to government cattle dipping tanks regularly. [12]

The opposition of peasants was at first unorganised and passive, and included some farmers fleeing across the nearby borders of Tanganyika and Northern Rhodesia. It was nevertheless reasonably successful in many areas of the Northern Province, because the colonial authorities had too few agricultural officers and police to enforce conservation rules, and local courts were unwilling to punish defaulters, so the regulations were largely ignored [13] Once Musopole returned to the province, he organised demonstrations, strikes and boycotts as part of a scheme of more active opposition to the agricultural rules, in particular those relating to coffee growing in the Misuku Hills and the compulsory cattle dipping in Karonga, and he promoted the traditional method of cultivating millet that involved burning trees. [14]

State of Emergency

In January 1959, the governor of Nyasaland, Sir Robert Armitage, after consulting Alan Lennox-Boyd, the Colonial Secretary, rejected the proposals of the Nyasaland African Congress for constitutional change that would have led to an African majority in the Nyasaland legislature, and he suspended constitutional talks with Congress [15] In view of this apparent stalemate, Kanyama Chiume was one of the Congress leaders that led demands for the party to escalate its campaign of anti-government protests and disobedience. He proposed action involving unauthorised demonstrations which would lead to arrests, followed by protests in favour of those arrested, and the intimidation of police and government workers in a cycle designed to cause chaos. Musopole, Chiume, Kumtumanje and Chumia orchestrated an outbreak of violent protest in the Northern Province that brought colonial rule there to a standstill. Rioting began on 8 February when police tried to stop meetings called by Congress leaders without official sanction. Karonga town was taken over by a crowd of about 600 demonstrators on 19 February and the Fort Hill aerodrome, from where the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association flew mineworkers to South Africa, was occupied the next day. In the same month, Musopole directed attacks that damaged mission properties at Livingstonia, Ekwendeni and Loudon, during which some African teachers were beaten and others fled. [16] [17]

Despite this violence and the deteriorating security situation, the Nyasaland government continued to negotiate with Banda and other Congress leaders until late February 1959, but the governor then decided against offering any concessions. He made preparations for mass arrests of Congress leaders and declared a State of Emergency on 3 March 1959. [18] Operation Sunrise, the police and military campaign to arrest and detain Congress leaders immediately after the emergency was declared, involved mass arrests of those individuals identified as Congress leaders or advocates of violence. Most of those scheduled for arrest in the Karonga and Chitipa districts were apprehended on 3 March, and armed police shot dead two demonstrators who were trying to secure their release in Karonga town on the same day. [19]

Musopole was able to evade arrest and immediately began organising the sabotage of conservation projects and road bridges, the destruction of government buildings and the intimidation of government workers. He and his armed followers travelling widely over the Northern Province, unhindered at first by the limited security force presence in the area. [20] In the Misuku Hills, property belonging to two missions was also destroyed [21]

Once the Southern Province was brought fully under control in April 1959, military forces from Southern Rhodesia were sent to the north as part of Operation Crewcut, which was specifically aimed at capturing Musopole and more generally at ending support for Congress in the north. This operation proved abortive, as almost a fortnight of intensive patrolling left Musopole and his followers at liberty in the Misuku hills or in neighbouring Tanganyika. Operation Crewcut ended in October 1959, by which time over a thousand suspected members of Congress had been convicted of criminal offences, collective fines had been imposed on several areas, many homes and much other property had been destroyed and large numbers of Africans had been physically abused by the troops involved. [22] The Devlin Commission later upheld complaints about frequent house burnings, arbitrary fines and bullying behaviour, all of which it considered to be illegal and excessive. [23]

The violent and destructive activities of Musopole and his supporters and their intimidation of those that wished to remain neutral alienated some, but were seen as legitimate opposition to the colonial government by many local Congress supporters. Musopole was finally arrested in Tanganyika in August 1959. [24] He was returned to Nyasaland and charged with sedition, being defended at his trial by the eminent British lawyer and Labour Party politician Dingle Foot. After conviction, he served two and a half years in prison and was released in March 1962. [25]

Malawi politician

As he was in prison, Musopole had little contact with his political base in Chitipa or with the Malawi Congress Party, formed in 1959 to replace the banned Nyasaland African Congress, which was less strong in the Northern Province than in the centre and south of the country. By the time of his release in 1962, he had little choice but to join the dominant new party, which found him a position as clerk of the Karonga District council. [26] As he was a prisoner at the time, Musopole had been ineligible to stand in the 1961 Legislative Council election but, on his release, he was nominated to the Malawi Congress Party’s candidate for the newly created Karonga West (later, Chitipa) constituency. He was elected in the pre-independence election of 1964 as the constituency's first Member of parliament. [27]

Shortly after his election Musopole became involved in the Cabinet Crisis of September 1964. As every Member of parliament was required to speak in the emergency debate that followed the dismissal of three cabinet ministers and the resignation of four more in sympathy with them, neutrality was impossible. Although Musopole acknowledged that these ministers, in particular Kanyama Chiume, were his friends, he pledged loyalty to Banda. He was rewarded by being appointed as Parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Community Development in October 1964. [28] [29] McCracken has suggested that Musopole’s apparent unquestioning support for Banda could be an honest conviction reflecting authoritarian attitudes that he had adopted as the result of his exposure to Communist ideology, rather than to the liberal views accepted by the ministers who had completed their university education and had not had contact with Communist parties or sympathisers. [30]

Later life

In 1967, Musopole was assigned to the Malawian mission to the United Nations but, after two years, he was sent to the Malawi Labour Office in Botswana, an apparent demotion. Within a short time, he left politics and diplomacy and returned to Chitipa where he became a businessman. There is very little information about his final two decades. [31]

Flax Katoba Musopole died in Chitipa in 1989. [32]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nyasaland</span> British protectorate from 1907 to 1964

Nyasaland was a British protectorate located in Africa that was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Between 1953 and 1963, Nyasaland was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. After the Federation was dissolved, Nyasaland became independent from Britain on 6 July 1964 and was renamed Malawi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kanyama Chiume</span>

Kanyama Chiume, born Murray William Kanyama Chiume, was a leading nationalist in the struggle for Malawi's independence in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also one of the leaders of the Nyasaland African Congress and served as the Minister of Education and the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the 1960s before fleeing the country after the 1964 Cabinet Crisis.

The Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) was an organisation that evolved into a political party in Nyasaland during the colonial period. The NAC was suppressed in 1959, but was succeeded in 1960 by the Malawi Congress Party, which went to on decisively win the first universal suffrage elections in 1961, and to lead the country to independence as Malawi in 1964.

Dunduzu Kaluli Chisiza (8 August 1930 – 2 September 1962), also known as Gladstone Chisiza, was an African nationalist who was active in the independence movements in Rhodesia and Nyasaland, respectively present-day Zimbabwe and Malawi.

Henry Masauko Blasius Chipembere was a Malawian nationalist politician who played a significant role in bringing independence from colonial rule to his native country, formerly known as Nyasaland. From an early age Chipembere was a strong believer in natural justice and, on his return in 1954 from university in South Africa, he joined his country's independence struggle as a nationalist strategist and spokesman. In 1957, considering that the independence movement needed a strong leader similar to Kwame Nkrumah, and considering himself too young for this task, he joined with other young nationalists in inviting Hastings Kamuzu Banda to return to Nyasaland as the movement's leader.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Frederick Sangala</span> Nyasaland politician

James Frederick Sangala was a founding member of the Nyasaland African Congress during the period of British colonial rule. Sangala was given the nickname "Pyagusi", which means "one who perseveres".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Perceval Armitage</span> British colonial administrator (1906–1990)

Sir Robert Perceval Armitage was a British colonial administrator who held senior positions in Kenya and the Gold Coast, and was Governor of Cyprus and then of Nyasaland during the period of decolonisation.

The Devlin Commission, officially the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry, was a Commission of Inquiry set up in 1959 under the chairmanship of Mr.Justice Devlin, later Lord Devlin, after African opposition to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, particularly its farming and rural conservation policies, and demands for progress towards majority rule promoted by the Nyasaland African Congress under its leader Dr Hastings Banda led to widespread disturbances in Nyasaland and some deaths. A state of emergency was declared in March 1959; about 1,300 people, many of whom were members of the Nyasaland African Congress party, were detained without trial, over were 2,000 imprisoned for offences related to the emergency and the Congress itself was banned. During the State of Emergency and the week preceding it, a total of 51 people were killed by troops or the police. Although the four members of the Commission were members of The British Establishment, its findings were highly unfavourable to the Nyasaland Government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1964 Malawi cabinet crisis</span>

The cabinet crisis of 1964 in Malawi occurred in August and September 1964 shortly after independence when, after an unresolved confrontation between the Prime Minister, Hastings Banda and the cabinet ministers present on 26 August 1964, three ministers and a parliamentary secretary were dismissed on 7 September. These dismissals were followed by the resignations of three more cabinet ministers and another parliamentary secretary, in sympathy with those dismissed. Initially, this only left the President and one other minister in post, although one of those who had resigned rescinded his resignation within a few hours. The reasons that the ex-ministers put forward for the confrontation and subsequent resignations were the autocratic attitude of Banda, who failed to consult other ministers and kept power in his own hands, his insistence on maintaining diplomatic relations with South Africa and Portugal and a number of domestic austerity measures. It is unclear whether the former ministers intended to remove Banda entirely, to reduce his role to that of a non-executive figurehead or simply to force him to recognise collective cabinet responsibility. Banda seized the initiative, firstly, by dismissing some of the dissidents rather than negotiating, and secondly, by holding a debate on a motion of confidence on 8 and 9 September 1964. As the result of the debate was an overwhelming vote of confidence, Banda declined to reinstate any of the ministers or offer them any other posts, despite the urging of the Governor-General to compromise. After some unrest, and clashes between supporters of the ex-ministers and of Banda, most of the former left Malawi in October with their families and leading supporters, for Zambia or Tanzania. One ex-minister, Henry Chipembere went into hiding inside Malawi and, in February 1965 led a small, unsuccessful armed uprising. After its failure, he was able to arrange for his transfer to the USA. Another ex-minister, Yatuta Chisiza, organised an even smaller incursion from Mozambique in 1967, in which he was killed. Several of the former ministers died in exile or, in the case of Orton Chirwa in a Malawian jail, but some survived to return to Malawi after Banda was deposed and to return to public life.

Augustine Bwanausi was born in Malawi, then called Nyasaland, in 1930 and trained as a science teacher, but was also politically active in the Nyasaland African Congress, campaigning for the end of colonial rule. In March 1959, a State of Emergency was declared, and Bwanausi was arrested as a leading Congress member and detained until 1960. On his release, he joined the Malawi Congress Party and in 1961 was elected to the Legislative Council, becoming Minister of Internal Affairs and Development in the same year. In 1963, he became Minister of Works. In 1964, there was a confrontation between Banda and most of his ministers, which led to the sacking of Bwanausi and two of his cabinet colleagues in September 1964. Three other cabinet ministers resigned in sympathy, and although Banda was willingness to re-instate Bwanausi and one or two other ministers, their insistence on all be reinstated ended any hope of a reconciliation. In October 1964, Bwanausi left Malawi for Zambia, where he resumed teaching, and was active in Malawian exile politics until his death in a car accident in 1968.

Willie Chokani, who was born in Malawi, then called Nyasaland, in 1930, and had a variety of careers; as a teacher, a politician and a diplomat. He has also spent time in prison and was exiled from Malawi for almost 30 years after a confrontation with Hastings Banda, the first Prime Minister of the independent Malawi, in 1964. Chokani received a secondary education, which enabled him to attend university in Delhi and obtain teaching qualifications. He returned to Nyasaland in 1957 to become the first African headmaster in the protectorate, and was also politically active in the Nyasaland African Congress, campaigning for the end of colonial rule. In March 1959, a State of emergency was declared, and Chokani was arrested as a leading Congress member and detained until 1960. On his release, he joined the Malawi Congress Party and in 1961 was elected to the Legislative Council, becoming Minister of Labour in 1962. In 1964, there was a confrontation between Banda and most of his ministers, which led to the sacking of three cabinet members in September 1964. Chokani and two other cabinet ministers resigned in sympathy, and although Banda was willingness to re-instate Chokani and one or two other ministers, their insistence on all be reinstated ended any hope of a reconciliation. Chokani left Malawi for Zambia, where he resumed teaching, and was active in Malawian exile politics. He returned to Malawi in 1993, and in 1994 became Malawi's ambassador to the USA, later holding other diplomatic posts until his retirement. .

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Muwalo</span>

Albert Andrew Muwalo Gandale Nqumayo was a prominent politician in Malawi from the 1960s until he was sacked in 1976 and was executed in 1977. He entered politics in the mid 1950s through involvement in a hospital worker's trade union and membership of the Nyasaland African Congress, where his activities led to his detention without trial during the 1959 State of Emergency in Nyasaland. After his release, he joined the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), and became locally prominent in Ntcheu District as district MCP chairman and from 1962 as Member of Parliament for Ntcheu South. In 1963, he became Administrative Secretary of the MCP, and he was a prominent supporter of the then-Prime Minister, Hastings Banda during the Cabinet Crisis of 1964. Muwalo was rewarded for his loyalty with the cabinet post of Minister of Information in 1964, and in 1966 he became Minister of State in the President's Office. His close contact with Banda, both as minister in Banda's office and in the MCP gave him great power and, during the first half of the 1970s he and his relative, the Head of the Police Special Branch Focus Gwede, were heavily involved in the political repression of actual or suspected opponents of the Banda regime. In 1976 he and Gwede were arrested: the reasons for their arrests were unclear, but may have resulted from a power struggle among those around the ageing president or simply because he became too powerful and may have been seen by Banda as a threat. In 1977, the two were tried before a Traditional Court and after a trial whose fairness was in serious doubt, were both sentenced to death. Gwede was reprieved, but Muwalo was hanged on 3 September 1977.

LaurenceMakata, (1916–1962), was a businessman influential in the Nyasaland independence movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

Operation Sunrise was the name given to a police and military action conducted by the authorities in the Central African protectorate of Nyasaland which started on 3 March 1959, initially to detain and intern 350 individuals who were considered a potential threat to law and order in anticipation of the declaration of a State of Emergency. Although it is sometimes considered to involve only the incidents of 3 March, the Devlin Commission report is clear that it was one of two distinct operations by the security forces, reinforced from outside Nyasaland, involving the arrest and detention members of the Nyasaland African Congress. It involved not only those members of Congress initially arrested, but others arrested and detained without trial in the course of the emergency. The operation was described in some detail in the Devlin Commission report and that account has been amplified by Colonial Office documents not made available to the Devlin Commission.

The Southworth Commission was a Commission of inquiry appointed by the governor of the British Nyasaland Protectorate to investigate allegations of police brutality against demonstrators protesting against the State of Emergency that the governor had declared in February 1959. The demonstration took place during the visit of the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan to Blantyre in January 1960 as part of his African tour, and was witnessed by British and other journalists, some of whom made allegations against senior European police officers. The inquiry cleared the police of brutality but went beyond its terms of reference by heavily criticising several British correspondents for distorting events.

William H J Rangeley (1910-1958) was an officer in the colonial administration of Nyasaland and a scholar of the oral history and ethnography of the peoples of what is now Malawi.

The Nyasaland emergency of 1959 was a state of emergency in the protectorate of Nyasaland, which was declared by its governor, Sir Robert Armitage, on 3 March 1959 and which ended on 16 June 1960. Under the emergency powers that operated during the Emergency, over 1,300 members or supporters of the Nyasaland African Congress (Congress) were detained without trial, and most of the party's leaders including its president, Dr. Hastings Banda, were imprisoned in Southern Rhodesia after being arrested on 3 March. Many other Africans were jailed for offences related to the Emergency, including rioting and criminal damage. In the week before the Emergency was declared and during its first month, over 50 Africans were killed and many more wounded by the colonial security forces, which included many European troops from Southern Rhodesia. Others were beaten by troops or armed police or had their huts destroyed and their property seized during punitive operations undertaken during the Emergency.

Leroy Vail whose birth name was Hazen Leroy Vail, was an American specialist in African studies and educator who specialized in the history and linguistics of Central Africa and later extended his interests to Southern Africa. He taught in universities in Malawi, Zambia and the United States and his research in the first two countries inclined him toward the view that Central Africa underwent a period of underdevelopment that began in the mid-19th century and accelerated under colonial rule. After his return to the United States, he cooperated with Landeg White on studies of colonial Mozambique and on the value of African poetry and songs as a source of oral history.

Michael Hill Blackwood CBE was a lawyer and politician who spent most of his working life in colonial Nyasaland and in Malawi in the early years of its independence. Although he represented the interests of European settlers before independence and opposed both the transfer of power to the African majority and the break-up of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, he remained in the country as a member of its legislature after Malawi’s independence and until his retirement on 1983.

Richard Wildman Kettlewell (1910–1994) was a colonial agricultural officer who spent all his colonial career in Nyasaland apart from three years of wartime army service. He became Director of Agriculture in 1951 and Secretary for National Resources then Minister of Lands and Surveys between 1960 and 1962. He was influential in the late colonial administration of Nyasaland, and responsible for the introduction of several controversial agricultural and land-use policies that were highly unpopular with African farmers and which he accepted had promoted nationalist sentiments in the protectorate. After leaving Nyasaland in 1962 shortly before its independence, he settled in the Cotswolds for the remainder of his life and undertook part-time consulting work on tropical land use.

References

  1. McCracken (2002), p. 78
  2. Kalinga (2012), p. 330
  3. McCracken (2002), p. 78
  4. Kalinga (2010), p. 750
  5. Kalinga (2012), pp. 329-30
  6. Kalinga (2010), p. 750
  7. McCracken (2002), p. 78
  8. McCracken (2002), p. 78
  9. McCracken (2002), pp. 71-2
  10. Groves (2013), p. 164
  11. McCracken (2002), pp. 73-4
  12. Kalinga (2010), p. 747
  13. McCracken (2002), pp. 74-6
  14. McCracken (2002), pp. 73-4
  15. McCracken (2012), pp. 346-8.
  16. Kalinga (2010), p. 752
  17. McCracken (2002), p. 79
  18. McCracken (2012), pp. 350-2.
  19. Kalinga (2010), pp. 744, 754
  20. McCracken (2002), p. 78
  21. Kalinga (2010), p. 754
  22. McCracken (2012), pp. 355–6.
  23. McCracken (2012), pp. 356, 358–9.
  24. McCracken (2002), pp. 79-80
  25. McCracken (2002), p. 81
  26. McCracken (2002), p. 81.
  27. Kalinga (2002), p. 81
  28. Kalinga (2012), p. 330
  29. McCracken (2002), pp. 85-6
  30. McCracken (2002), p. 87
  31. Kalinga (2012), p. 330
  32. Kalinga (2012), p. 330

Sources