Zambia’s Founding President, Kenneth Kaunda, Dies Aged 97

(Reuters) – Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s founding president who led
his country for 27 years and championed Africa’s struggles against
apartheid and HIV/AIDS, has died at the age of 97.

“KK”, as he was popularly known, was being treated for pneumonia
at the Maina Soko Medical Centre, a military hospital in
Lusaka.

“On behalf of the entire nation and on my own behalf, I pray
that the entire Kaunda family is comforted as we mourn our first
president and true African icon,” President Edgar Lungu said in a
message on his Facebook page.

Authorities declared 21 days of mourning for the liberation hero
who ruled from 1964, after the southern African nation won its
independence from Britain, until 1991.

Although Zambia’s copper-based economy fared badly under his
long stewardship, Kaunda will be remembered more for his role as an
anti-colonial fighter who stood up to white minority-ruled South
Africa.

He shared a loss experienced by countless families in Africa
when his son Masuzyo died of AIDS in 1986, and he began a personal
crusade against the disease.

“This is the biggest challenge for Africa. We must fight AIDS
and we must do so now,” he told Reuters in 2002.

“We fought colonialism. We must now use the same zeal to fight
AIDS, which threatens to wipe out Africa.”

As leader of the first country in the region to break with its
European colonisers, Kaunda worked hard to drag other former
colonies along in Zambia’s wake towards majority rule.

In 1991, he was forced to hold the first multi-party elections
for 23 years, which he lost to long-time foe, trade unionist
Frederick Chiluba.

Though he was widely admired as a warm and emotional man, the
voters judged he had overstayed his welcome in office and
mismanaged the economy.

THE UNEXPECTED ONE

Kenneth David Kaunda was born on April 28, 1924, the youngest of
eight children of a Church of Scotland minister at Lubwa mission in
the remote north of the country.

Known also by his African name of “Buchizya” – the unexpected
one – he did menial jobs to earn school fees after his father’s
death. He worked as a teacher and a mine welfare officer and
entered politics in 1949 as a founder member of the Northern
Rhodesian African National Congress.

In his early days of anti-colonial agitation, he cycled from
village to village preaching majority rule.

A 1963 landslide victory for UNIP, which had broken away from
the ANC five years earlier, led to Kaunda becoming prime minister
of Northern Rhodesia. At independence in 1964, he became president
of the new Zambia.

By the time he lost power, Kaunda’s popularity had slumped and
hardship gripped most of his 11 million people as the price of
copper, the country’s main export, plummeted.

After 27 years of lecturing fellow Africans on how to build an
independent nation, he was confronted by misery in his own backyard
and anger among his usually easy-going people.

A June 1990 doubling in the price of maize meal, the staple food
for most Zambians, sparked a three-day riot in which 27 people were
killed, 150 injured and hundreds arrested as the army moved in.

The same month, an army lieutenant forced his way into a state
radio studio and announced that Kaunda had been overthrown, sending
people rushing into the streets of Lusaka cheering.

The coup turned out to be a fiction and the lieutenant was
arrested, but the public reaction had shown how low Kaunda’s
popularity had sunk.

WEEP IN PUBLIC

Kaunda was not ashamed to weep in public and had a unique
speaking style, emphasising key thoughts by repeating whole
sentences, his trademark white handkerchief in his left hand.

He espoused an ideology of “humanism” mixing Christian ethics,
traditional African values and socialistic principles.

In foreign affairs, Kaunda was a high-profile figure among the
seven southern African states which led the fight against
apartheid, andhe let Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) make a home-in-exile in Lusaka during the three decades it
was banned in South Africa.

Kaunda also played a major role in Mozambique’s independence
talks in 1975, Zimbabwe’s in 1980 and Namibia’s in 1990.

Despite accusations of corruption against his UNIP party, he won
credit for bending with the winds of political change and
preferring peaceful transition to violent confrontation.

He was philosophical about his defeat in 1991. Urging unity and
peace, he said in a broadcast: “Those who go into opposition are
still an active catalyst for good government, indeed an integral
part of good government.”

In 1996, Kaunda tried to make a political comeback, but he was
blocked when Chiluba forced through constitutional amendments which
declared the former “Father of the Nation” a foreigner because his
parents came from Malawi.

He was arrested in December 1997 and charged with treason
following a coup attempt by junior army officers two months
earlier. He was detained in a maximum security prison but later
placed under house arrest until the state dropped the charges.

After his son and political heir Wezi Kaunda was murdered in
October 1999, Kaunda announced his withdrawal from domestic
politics to concentrate on halting the spread of AIDS through his
Kenneth Kaunda Children of Africa Foundation.

Apart from Masuzyo and Wezi, Kaunda and his wife Betty had six
other children – four boys and two girls.

In his later years he led a quiet life, mostly staying at home
and only occasionally appearing at state functions.

In a rare public appearance in September 2019, at the age of 95,
he spoke out strongly against a wave of attacks in South Africa
against foreigners from other African countries.

“Our brothers and sisters in South Africa should remember that
these same people they are treating with cruelty are the same
people who were comrades in arms in fighting the brutal apartheid
regime,” Kaunda said.

(Reuters) – Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s founding president who led
his country for 27 years and championed Africa’s struggles against
apartheid and HIV/AIDS, has died at the age of 97.

“KK”, as he was popularly known, was being treated for pneumonia
at the Maina Soko Medical Centre, a military hospital in
Lusaka.

“On behalf of the entire nation and on my own behalf, I pray
that the entire Kaunda family is comforted as we mourn our first
president and true African icon,” President Edgar Lungu said in a
message on his Facebook page.

Authorities declared 21 days of mourning for the liberation hero
who ruled from 1964, after the southern African nation won its
independence from Britain, until 1991.

Although Zambia’s copper-based economy fared badly under his
long stewardship, Kaunda will be remembered more for his role as an
anti-colonial fighter who stood up to white minority-ruled South
Africa.

He shared a loss experienced by countless families in Africa
when his son Masuzyo died of AIDS in 1986, and he began a personal
crusade against the disease.

“This is the biggest challenge for Africa. We must fight AIDS
and we must do so now,” he told Reuters in 2002.

“We fought colonialism. We must now use the same zeal to fight
AIDS, which threatens to wipe out Africa.”

As leader of the first country in the region to break with its
European colonisers, Kaunda worked hard to drag other former
colonies along in Zambia’s wake towards majority rule.

In 1991, he was forced to hold the first multi-party elections
for 23 years, which he lost to long-time foe, trade unionist
Frederick Chiluba.

Though he was widely admired as a warm and emotional man, the
voters judged he had overstayed his welcome in office and
mismanaged the economy.

THE UNEXPECTED ONE

Kenneth David Kaunda was born on April 28, 1924, the youngest of
eight children of a Church of Scotland minister at Lubwa mission in
the remote north of the country.

Known also by his African name of “Buchizya” – the unexpected
one – he did menial jobs to earn school fees after his father’s
death. He worked as a teacher and a mine welfare officer and
entered politics in 1949 as a founder member of the Northern
Rhodesian African National Congress.

In his early days of anti-colonial agitation, he cycled from
village to village preaching majority rule.

A 1963 landslide victory for UNIP, which had broken away from
the ANC five years earlier, led to Kaunda becoming prime minister
of Northern Rhodesia. At independence in 1964, he became president
of the new Zambia.

By the time he lost power, Kaunda’s popularity had slumped and
hardship gripped most of his 11 million people as the price of
copper, the country’s main export, plummeted.

After 27 years of lecturing fellow Africans on how to build an
independent nation, he was confronted by misery in his own backyard
and anger among his usually easy-going people.

A June 1990 doubling in the price of maize meal, the staple food
for most Zambians, sparked a three-day riot in which 27 people were
killed, 150 injured and hundreds arrested as the army moved in.

The same month, an army lieutenant forced his way into a state
radio studio and announced that Kaunda had been overthrown, sending
people rushing into the streets of Lusaka cheering.

The coup turned out to be a fiction and the lieutenant was
arrested, but the public reaction had shown how low Kaunda’s
popularity had sunk.

WEEP IN PUBLIC

Kaunda was not ashamed to weep in public and had a unique
speaking style, emphasising key thoughts by repeating whole
sentences, his trademark white handkerchief in his left hand.

He espoused an ideology of “humanism” mixing Christian ethics,
traditional African values and socialistic principles.

In foreign affairs, Kaunda was a high-profile figure among the
seven southern African states which led the fight against
apartheid, andhe let Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) make a home-in-exile in Lusaka during the three decades it
was banned in South Africa.

Kaunda also played a major role in Mozambique’s independence
talks in 1975, Zimbabwe’s in 1980 and Namibia’s in 1990.

Despite accusations of corruption against his UNIP party, he won
credit for bending with the winds of political change and
preferring peaceful transition to violent confrontation.

He was philosophical about his defeat in 1991. Urging unity and
peace, he said in a broadcast: “Those who go into opposition are
still an active catalyst for good government, indeed an integral
part of good government.”

In 1996, Kaunda tried to make a political comeback, but he was
blocked when Chiluba forced through constitutional amendments which
declared the former “Father of the Nation” a foreigner because his
parents came from Malawi.

He was arrested in December 1997 and charged with treason
following a coup attempt by junior army officers two months
earlier. He was detained in a maximum security prison but later
placed under house arrest until the state dropped the charges.

After his son and political heir Wezi Kaunda was murdered in
October 1999, Kaunda announced his withdrawal from domestic
politics to concentrate on halting the spread of AIDS through his
Kenneth Kaunda Children of Africa Foundation.

Apart from Masuzyo and Wezi, Kaunda and his wife Betty had six
other children – four boys and two girls.

In his later years he led a quiet life, mostly staying at home
and only occasionally appearing at state functions.

In a rare public appearance in September 2019, at the age of 95,
he spoke out strongly against a wave of attacks in South Africa
against foreigners from other African countries.

“Our brothers and sisters in South Africa should remember that
these same people they are treating with cruelty are the same
people who were comrades in arms in fighting the brutal apartheid
regime,” Kaunda said.