From Dictatorship to Democracy

Dr. Kamuza Banda, member of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) who was prime minister at independence in 1964 became the first president after Malawi became a republic in 1966. In 1971 he was declared president for life (dictator) and he remained in that post until a referendum was held in 1993 calling for multiparty democracy. In 1994 elections were held and Banda’s party, the MCP lost. What is fascinating is the role the Catholic Church played in that transition from “life presidency”. Due to roving party faithfuls called the “young pioneers” everyone was afraid of speaking against the government. One could never know who was a member of the pioneers and sometimes friends and even family members were turned in for speaking against Banda. This changed in 1992 when the Catholic bishops in Malawi simultaneously had a letter read that detailed the complaints that until that point had been felt but had been unspoken. The Catholic bishops of Malawi had met in secret to draft the letter. In order to have it distributed to every parish in the country they employed ambulances staffed by nuns. Usually in Malawi, even to this day one cannot travel through regions without being stopped by police roadblocks. The nuns in the ambulance had to drive with the sirens on so that they would not be searched at the roadblocks and the letters would be discovered. Those I have spoken to told me that the letter came as a complete shock and how to react to it was mixed. On the one hand what was in the mind of the majority was finally being spoken allowing for a tremendous release, yet there was fear of reprisal and of who might report you if you reacted positively to the letter. At that time the parliament was nothing more than a rubber stamp body for the decisions made by Banda and all the real decisions were hashed out at the MCP headquarters which was beside the United States embassy. The decision was made to assassinate all the bishops in retaliation for their public attack on the government and on Banda. What was unknown to the MCP was that the American embassy was using eavesdropping equipment to listen in on this decision. What the Americans then did was to transmit this to the BBC, which broadcast it live. So all of Malawi got to hear the plan to kill all the bishops and the MCP knew nothing about it until they left their meeting room. Once it was out in the open the MCP knew that they couldn’t kill the bishops so all they could do was to kick the foreign bishops out of the country. This was the beginning of the end of one party rule and within 2 years there was multi-party democracy with a different party holding the seat of president.