African History

"In Nyasaland we mean to be masters, and if this is treasonable, make the most of it."

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first president of Malawi, as quoted in Neil Hamilton's Founders of Modern Nations, California, 1995.

"They say my people love me and I would be naïve to deny it."

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first president of Malawi, as quoted in David Lamb's The Africans, New York, 1985.

Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda ("The Black Messiah") became prime minister of Nyasaland (now Malawi) on 1 February 1963 as leader of the Malawi Congress Party. With the introduction of a new constitution, and the dissolving of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland on 31 December that year, the country was ready for independence. On 6 July 1964 Malawi became a fully independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations and two years later became a republic.

The republic also brought a new constitution and Dr Banda became the country's first president under a one-party state. Opposition parties were aggressively repressed and their leaders detained. By 1971 Banda had been declared president-for-life. During the next twenty years, Malawi became known for its poor human rights record and Banda termed a dictator. In 1993, when he became seriously ill, Banda was Africa's longest ruling leader and was facing public condemnation by Malawi's Catholic bishops and mass demonstrations.

A referendum was held on 14 June 1993 in which the Malawian people were asked whether they wanted to continue with a one-party state or move to a multi-party democracy. The one-party state was overwhelmingly rejected. National elections, considered free and fair by the international community, were held on 17 May 1994, and the United Democratic Front (UDF) won 82 out of 177 seats in the National Assembly. The UDF leader, Elson Bakili Muluzi, arranged a coalition government with the Alliance for Democracy and Dr Banda relinquished rule on 19 May 1993. President Muluzi officially took power two days later.

At 2:15 pm on 13 May 1943 British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, received the following report from Allied C-in-C General Harold Alexander in North Africa: "Sir, it is my duty to report that the Tunisian campaign is over. All enemy resistance has ceased. We are the masters of the North African shores."

One of the most significant things to have happened on the 10th of May in African history was the inauguration in 1994 of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa, following the first-ever democratic elections. Addressing the crowds at the Union Buildings in Pretoria Mandela said: "We saw our country tear itself apart in terrible conflict ... The time for healing of wounds has come ... Never, never again will this beautiful land experience the oppression of one by another."
• Biography of Nelson Mandela
• Quotes from Mandela
• Quotes on Mandela
• Apartheid FAQ

_{Image: ©2006 Marion Boddy-Evans Licensed to About.com, Inc}

Born John Rowlands in Denbigh, Wales, on 28 January 1841, Henry Morton Stanley was the journalist and explorer for the New York Herald famous for his expedition to Africa to 'discover' what had happened to Dr David Livingstone. He also played a significant role in the European colonization of the African continent.

Stanley had been living full time in Britain since 1890, becoming Member of Parliament for Lambeth between 1895 and 1900. He was knighted in 1899.

In April 1904 Stanley contracted pleurisy and by early May it was clear he would soon die. On the evening of 9 May he reportedly told his wife "I have done all my work, I have circumnavigated...I want to be free! I want to go into the woods to be free." On the morning of the 10th, as Big Ben struck six, Stanley died.

Stanley had expected to be buried in Westminster Abbey next to Livingstone, but in the end his coffin was just driven past it to be cremated - the Dean of Westminster, Reverend Joseph Armitage Robinson had ruled against his interment in the Abbey. The granite headstone, in the churchyard at Pirbright, reads "Henry Morton Stanley, Bula Matari, 1841-1904, Africa."

^{Image Source in Public Domain: The Autobiography of H.M. Stanley, Ed. Dorothy Stanley, London, 1909.}

On 5 May 1941, exactly five years after Addis Ababa fell to Mussolini's troops, Emperor Haile Selassie was reinstalled on the Ethiopian throne. He reentered the city through streets lined with black and white African soldiers, having fought his way back against a determined Italian army with Major Orde Wingate's Gideon Force and his own Ethiopian 'Patriots".

It was only five days after Italian forces under the command of General Pietro Badoglio entered Addis Ababa back in 1936, at the end of the 2nd Italo-Abyssinian War, that Mussolini declared the country part of the Italian Empire. "It is a Fascist empire because it bears the indestructible sign of the will and power of Rome." Abyssinia (as it was known) was joined with Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland to form the Africa Orientale Italiana (Italian East Africa, AOI). Haile Selassie fled to Britain where he remained in exile until the second World War gave him the opportunity to return to his people.

Haile Selassie had made an impassioned appeal to the League of Nations on 30 June 1936, which gained great support with the United States and Russia. However, many other League of Nations members, especially Britain and France, continued to recognize the Italian possession of Ethiopia.

The fact that the Allies ultimately fought hard to return independence to Ethiopia was a significant step on the path to African independence. That Italy, like Germany after World War I, had its African Empire taken away, signaled a major change in European attitude towards the continent.

At the conclusion (4 May 1990) of a meeting between the South African government and the recently unbanned African National Congress, ANC, at the presidential residence in Cape Town, both parties agreed to the remove several obstacles which currently inhibited negotiations towards the end of white rule in South Africa. The points included the creation of a timetable for the release of political prisoners, and granting of immunity from prosecution for politically motivated offenses (so that members of the ANC Executive Committee in exile could return to the country).

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Fresh up this week is a new, three-part African History Timeline for Morocco and a few Morocco related terms in the African History Glossary.

Timeline of Morocco
• Part 1: Prehistory to Arrival of Europeans
• Part 2: Arrival of Europeans to the Green March
• Part 3: The Green March to Present Day

Africa and the Causes of World War I
• Entente Cordiale
• First Moroccan Crisis
• Algeciras Conference
• Second Moroccan Crisis
• Treaty of Fez

On the night of 4 April, 1906, Bambatha kaMancinza, one of the chiefs of the Zondi clan, had gathered together his warriors and attacked a police patrol, killing four white men. Natal authorities claimed that Bambatha's iNyanga (war-doctor) had violated one of the bodies for muti. Bambatha and his warriors then fled across the Tugela and made for the Cube district and the protection of its chief, Sigananda. On 19 April over 7,000 British troops were called out to help quell Zulu aggression in Natal ...

Find out more about the Bambatha Rebellion.

Since independence on 18 April 1980, Zimbabwe has had a troubled existence. In the early 80s Mugabe clamped down on opposition by the minority Ndebele people, under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo, with security forces causing an estimated 20,000 civilian deaths. Since the mid-80s Mugabe's policy of land redistribution as well as two sets of elections declared to be severely flawed (neither free nor fair), and the physical intimidation of members of the opposition party and the press, has led to outspoken international condemnation. In 2005 Mugabe implemented Operation Murambatsvina (Otherwise known as Operation Drive Out Rubbish) which moved 300,000 people from urban areas and left them relatively unsupported in the countryside - a program of forced removals somewhat reminiscent of Apartheid era South Africa.

^{Image: ©2007 Alistair Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc}