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Zambia’s first President Kenneth Kaunda dies at 97

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3 years ago

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Zambia’s former president, Kenneth Kaunda, the father of the country’s independence who ruled for 27 years has died.

He died at the age of 97 on Thursday. Kaunda had been admitted to the Maina Soko Medical Center, a military hospital in Lusaka, on Monday where authorities disclosed he was being treated for Pneumonia. But a Facebook post by his son Kambarage Kaunda, announced the Zambian founding president’s passage.

Kambarage asked for prayers for his father whom he called Mzee.

Rumors of COVID

“He is being treated for pneumonia but he does not have Covid,” his aide Rodrick Ngolo told AFP, denying rumors to that effect

“The problem of pneumonia comes up regularly (in the ex-president) and every time you hear that he is in hospital, it is because of pneumonia,” said Ngolo, adding that the health of the ex-president had “improved” since Monday.

Nicknamed the “African Gandhi” for his non-violent activism, Kaunda led the former British protectorate Northern Rhodesia to bloodless independence in October 1964.

A socialist, he ruled the country for 27 years, largely under a one-party regime, whose mismanagement led to a severe economic and social crisis. After violent riots, he accepted free elections in 1991 and was defeated.

While in power, it hosted many movements fighting for independence or black equality in other countries in the region, including the African National Congress (ANC) party of South Africa.

Also known as “KK,” he was the leader of the main nationalist party, the center-left UNIP. He also became an AIDS activist when he publicly announced that one of his sons had died of the disease.

Zambia’s independence hero

Kenneth Kaunda was one of the pioneer leaders of a new Africa, as countries threw off colonialism in favour of independent statehood.

A man of great personal charm, he was hailed as a modernising force in the continent despite his initial rejection of the concept of multiparty democracy.

As a committed pan-Africanist, he began the task of building a new Zambia, free to determine its own way in international affairs.

But poor economic management caused his popularity to plummet, and he was voted out of office when free elections were held in 1991.

Kenneth David Kaunda was born on 28 April 1924 at a mission station near the border between what was then Northern Rhodesia and the Congo.

Martin Luther King & Kenneth Kaunda in 1960

Kaunda was strongly influenced by the policies of Martin Luther King

His father, an ordained Church of Scotland minister, died while he was still a child, leaving the family in straitened circumstances.

But the young Kaunda’s academic ability won him a place in the first secondary school to be formed in Northern Rhodesia, and he later became a teacher.

His work took him to the country’s Copperbelt region and to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where for the first time he experienced, and deeply resented, the full impact of white domination.

One of his first political acts was to become a vegetarian in protest at a policy that forced Africans to go to a separate window at butchers’ to buy meat.

In 1953 he became the general secretary of the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress but the organisation failed to mobilise black Africans against the white-ruled Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

BBC Brains Trust. L-R ; Paul-Marc Henry, Lady Kackson, Kenneth Kaunda, B.K. Nehru and Norman Fisher (chairman).

Kaunda appearing on the BBC’s Brains Trust in 1960

Two years later he was imprisoned, with hard labour, for distributing leaflets that the authorities deemed subversive.

Disillusioned with what he saw as the failure of his party to take a stronger line on the rights of indigenous Africans, Kaunda set up his own party, the Zambian African National Congress.

Within a year it was banned and Kaunda was back in prison. His incarceration turned him into a radical.

By 1960 he had become the leader of the new United National Independence Party (Unip) and, fired with enthusiasm following a visit to Martin Luther King in the US, he began his own programme of civil disobedience which involved blocking roads and burning buildings.

Kaunda stood as a Unip candidate in the 1962 elections which saw an uneasy coalition with the African National Congress (ANC) take power in the legislature.

The prime minister of newly-independent Northern Rhodesia, Kenneth Kaunda, inspecting the Northern Rhodesian Police

He became the first Prime Minister of the newly created Northern Rhodesia

The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved at the end of 1963 and, a month later, Kaunda was elected prime minister of Northern Rhodesia. The country, renamed as Zambia, gained full independence in Oct 1964 with Kaunda as its first president.

Kaunda started with the great advantage of leading an African state with a stronger economic base than any of its neighbours but there was a shortage of native Zambians who had the skills and training to run the country.

His position was also gravely imperilled by Ian Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence in Southern Rhodesia.

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Donors raise more than 2 billion euros for Sudan aid a year into war

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1 week ago

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April 16, 2024

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PARIS/CAIRO, April 15 (Reuters) – Donors pledged more than 2 billion euros ($2.13 billion) for war-torn Sudan at a conference in Paris on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said, on the first anniversary of what aid workers describe as a neglected but devastating conflict.
Efforts to help millions of people driven to the verge of famine by the war have been held up by continued fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), restrictions imposed by the warring sides, and demands on donors from other global crises including in Gaza and Ukraine.
Conflict in Sudan is threatening to expand, with fighting heating up in and around al-Fashir, a besieged aid hub and the last city in the western Darfur region not taken over by the RSF. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people have sought refuge in the area.
“The world is busy with other countries,” Bashir Awad, a resident of Omdurman, part of the wider capital and a key battleground, told Reuters last week. “We had to help ourselves, share food with each other, and depend on God.”
In Paris, the EU pledged 350 million euros, while France and Germany, the co-sponsors, committed 110 million euros and 244 million euros respectively. The United States pledged $147 million and Britain $110 million.
Speaking at the end of the conference, which included Sudanese civilian actors, Macron emphasized the need to coordinate overlapping and so far unsuccessful international efforts to resolve the conflict and to stop foreign support for the warring parties.
“Unfortunately the amount that we mobilised today is still probably less than was mobilised by several powers since the start of the war to help one or the other side kill each other,” he said.
As regional powers compete for influence in Sudan, U.N. experts say allegations that the United Arab Emirates helped arm the RSF are credible, while sources say the army has received weapons from Iran. Both sides have rejected the reports.
The war, which broke out between the Sudanese army and the RSF as they vied for power ahead of a planned transition, has crippled infrastructure, displaced more than 8.5 million people, and cut many off from food supplies and basic services.
“We can manage together to avoid a terrible famine catastrophe, but only if we get active together now,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said, adding that, in the worst-case scenario, 1 million people could die of hunger this year.
The United Nations is seeking $2.7 billion this year for aid inside Sudan, where 25 million people need assistance, an appeal that was just 6% funded before the Paris meeting. It is seeking another $1.4 billion for assistance in neighbouring countries that have housed hundreds of thousands of refugees.
The international aid effort faces obstacles to gaining access on the ground.
The army has said it would not allow aid into the wide swathes of the country controlled by its foes from the RSF. Aid agencies have accused the RSF of looting aid. Both sides have denied holding up relief.
“I hope the money raised today is translated into aid that reaches people in need,” said Abdullah Al Rabeeah, head of Saudi Arabia’s KSRelief.
On Friday, Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry protested that it had not been invited to the conference. “We must remind the organisers that the international guardianship system has been abolished for decades,” it said in a statement.

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SA users of Starlink will be cut off at the end of the month

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1 week ago

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April 16, 2024

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Starlink users in South Africa are facing a major setback as the satellite internet service provider has issued a warning that their services will be terminated by the end of the month.

In an email sent to many South African users, Starlink stated that their internet access will cease on April 30 due to violation of its terms and conditions.

The email emphasized that using Starlink kits outside of designated areas, as indicated on the Starlink Availability Map, is against their terms. Consequently, users will only be able to access their Starlink account for updates after the termination.

Starlink, a company owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, operates a fleet of low earth orbit satellites that offer high-speed internet globally. Despite its potential to revolutionize connectivity, Starlink has been unable to obtain a license to operate in South Africa from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).

Icasa’s requirements mandate that any applicant must have 30% ownership from historically disadvantaged groups to be considered for a license. However, many in South Africa resorted to creative methods to access Starlink services, including purchasing roaming packages from countries where Starlink is licensed.

However, Icasa clarified in a government gazette last November that using Starlink in this manner is illegal. Additionally, Starlink itself stated in the recent email to users that the ‘Mobile – Regional’ plans are meant for temporary travel and transit, not permanent use in a location. Continuous use of these plans outside the country where service was ordered will result in service restriction.

Starlink advised those interested in making its services available in their region to contact local authorities.

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Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso agree to create a joint force to fight worsening violence

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2 months ago

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March 8, 2024

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BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — A joint security force announced by the juntas ruling Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso to fight the worsening extremist violence in their Sahel region countries faces a number of challenges that cast doubt on its effectiveness, analysts said Thursday.

Niger’s top military chief, Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou said in a statement after meeting with his counterparts Wednesday that the joint force would be “operational as soon as possible to meet the security challenges in our area.”

The announcement is the latest in a series of actions taken by the three countries to strike a more independent path away from regional and international allies since the region experienced a string of coups — the most recent in Niger in July last year.

They have already formed a security alliance after severing military ties with neighbors and European nations such as France and turning to Russia — already present in parts of the Sahel — for support.

Barmou did not give details about the operation of the force, which he referred to as an “operational concept that will enable us to achieve our defence and security objectives.”

Although the militaries had promised to end the insurgencies in their territories after deposing their respective elected governments, conflict analysts say the violence has instead worsened under their regimes. They all share borders in the conflict-hit Sahel region and their security forces fighting jihadi violence are overstretched.

The effectiveness of their security alliance would depend not just on their resources but on external support, said Bedr Issa, an independent analyst who researches the conflict in the Sahel.

The three regimes are also “very fragile,” James Barnett, a researcher specializing in West Africa at the U.S.-based Hudson Institute, said, raising doubts about their capacity to work together.

“They’ve come to power through coups, they are likely facing a high risk of coups themselves, so it is hard to build a stable security framework when the foundation of each individual regime is shaky,” said Barnett.

—-

Associated Press writer Chinedu Asadu in Abuja, Nigeria contributed.

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