I have no regrets; Tembo looks back at his life lived so far

He has been at the head of the central bank, University of Malawi,  Press Corporation, he has been ministers and is considered to be the closest crony Kamuzu Banda has, so far he is the longest serving parliamentarian in Malawi and heads the opposition in Parliament, but that is far from being all that makes John Zenus Ungapake Tembo.

I landed an exclusive with John Tembo on condition that I will stick to my promise that I will not ask political questions; of course we both knew that was not true for a man like Tembo.

No regrets for me...

I was ushered into his Area 10 house’s living room at exactly 2:10 pm, I was made to wait for a couple of minutes and I wondered what the interview would be like, with the man that had been a politician over thirty years before I was born.

He is definitely a collector, his living room which spans the size of a volleyball court is laden with vintage ornaments, and four sets of Ivory block the fireplace, pure copper bowls and containers fill cabinets, gold plated gourds…

A painting the size of a three-quarter bed hangs over the fireplace, there are several over picture frames but among them, the biggest picture of a person is of Kamuzu, a youthful Kamuzu standing behind a chair and placing his hands on it, whoever lives in this house, I concluded, must love Kamuzu Banda.

“very close in as much as a politician, a president of a party later on of a nation…I became a very senior follower of Kamuzu and royal to him, I became a royal servant of Kamuzu which I am still, although he is late, I pledged royalty to him and I pledge royalty now, to him to the foundations of his policy in the party and in the government,” he said, slowly.

Those who say Kamuzu was dictator have wrong literature, to Tembo kamuzu was not a dictator, he was a nationalist and a fighter for freedom, democracy which today’s youths should actually emulate.

He said the fact that Kamuzu left his medicine practice in Ghana and Europe to liberate Malawians from bondage speaks of the man Kamuzu was.

Tembo sees little difference between the politics of 1961 and now and actually said democracy was there too it is why Kamuzu had a competitor of the United Federal Party member from Kasungu and himself opposed by a Mr. Mwase in his Dedza constituency.

Tembo had a smooth run in the thirty or so years Kamuzu Banda was in power, most of Kamuzu's friends fell out of grace and were exiled, and detained without explanations…I can cite the likes of Jen Mlanga and Focus Gwede.

After MCP was voted out of the limelight at the start of the 90s, Bakili Muluzi was to become of on John Tembo's worst nightmares, he was constantly telling Malawians that Tembo has blood on his hands  and knows something of the 1983 Mwanza murders in which four prominent cabinet ministers were mysteriously slain.

And yet Tembo was soon working with Bakili Muluzi, did he not feel bitter over the court hustles that the Muluzi regime dragged him through?

“Dr. Muluzi and I speak to each other now …if you ask him properly he will tell you that it was all wrong to accuse me of murder, I went through a lot of bad things in the opposition, I was arrested several times, went to jail several times I was acquitted in all of them.

"I think anybody who holds and maintains hatred in his heart is not a politician, he is a crook,” he said, then paused allowing me to take down his exact words.

But I was unconvinced, all this talk about Banda being a dictator about murders such as that of Mkwapatira Mhango has to have a basis, so if Kamuzu was not a dictator and Tembo clean in all the dark ages Decades Malawi went through, why is Kamuzu's name still crimson?

“It’s his political enemies beginning with the colonialists...after all the colonialists imprisoned Kamuzu and even sent him to Gweru in Rhodesia and knew later it was wrong this is why he became the first prime minister of this country they knew he was fighting for the poor,” said Tembo, briefly disturbed by a phone call.

The Manchester United fan, a mug sits on one of the shelves to certify his claim. He says he loves reading politics, sports and philosophy and has a lot of books in his private studies at his Area 10 and Blantyre residences.

His secretary Mrs. Chinangwa is busy seeing to parliamentary bills that Tembo will be seeing to as leader of opposition. But at 80, something looks normal; he looks 50 and still very active, active as a 35 year old. I had to ask, what is his survival kit made of?

Well, he used to play soccer and do athletics but that was in his youth.

“I live well, I eat well and I look after myself, I am active in life. Old age is what a person thinks about himself: Some people are old so early and some are young so late in life, it depends on the mental interest of the person,” He said, still inserting pauses in his speech stride.

Despite taking pride in his wife, Ruth who he said is a great cook and a professional dietician; he still maintained that food is just a small part of life.

And then he dwelt on his wife; he first met her when he was a university chap in Lesotho and her in secondary school and the next time he met her in London some years later, he could not wait another moment.

Was he ashy guy so as to meet a girl in college and wait till he was a minister to ask her out?

“A proposal is made when you are ready to propose marriage and when you propose marriage it means you know the person…at the time we were both mature, she is the one god chose for me. She is a magnanimous woman, very loving, very responsible and a very straight Christian,” said Tembo

After dating her for three years, he married her in 1969. He boast of her England trained culinary prowess, he married her while she worked as a dietician at a Leeds hospital.

“She is an excellent cook, I grew up eating nsima, and up to bow I like nsima with ndiwo, whether its vegetables, meat or fish,” said Tembo.

As a person, Tembo revealed that his principals are linked to his growing up in the village where he herded his grandmother’s sheep, goats and cattle, gardening and doing almost all that the village puts to a youth man.

With a Christian background of a father who started as a teacher and ending up as a reverend, Tembo remembers his father as a very kind person who liked people with people liking him back, he along his 8 siblings had to move from mission to mission.

“My father was a reverend of the CCAP church…very disciplined, he taught all his children to be disciplined, you should also ask about my mother, she was a very kind and generous woman, everybody who visited her house did not leave without eating something, that was her philosophy,” said Tembo.

He says he is proud father, saying he never used a rod on his children and let associations in school and society. All of them graduates and working outside Malawi.

After teaching for a brief stint, Tembo joined politics and he says his success in politics stems from the fact that since his youth he has always been committed to people and his experience in teaching and head mastering fostered his values of excellence and discipline.

On the upcoming MCP convention where a few young brains are ready to take him on for the post of the MCP presidency, Tembo could not only say that he is barring no one and said those declaring that they are candidates are not bonafide MPC members because the convention is the one supposed to decide that.

“The choice of candidates is the responsibility of the convention, it’s not therefore my responsibility to break the rules, regulations and tradition of the MCP and start saying I am the candidate, I will stand as a candidate, it’s not for me, it’s the responsibility of the people of the MCP if you find anyone saying I will be, he is not a member of the MCP, he is not, he is somebody who is trying to exploit members of the MCP,” said Tembo, rattled.

On the quality of the debate of the Malawi Parliament, Tembo bemoaned the immature people who come to parliament to get rich.

“When you find people becoming MP of this political party next time they join another, and another time they join another, those are not politicians. Multiparty politics does not mean prostitution of one’s life in politics,” charged Tembo.

He vehemently denied the rumours that went to town that he was on the card to being the second vice president in the Joyce Banda’s regime.

He also trashed the accusations that he is now a lesser opposition politician because President Banda has appointed his son and relatives to top positions namely Nancy Tembo to the Electoral Commission and Tembo’s own son to the diplomatic office in England.

“Never, I mean people who say that don’t even know who president Joyce Banda is and who I am...they don’t know… do you think I am in a position to go to a president of a country to say go and appoint Morgan Tembo to this or his wife that or my son to that?

“Do they think I can do that? It shows ignorance: No Malawian citizen is barred from appointment in the government if qualified,” said Tembo.

On Bingu Wa Mutharika’s leadership, Tembo just had a sentence on it.

“Argghh it was hopeless, declamatory …he destroyed the foundation and dignity of this country,” said Tembo and refused to expound.

He reminds me that his life is not over to describe his highs and lows and proudly declared that he has no regrets, whatever came to his life bad or good he took it, moved on

“I haven’t reached my highest point [in life]…In a normal life of person, you take the full range of experience, but there is no experience I regret for,” said Tembo.

“I have never changed, I stick to my principles…I believe in the dignity and life as a Malawian and of Malawians…I believe in the dignity of African, there are people such as Nkrumah, Sékou Touré, Kenyatta who have inspired me…,” said Tembo.

He revealed that he is a musical person and enjoys classical music, he enjoys listening to his daughter who when she come from overseas plays the piano and the classical guitar.

An extensive traveler, boasting that he has been everywhere in all the continents and the only significant country he has not been is Australia.

On the current situation rotten economy Malawi is swimming in, Tembo said Malawians need to focus of agriculture and be handworkers.

“We have to develop our own country, we must be hardworking, this country is agricultural, priority must be given to agriculture, over 80 percent of our people live in the rural areas and are involved in agriculture…”

Still on the economy, Tembo said the current bad economy is partly due to bad economic management saying the current standing of the Kwacha to the Dollar speaks for itself, when he was Reserve Bank governor, he says Kwacha was at K2 to a the British Pound which he said was no mean feat.

He also rained on the people that have led to the woes rocking the University of Malawi where some students at Bunda had to live in grass thatched houses and some are currently being housed where there used to store cement, among other woes.

“The people that led to that are not serious, university education should be university education, you only do what you can afford and develop quality students,” said Tembo.

Kamuzu Must Die From Malawi’s History- Celebrating Him Is Satanic

By Bright Mhango

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, to some Malawians and Africans, was a statesman worthy emulating and that he has to be celebrated and given a special place in Malawi’s History. To others, like me, celebrating Kamuzu is like re-installing Adolf Hitler as Germany’s Chancellor. In this rant, I will raise reasons why Kamuzu should only be celebrated by witches.

I will start by dispelling the myth that Kamuzu was the one who fought for independence for Malawi, and that he was a good man.

When the four Young Turks; Masauko Chipembere, Dunduzu and Yatuta Chisiza, Kanyama Chiume plus Orton Chirwa launched their opposition against the 1953 Federation of Nyasaland and Rhodesia, Kamuzu was in England. He refused to come to Malawi fearing that his extended family would prey on his money even though Nyasaland had paid part of his fees for him to become a doctor in Malawi.

It was only after he was sued for impregnating his secretary, Mrs. French in England and given marching orders in Ghana for operating an abortion clinic that he came to Malawi. There was nothing patriotic about his refuguish move.

The likes of Masauko Chipembere were doing just fine, the reason they invited Kamuzu was because he was old and thus instrumental in convincing the chiefs that didn’t take the Turks seriously when they preached independence.  Chipembere and Chisiza had already made their names as daredevils and the Hansard was selling like porn because of their revolutionary statements in the white dominated Legislative Council.

It was the young Turks who paraded Kamuzu around Malawi and gave him the post of MCP president on a silver platter. The Turks are the guys that wrote his swaying speeches and did some of the translation; yes translation, because the Malawian who wrote about his tribe in America did not speak his own language.

With the Vocal Turks, Operation Sunrise soon landed Kamuzu and his three mates at Gweru Prison in Zimbabwe where they laid out plans together. When Kamuzu was released and toured the world in the name of leader, his friends languished at Kanjedza. Kamuzu delayed securing their release to make political headway, finally releasing them on the day of the MCP convention in Nkhota Kota where he was made Life president of MCP.

They chanted down the British Babylon together and soon they won independence but Kamuzu wanted all the power; keeping a firm grip on six key ministries and not respecting the Turks and friends in public. The Turks felt like the rest of the Animals in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. They fought together and the pigs wanted it all?

It was only natural that the Turks, just like they did with the ‘Bush Meeting’ that sparked Operation Sunrise, meet again - producing the Kuchawe Manifesto that ultimately sparked the Cabinet Crisis of 1964. It was not even a crisis, the ministers wanted to check Kamuzu’s unjustifiably huge powers. Naturally Kamuzu refused and a vote of no confidence was proposed against him.

 Of course Kamuzu tricked the parliament and stayed on in power, he fired the ministers and the anarchy started.

Orton Chirwa and wife Vera were rewarded with a death sentence becoming Africa’s longest serving prisoners of concise. Dunduzu Chisiza was found dead on the Zomba-Blantyre road, Yatuta was betrayed by his Greek buddy and gunned down, and Chipembere went into exile.

Of course, the court did not find any evidence to nail Kamuzu for the Mwanza murders but what did you expect? What do dictators do with evidence?

As if that is not enough, Kamuzu took a queer attitude towards people from the districts north of Nkhamenya, who for lack of a better term, I will term Northerners. The only crime these people seem to have committed was to embrace Scottish education especially as pioneered by Dr. Robert Laws at Khondowe.

What followed was the banning of ChiTumbuka from MBC and The Daily Times at the onset of the 70’s. I once spoke to Manjawira Msowoya who explained how he and his fellow Northerners were booed at MBC by workmates after the ban was announced, you should have seen the look on his face.

Studies by the likes of Noam Chomsky and Ajit Mohanty suggest that tribal children learn better in their mother tongue at basic level, this was what was going on in Malawi with ChiTumbuka being taken up to JCE level in Tumbuka areas.  Kamuzu pulled out Northern languages from the Syllabus and had all the books burnt.

Tongas and Senas had to study ‘Maliro Ndi Miyambi ya Achewa’ as if they had no funerals and customs. I know a teacher who was slapped for teaching in ChiTumbuka soon after the ban and the church elders at St. Peters Parish in Mzuzu were nearly arrested for preaching in ChiTumbuka.

Unfortunate for the North, 80% of the police stations were filled with Chewa speaking officers to partly enforce the ban and to check rebels. Even today, villagers are forced to speak in Chichewa when being interrogated or giving evidence.

To come from the North was suddenly a problem to Kamuzu; led by John Tembo late in his rule he brought on the Quota system to check the numbers of Northerners in secondary schools and colleges. Brothers and sisters had to shed ‘Northern’ names to adopt those from the Chewa speaking tribes to stand a chance.

Call it what you may but the 1980s deportation of teachers of Northern origin to the North was the most traumatising. It was not just teachers, hundreds fled across the borders and their crime was the same, being Northerners.

If not for a Mr. Jungubawa felling a tree onto the road leading to Livingstonia’s water source, a government 110 defender full of poison would have accomplished its mission. Livingstonia by then was fully behind Chakufwa Chihana’s revolutionary messages.  Of course none of you cares about that genocide attempt, but I do, I was there in Livingstonia. And thanks to the likes of November and Paul Jungubawa, that 110 Defender was evenly smashed and popularity for Chakufwa Chihana trebled.

As if that is not enough, Kamuzu made speeches calling an end to regional discrimination to ironically call for it. While he splashed millions on his pet capital city, he swore not to develop the North and called people from their ‘Rebels.’

My grandfather at Mlowe, the home of Kamplepo Kaluwa and myself, told me that the lakeshore road had to be diverted at Chiweta to pass via Phwezi and Mzuzu to avoid developing the Mlowe and Nkhatabay areas because they were the homes of some of the so called rebels, in fact the so called Northern Corridor was only sanctioned after war in Mozambique made Nacala a bad route. Why such passion at hating and for what? Being a Chirwa or a Chiume?

 I have come to be Northerner because of Kamuzu. My friends are from Lilongwe, Dowa and I from the North. I cannot speak my language elsewhere in Malawi or people will call me names. I am certainly not going to get employed in some companies because I am from the North.

Kamuzu crushed dissent like lice. Good journalism was a crime. Pollock Mhango was detained (1981) for seven years and beaten mad for writing; Mkwapatira Mhango was bombed (1989) in his house killing him, his two wives and five children. This was just after Kamuzu said that facts of his lavish official hostess were being leaked to international media by Mkwapatira and family. Maybe, you cannot feel the gravity because you are not a Mhango.

We cannot pin down what my distant grandfather, Matchipisa Munthali did to deserve 27 years behind bars, or why Atati Mpakati lost, first his fingers, to a parcel Bombing and later his life in a KGB style assassination.

People lived in fear under Kamuzu, I remember being with my grandmother, NyaChikoko when Kamuzu death was announced, she sighed and told stories of how her house was forcibly used as a guest house by MCP officials and how drunkards were clubbed to death by the Malawi Young Pioneers for behaving in a rebel manner.

Miniskirts and long hair were banned while our friends in Jamaica and USA enjoyed hair and bare thigh. Though I was young, I recall how jittery people were at the passing of a plane believed to be carrying the Ngwazi or at the chime of the national anthem. Only the rare breeds partied and gardened during public holidays. Was that not a gaol of some sort?  Smells like Taliban controlled Afghanistan to me.

Yes, you remembered the Youth Week! Good as its intentions were, the implementation was via Chinese channels and that part hurts a lot.

The saga continues

Kamuzu Banda was the only Black Person that thought Apartheid was good. When everybody was breaking ties with South Africa, he was busy strengthening trade links. Here is a guy who criticised the Federation and called for independence of Malawi.

If you are reading this from Lilongwe you should know that you are in the blood city, it was built with funding from the oppressive South Africa. In addition, Kamuzu said at the OAU that Egyptian planes that were scheduled to start bombing South Africa should not pass through Malawi.

Banda’s hypocrisy also played out in Mozambique where he supported both the oppressive Portuguese government and the rebels? How sick is that? Supporting both Renamo and Frelimo resulted into Malawians killing Malawians sometimes as they were in both fighting sides.

The Britons asked to build Bangula dam, which would have been bigger that Sudan’s Gezira Damn but using lame excuses such us the fear of Bilharzias, Kamuzu rejected the move effectively assuming responsibility of today’s blackouts.

Personal enrichment is also another noxious thing about Kamuzu, coming to Malawi as a broke sex scandalist with a medicine career begging to be banned, he died with wealth estimated at half a billion US dollars.  Why the past and current governments haven’t properly looked into his wealth is a question for all of us to ponder on.

This is the guy who clashed with Orton Chirwa on the pace of Africanisation in the 60’s, what does he produce as a solution? Kamuzu Academy. Taking 80% of the budget allocation to education to set up a school that taught Latin and Greek. Did Malawi not need a hundred MCDEs -as they were called?

The guy was a schizophrenic, its why he dubbed himself the mouthful title ‘His Excellency The Life President (Paramount Chief) Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda,’ thirteen years before his death as quoted in The Independent of UK on 27 November 1997, said “Government here means Kamuzu. Kamuzu is Malawi. So be frank when speaking about government. You know you are speaking about Kamuzu, that’s all whether you like it or not.” Is Malawi Kamuzu now?  So this is where Muluzi copied his “afune asafune” phraseology?

All I have been trying to say it that when you celebrate Kamuzu, when you let people that pioneered his policies like John Tembo and when you give respect to queer questionable women like Cecilia Kadzamira, you make some of us shiver. I was shocked to hear that Tembo is now a church elder but I know that’s typical of the church, even Pope Benedict backed gay molesting priests?

When you build grand mausoleums for dictators, adopt their names, policies and name landmarks after them, you make us remember what we are trying hard to forget. I wonder if they have a street named after Hitler in Germany.

Yes we know to many of you he is a hero, of course he is the guy that made you rich, that made your culture and language official, that gave you the ‘elite’ status among your fellow Malawians but if I am to belong to Malawi, it should be that without big brother posters looking down on me and reminding me of the Nazism that I, my kind and others have been through.