Kenneth Kaunda was larger than life. He will forever remain one of this continent’s towering heroes, who served his people as a humble giant, and gave tangible support to liberation movements across Southern Africa.
He proved so committed to the liberation struggle of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia that he allowed them to establish their headquarters in Zambia, which put his own people at risk given the violent retaliation and destabilisation campaign of the apartheid regime.
Zapu and Zanu of Zimbabwe, and the ANC of South Africa, which based their struggle headquarters in Lusaka, owe much to the solidarity of Kaunda with their common cause to rid the region of colonial domination and oppression.
Kaunda had close personal relations with South African liberation leaders Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Chris Hani. Nothing was too much for his comrades, and Kaunda even insisted on providing Tambo accommodation at his presidential residence known as State House.
Kaunda was such a vociferous anti-colonialist that from 1954 he refused to drink tea and coffee in protest against British colonialism – a personal protest he kept up for the rest of his life.
Kaunda played the role of a great pan-Africanist as early as 1963 when he became the president of the Pan-African Freedom movement for East, Central and Southern Africa. A year later he became President of independent Zambia.
He worked with Africa’s other newly independent leaders such as Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Senegal’s Leopold Senghor, Guinea’s Ahmed Sekou Toure and Congo’s Patrice Lumumba on an agenda to transform the continent, ensure independence from the former colonial powers and ensure self-reliance. Seven years later he took on the chairpersonship of the Organisation of AU from 1970 to 1971, and again from 1987 to 1988.
As the father of the nation, Kaunda was an exemplary leader in many ways, and established a national programme to provide universal health care and free education for his people.
He faced serious challenges, however, as the Zambian economy was largely reliant on the export of copper and copper prices plunged in 1973 with devastating economic effects.
This led to the government engaging in massive borrowing which was in retrospect a huge mistake as Zambia became one of the most indebted countries per capita in the world. As a result Kaunda spent much of the 1980s focusing on Zambia’s unmanageable foreign debt. This was a lesson in ensuring the diversification of African economies.
But unlike a number of the post-independence African leaders, Kaunda always remained true to his values and lived a frugal life, in no way capitalising on his position of power to enhance his personal wealth. His lifestyle was so modest that after he left power in 1991 he had no home to live in, and only after private interventions by some in the Commonwealth, was he was accommodated in a mining guest house.
Under Kaunda’s leadership Zambia had been a one party state until 1991, as Kaunda felt that it provided the necessary stability while the region was still under attack by the apartheid regime which targeted the front-line states. Once Nelson Mandela was released in 1990 and South Africa was negotiating for multiparty elections, Kaunda accepted that it was time for Zambia to also hold multiparty elections.
He was defeated in the 1991 elections by trade unionist Frederick Chiluba who was quick to turn his back on his trade union values, and turned the presidency into a vehicle for his own self-aggrandizement.
The Western powers were keen to see the back of Kaunda and his socialist agenda, and US president George Bush rushed to support Chiluba’s new party and promised significant aid if Kaunda was defeated. Chiluba did not pursue an agenda of people-centred development, and left a legacy of corruption where he siphoned off government money into his own private bank accounts in the UK.
In 2007 Chiluba was found guilty in a UK court for stealing US$46 million worth of shares and property. Chiluba was infamous for flaunting his wealth and hoarding designer shoes with two-inch heels.
Chiluba’s treatment of the nation’s founding father after he left office was nothing short of despicable. In 1997 Chiluba jailed Kaunda after alleging that he conspired in a coup against him, which was a fabrication. Kaunda was only released from jail after Nelson Mandela and Julius Nyerere imposed significant pressure for his release, but he was then placed under house arrest.
As if the imprisonment of Kaunda was not bad enough, Chiluba tried to strip him of his citizenship arguing that his father had initially come from Malawi. The objective was to bar Kaunda from contesting for political power. Predictably Chiluba attempted to change the constitution to enable himself to run for a third term.
Kaunda refused to be defeated and while he retired from active politics he became a campaigner on HIV/Aids and got involved in continental conflict resolution in his later years. He was a man of the people right to the end of his ripe old age of 97.
* Shannon Ebrahim is Independent Media’s Foreign Editor.