Timeline Malawi
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World History KLMA: http://www.stabi.hs-bremerhaven.de/gbs2/whkmla/
Formerly Nyasaland. Located on the west and
south
shores of Lake Nyasa, east of Zambia. Its area is 49,177 sq. miles and
the capital was Zomba.
(WUD, 1994, p.867)(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.8)
Formerly Nyasaland. Located on the west and south
shores of Lake Nyasa, east of Zambia. Its area is 49,177 sq. miles and
the capital was Zomba.
(WUD, 1994, p.867)(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.8)
1859 Dr. David Livingstone,
Scottish missionary, arrived in Malawi. The town of Livingstonia was
later named in his honor.
(SFC, 8/18/99, p.A10)
1859 Maize replaced the native
crops in Malawi soon after the arrival of David Livingstone. It had
been introduced in Africa in the 16th century by Portuguese colonizers
as a reliable staple for slaving outposts.
(WSJ, 11/15/05, p.A12)
1901 Feb 23, Britain and Germany
agreed on a boundary between German East Africa [later Tanganyika,
Rwanda and Burundi] and Nyasaland [later Malawi].
(HN, 2/23/98)(WUD, 1994, p.593,990)
1958 Dr. Kamuzu Banda came home to
help campaign for independence and received a hero’s welcome. He had
graduated from Meharry Medical School in Nashville in 1937 and worked
as a doctor in Britain.
(SFC,11/27/97, p.B8)
1959 Mar 3, British government
arrested Hastings Banda of Nyasaland (later Malawi), and ended an
emergency crisis.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1963 The population of
Malawi was estimated at about 3.75 million.
(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.8)
1964 Jul 6, Malawi, a former
British protectorate and part of the Federation of Rhodesia and
Nyasaland, gained independence.
(WUD, 1994, p.867)
1964 Vera and Orton Chirwa,
lawyers, helped Malawi gain independence. Political turmoil soon forced
them into exile. Dr. Kamuzu Banda established a dictatorship and ruled
for 30 years. Soon after independence Banda jailed 400 opponents who he
said were planning armed rebellion.
(SFEC, 1/19/96, Parade p.5)(SFC,11/27/97, p.B8)
1965 The Liowande Ferry sank in
the Shire River and some 150 passengers were reportedly eaten by
crocodiles.
(SFC, 6/17/00, p.C3)
1966 Kamuzu Banda declared Malawi
a one-party state.
(SFC,11/27/97, p.B8)
1971 In Malawi Kamuzu Banda
(c1896-1997) named himself president for life. He served as president
from 1961 to 1994.
(SFC,11/27/97,
p.B8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Banda)
1980 Apr 1, The southern African
Development Coordination Conference was established by 9 countries with
the Lusaka declaration (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique,
Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe). On August 17, 1992, it was
transformed into the Southern African Development Community. By 2008 it
included 15 members.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_African_Development_Community)
1981 Vera and Orton Chirwa were
abducted from Zambia by Malawi security officials, charged with treason
and imprisoned separately and incommunicado for 11 years. Orton Chirwa
died in prison in 1992.
(SFEC, 1/19/97, Par
p.5)(www.tomblock.com/detail.php?id=179)
1983 In Malawi 4 dissident
politicians were murdered. Dr. Attati Mpakati was found murdered in
central Harare, Zimbabwe while on a private visit. Dick Matenje, the
Secretary-General of MCP and two other senior politicians died in a
mysterious car accident, their deaths coming at a time when they were
being seen as possible successors to Banda. In 1995 former dictator
Banda and his “official hostess” Cecilia Kadzamira were cleared of
murder charges after an 8-month trial
(www.sardc.net/SD/sd_factfile_malawi.htm).
(SFC,11/27/97, p.B8)
1992 Oct 20, In Malawi Orton
Chirwa, a lawyer who helped establish the country’s independence, died
in prison. He was Malawi’s first Minister of Justice.
(SFEC, 1/19/96, Par
p.5)(www.hrw.org/reports/1993/WR93/Afw-04.htm)
1992 Malawi passed a moratorium on
the death penalty.
(AFP, 11/22/07)
1992 A major drought ravaged the
small farmers of Malawi.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.A25)
1993 Vera Chriwa was released from
prison and took up working in legal and human rights education.
(SFEC, 1/19/96, Parade p.5)
1994 Bakili Muluzi was elected
president in the first multiparty elections.
(SFC,11/27/97, p.B8)
1997 Nov 25, Dr. Kamuzu Banda
(99), dictator of Malawi from 1964-1994, died in South Africa
(www.dispatch.co.za/1997/11/27/page%2019.htm). His official birthday
was given as May 14, 1906.
(SFC,11/27/97, p.B8)
1997 Bakili Muluzi commuted all
death sentences and pledged that there would be no executions under his
presidency.
(SFC, 10/21/98, p.A10)
2002 Oct 21, In Malawi police
arrested Gwanda Chakuamba, the main opposition leader, accusing him of
impersonating President Bakili Muluzi by signing the president's name
to a controversial letter on statehouse stationery. The arrest came
amid a government crackdown on opponents of a constitutional amendment
that would allow Muluzi to run for a third term when his second
five-year term expires in 2004. Chakuamba was released the same day.
(AP, 10/21/02)(AP, 10/22/02)
2003 Jan 17, Massive flooding
caused by Cyclone Delfina ravaged parts of Malawi and Mozambique,
washing away homes and crops, submerging roads and bridges, and cutting
off electricity in the impoverished nations.
(AP, 1/17/03)
2003 Feb 23, In Malawi a
lion, who escaped from Kasungu National Park and attacked and killed
about 7 people, was shot and killed by game hunters.
(AP, 2/24/03)
2003 Jun 28, Malawi's army was
deployed to quell violent riots after demonstrators attacked an
American children's charity and several churches to protest the removal
of five Muslim foreign nationals suspected of working for al-Qaida.
(AP, 6/29/03)
2003 Aug 31, At least 675,000
people in Malawi urgently need food aid despite the country's good
harvest, the UN World Food Program reported.
(AP, 8/31/03)
2004 Jan 29, Widespread drought
was reported across southern Africa. Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa and
Zimbabwe were all affected.
(SFC, 1/29/04, p.A16)
2004 May 20, Voters in Malawi, one
of the world's poorest nations, flocked to the polls for their third
multiparty elections in a decade. Bingu wa Mutharika, Pres. Muluzi’s
handpicked successor, was declared the winner. The ruling party lost
its parliamentary majority.
(AP, 5/20/04)(SFC, 5/24/04, p.A3)
2004 May 24, In Malawi opposition
supporters rioted as Bingu wa Mutharika was sworn in as president.
(WSJ, 5/25/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 15, The Gates Foundation
announced a $44.7 million award at the AIDS Conference in Bangkok to a
consortium of TB and AIDS researchers. The 2 diseases were often
linked. A UN report cited 7 countries as the hardest hit by the AIDS
pandemic: Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Malawi, the Central
African Republic and Mozambique.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.B1)(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A6)
2004 Malawi Pres. Bingu wa
Mutharika closed the country’s embassy in Libya soon after his election.
(AFP, 12/23/07)
2005 Feb 1, Malawi Health Minister
Heatherwick Ntaba said AIDS kills about 10 people every hour in Malawi
and the government is increasingly unable to cope with the crisis.
(Reuters, 2/2/05)
2005 Aug, The UN appealed for $88
million to feed the people of Malawi. The World Bank said it would give
$30 million.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.55)
2005 Oct 15, A worsening food
crisis threatening millions of people prompted Malawi's Pres. Bingu wa
Mutharika to declare the African nation a "disaster area" and call for
more international aid.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Nov 24, The UN food agency
said the United States has thrown a lifeline to six southern African
countries, donating food aid valued at $45 million. The food will be
distributed across Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and
Zimbabwe.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov, In Malawi Marvin Hanke,
executive director of the radio soap opera “Zima Chitika” (So it
Happens), pushed the message that nsima, a bland corn porridge, was not
the nation’s only food. The program was produced by Story Workshop, a
Blantyre-based group with a grant by the EU’s food security
program.
(WSJ, 11/15/05, p.A1)
2006 Jul 27, Malawi's former
President Bakili Muluzi was arrested on corruption charges related to
millions of dollars in donor funds that allegedly ended up in his
personal account. He was released on bail after being questioned.
Muluzi faced 42 counts of theft, corruption and breach of trust.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Jul 31, Malawi's top
prosecutor said theft and corruption charges against the former
president Bakili Muluzi have been dropped after Pres. Bingu wa
Mutharika suspended the chief investigator in the case.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Aug 10, Malawi's President
Bingu wa Mutharika demanded the resignation of Ishmael Wadi, a top
prosecutor, for withdrawing corruption charges against the nation's
previous leader. Wadi dropped the charges after Mutharika suspended the
head of the anti-corruption bureau, Gustave Kaliwo. Wadi said the
suspension left the bureau with no powers to prosecute.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Oct 4, In Malawi pop singer
Madonna traveled to a village 12 miles outside the capital Lilongwe,
where she is funding the construction of a center to feed and educate
about 1,000 orphans.
(Reuters, 10/5/06)
2006 Oct 12, Madonna and her
husband took custody of a motherless 1-year-old boy in Malawi after a
judge granted her an 18-month interim order to take David Banda out of
the country. The next day Madonna jetted out of Malawi, leaving behind
the 13-month-old boy she planned to adopt. The swift granting of the
interim order angered some rights groups which called upon the Malawian
government to put the order on hold in the interests of the child's
future. Banda left Malawi on a small private jet Oct16.
(SFC, 10/13/06, p.E15)(AFP, 10/13/06)(Reuters,
10/16/06)
2007 Feb 3, Maize reportedly
occupied 90% of the cultivated land in Malawi.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.80)
2007 Feb 26, Malawi's vice
president pleaded innocent to charges of treason and conspiring to
murder the president at the start of his trial.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Mar 8, In Malawi Garnet
Halliday (50), a senior Australian mining executive in charge of
the development of a new uranium mine, died with his pilot when his
chartered light aircraft crashed.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Jun 4, The Institute for
Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) said a study of mortality patterns in
South Africa, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania and Senegal indicated
Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis was reaching deep into elected governments.
(Reuters, 6/4/07)
2007 Jul 16, Health officials in
Malawi prepared to launch a massive HIV testing program to identify
tens of thousands of people unknowingly infected with the virus.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Aug 10, Malawi said it will
deploy 800 troops to Darfur in Sudan to serve in the future United
Nations-African Union peacekeeping force.
(AFP, 8/10/07)
2007 Aug 20, A report showed tiny
fish farms have helped 1,200 poor families hit by AIDS in Malawi to
raise their incomes and improve their diets in a scheme being expanded
to other African nations.
(AP, 8/20/07)
2007 Oct 20,
Malawi's second opposition party suspended its national
convention after 26 supporters died in a road accident on the way to
the conference. The supporters of the Alliance for Democracy, or AFORD,
died the previous night when the truck they were traveling in
overturned in the central mountainous district of Dedza.
(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Dec 12, It was reported that
William Kamkwamba (20) of Masitala, Malawi, had built 3 windmills using
blue-gum trees and bicycle parts after seeing a picture in an old text
book.
(WSJ, 12/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 23, Media reported that
Malawi has asked Libya to close its mission in Lilongwe. The Mutharika
administration had suspicions that Libya funds Muluzi's United
Democratic Front, which is seeking to unseat Mutharika in elections in
2009.
(AFP, 12/23/07)
2008 Jan 4, Taiwan's ties with its
ally Malawi were shaky after the African country snubbed the island's
top diplomat in an aborted visit to the African nation aimed at
persuading it to resist diplomatic wooing by China.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 8, A government
spokeswoman said Taiwan cannot match China's reported $6 billion aid
offer to Malawi, but hopes a legacy of goodwill can convince the
African nation not to switch allegiance to its giant neighbor.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 14, Taiwan reported that
Malawi has cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of relations with
China, which has been using its rising political and economic clout to
reduce the number of countries who recognize the island. Chinese state
media said Beijing and Malawi had established diplomatic relations late
last month.
(AP, 1/14/08)
2008 Jan 17, Rains battered
portions of flood-ravaged southern Africa, killing at least three
people in Malawi and forcing Zambia to declare a national disaster.
(AP, 1/17/08)
2008 May 13, In Malawi police
arrested former security and political leaders over allegations they
wanted to overthrow the government of Pres. Bingu Mutharika.
(WSJ, 5/14/08, p.A13)
2008 Jun 8, Malawi began its fifth
census since its 1964 independence from Britain, a decade after the
last head count was held in the AIDS-blighted and impoverished nation.
(AP, 6/8/08)
2008 Sep 16, Malawi withdrew its
recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), proclaimed
by the Polisario Front in the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
SADR was declared in 1976 by the Polisario Front, a rebel movement that
wants independence for Western Sahara. Their a guerilla war against
Rabat's forces ended with a ceasefire in 1991.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2009 Apr 3, A Malawi judge
rejected Madonna's request to adopt a second child from Malawi even
though the country's child welfare minister had supported Madonna's
application to raise the 3-year-old girl.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 6, In Zambia western
nations and lending agencies meeting in Lusaka agreed a financing
package of more than $1 billion to improve infrastructure in southern
and central Africa at an investment conference meant to expand
transport links and trade. Britain said it would separately provide 100
million pounds ($149.2 million) to transform the region's
infrastructure to increase trade and mitigate the effects of the global
financial crisis. New projects will link businesses in 8 African
countries: Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Malawi,
Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 May 19, Malawi held
elections. Voters chose between re-electing Malawi's President Bingu wa
Mutharika (75) or replacing him with challenger John Tembo (77) backed
by his predecessor. The race between Mutharika and Tembo was too close
to predict going into the polls. Mutharika, a former World Bank
official credited with bringing economic gains to the southern African
nation of 12 million, won the national election with about 66% of the
vote.
(AP, 5/19/09)(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Malawi an
international organization began moving more than 60 elephants from
Phirilongwe village, south of Lake Malawi, to the Majete Wildlife
Reserve. Local farmers had used violence to protect their crops from
raids by the elephants, and at least 10 people and a number of
elephants have recently died in such confrontations.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Nov 9, In Malawi two
opposition leaders were convicted of sedition and inciting violence
while campaigning. A judge sentenced each to 20 months in prison with
hard labor. These were the first sedition convictions since the late
dictator Hastings Kamuzu Banda's 1963-1994 rule.
(AP, 11/10/09)
2009 Dec 20, In Malawi a 6.0
earthquake destroyed several buildings in the southeastern Karonga
district, killing at least three people and injuring about 200.
(AP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Malawi officials
arrested 2 men for celebrating their engagement to each other in a
ceremony on Dec 26. Stevem Monjeza (26) and Tiwonge Chimbalanga (20)
were charged with indecency and could get 5 to 14 years in jail if
convicted.
(SFC, 12/30/09, p.A2)(SFC, 1/19/10, p.A2)
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