Struggling against the 'Bandastan': an interview with Attati Mpakati

Abstract

There is an almost total blackout of news on Malawi. What hard news we can get is mostly from exiles, ex-detainees who have fled the country. Foreign journalists and commentators are banned, as are many books and newspapers. The papers that are allowed to be sold are heavily censored - offending articles are simply inked out. After pressure from Callaghan, some foreign journalists were allowed in to report the 1978 elections (the first since 1962), but this was mere window-dressing. Documentation on Malawi is, therefore, extremely hard to come by - War on Want's report Tomorrow's Epidemic has a short section on Malawi's tobacco industry, and Amnesty International produced a briefing paper on Malawi in August 1976, with subsequent references to the situation in their annual reports. And there is of course Legson Kayira's The Detainee, a review of which appears belatedly in this issue, p.429. We publish the interview which follows as a rare opportunity to expose current conditions. Dr Mpakati is currently the National Chairman of the Socialist League of Malawi (LESOMA). A former leader of the militant anti- colonial Nyasaland National Congress (proscribed by Banda in 1959), he was himself detained, and subsequently left Malawi in 1961. Several attempts have been made to assassinate him. In February 1979 he was nearly killed in Maputo when his hands were blown off by a letter bomb. In an open letter to Banda after the assassination attempt, he told the self-proclaimed `President for Life' that it was a waste of time spending the country's resources trying to kill him. The people were going to oppose him whether he, Mpakati, lived or died, and dem ocracy, justice and socialism were now on the agenda for the future Malawi. Chris Searle: What happened in Malawi just after Independence, and since then?