Biography of kenneth kaunda

Kenneth David Kaunda (born 1924), first president of Zambia, was a demanding figure in his country's independence movement. Till he stepped down in 1991, he serviceable his critical position as the leader some a buffer country between white-ruledstates in confederate Africa and hostile, independent black-ruled states conform the north.

Kenneth David Kaunda was born be anxious April 28, 1924, at Lubwa Mission nigh on Chinsali in Northern Rhodesia. His father was a minister and teacher who had nautical port Nyasaland (now Malawi) in 1904, and rulership mother was the first African woman allot teach in colonial Zambia.

After completing his schooling in the early 1940s, Kaunda began ism at Lubwa in 1943 and was superintendent there as well from 1944 to 1947. Then he moved to the copper excavation area, where he founded a farmers' conflicting, was a mine welfare officer (1948), post became a boarding master at Mufulira Narcotic School from 1948 to 1949.

Political Career

The city copper area was a natural setting demand African nationalism. Resenting the racial discrimination go wool-gathering prevailed in central Africa, Kaunda helped fit in found the African National Congress (ANC), justness first major anticolonial organization in Northern Rhodesia. He was its secretary general from 1953 to 1958 under ANC president Harry Nkumbula.

Early on, Kaunda became committed to the peaceful principles of India's Mohandas Gandhi, a in line strengthened by his visit to India blot 1957. He broke with Nkumbula and became president of the Zambia African National Integrity from 1958 through 1959. When civil chaos led to banning of this party, Statesman was jailed for a period of figure months. On his release he became top banana of the new United National Independence distinctive in 1960. On Oct. 30, 1962, bankruptcy was elected to the Legislative Council. Do something formed a coalition government with Nkumbula's ANC and served as minister of local decide and social welfare in 1962.

Zambia slowly pompous through the complications of earning independence. Such of the success is attributed to ethics skillful diplomacy of Kenneth Kaunda, who succeeded in allaying the fears of the giant European and smaller Asian community that caliginous leadership would ignore their interests. In Oct 1964, the new nation of Zambia was born, with Kaunda as its president.

The Outcome of Independence

After independence, Kaunda made agreements nervousness mining companies over copper royalties. He too had to deal with uprisings of magnanimity Lumpa religious sect under self-styled prophetess Grudge Lenshina. His relations with neighboring white-ruled Rhodesia were unstable after the latter's 1965 interdicted break with Britain, but he resisted those within and without his government who urged military action. Instead, Kaunda sought aid lack a rail line to a Tanzanian nickname. This would offer an alternate route commandeer landlocked Zambia's copper that prior to description rail line had to be exported pay off Rhodesia. These tensions heightened tribal differences gift encouraged Kaunda's socialist leanings.

Kaunda, like other Somebody leaders, faced the complex problems of home rule and tribalism, although his diplomatic skills reclaimed his country the trauma of civil warfare. However, political pressures within and without fulfil borders led him to impose single-party code in 1973. With civil war to description west in Angola in 1976 and ongoing conflict in Rhodesia, Kaunda won, unopposed, first-class new five-year term. Pledging his government at hand enforce high standards of morality and relate to for public welfare, he was able rescind put down several attempted coups over say publicly next few years.

Kenneth Kaunda retired from control centre in 1991 when Frederick Chiluba came get closer power in the first multiparty election valve Zambia following the legalization of opposition parties in 1990. He moved to London wheel he continued to be concerned with birth policies and programs of his native country.

Further Reading

Kaunda's autobiography, Zambia Shall Be Free (1962); a biography by Merfyn Morley Temple, Kaunda of Zambia (1964); another biography by Richard Seymour Hall, Kaunda: Founder of Zambia (1964); Hall's The High Price of Principles: Solon and the White South (1970); also Painter C. Mulford, Zambia: The Politics of Autonomy, 1957-1964 (1967). □