Historical Dictionary of Malawi Part 17

Besides the UNHCR, a number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have a.s.sisted with the general welfare of the refugees, and this includes educational and agricultural projects. Among such NGOs are the Malawi Red Cross (MRCS), Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS), World Relief Malawi (WRM), and the World University Society of Canada (WUSC). In all refugee-related matters, the Malawi government works through its Department of Poverty and Disaster Management Affairs.

RELIGION. The majority of Malawians profess to belong to some religious organization. According to the Population and Housing Census of 2008, of the 13,029,498 people, 82 percent (10,770,229) are Christians, 13 percent (1,690,087) are Muslims, 1.9 percent (242,503) belong to other religions, including indigenous religions, Hinduism, and the Baha'i faith. Only 2.5 percent (326,679) have no religious affiliation. The census indicates that there has been growth in all religions since 1998. It should also be pointed out that many Christians and Muslims tend to incorporate modified indigenous beliefs into the two world regions.

The largest Christian churches are the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) and the Catholic Church, and both have a significant presence in all corners of Malawi. Also with a sizable members.h.i.+p is the Anglican Church in Malawi, formerly the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), which tended to concentrate mostly in the Lake Malawis.h.i.+re River area, the major urban centers, and the s.h.i.+re Highlands. The Seventh-Day Adventists and the Jehovah's Witnesses also have a notable presence. There are numerous other Christian denominations and, in the past 40 years, the number of evangelical churches, many with United States connections, have mushroomed and have adherents in many parts of the country.

Both Christianity and Islam arrived in Malawi in the second half of the 19th century, the former through mainly European mission organizations, and the latter through Yao immigrants and Muslim missionaries from the east coast. Christianity expanded in the 20th century as more missionaries arrived in the country and as some Malawians broke away from the main religions to start their own (see CHINULA, CHARLES CHIDONGO; MWASI, YESAYA ZERENJI). On the other hand, Islam tended to be confined mostly to the southeastern part of the country.

President Hastings Banda was an elder in the CCAP, and most national occasions, such as the annual Independence Day celebrations, started with prayers, usually led by clergy representing the various faiths and denominations. Former President Bakili Muluzi is a Muslim and, during his time in office, Islam and Islamic organizations became particularly prominent in different facets of life. Although churches did openly criticize the one party system or the abuse of human rights during the Banda era, it was the Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter of March 1992 that started the path toward democratization. In the post-Banda period, religious organizations have been relentless in acting as the conscience of the people. The Episcopal Conference of Malawi, the CCAP, and the Anglican Church in Malawi have issued open letters criticizing governments for mismanagement, corruption, nonaccountability, and for failing to deal with poverty, which still dominates the country. The Catholic Church and Islamic organizations have radio stations that broadcast nationally, and some of the religious organizations, including the Catholics, the Seventh-Day Adventists, and the Livingstonia synod of the CCAP have universities.

RENAMO. See MOZAMBIQUE.

REPUBLICAN PARTY. See CHAKUAMBA, GAWNDANGULUWBE "GWANDA."

RHODES, CECIL JOHN (18531902). Mining mogul, politician, and leading player in European imperialism in 19th-century Africa, Cecil Rhodes was born in England in July 1853. Sixteen years later, he joined his brother Herbert Rhodes in South Africa where they grew cotton in the Natal region. In the early 1870s, Rhodes joined the hundreds of prospectors who were attracted to the emerging diamond mining industry farther west at Kimberley. He became a successful digger and formed his own company, which in 1890 grew into the DeBeers Mining Company, and seven years later, the DeBeers Consolidated Mines. In the meantime, he returned to England several times to, among other things, study at Oxford University. As gold mining was becoming a reality in the Transvaal, Rhodes transferred some of his energy to that area, forming the Gold Fields of South Africa. With so much wealth at his disposal, Rhodes was elected to the Cape Parliament, becoming prime minister of the colony in 1890. A year earlier, he had secured a charter to form the British South Africa Company (BSAC) with which he planned to execute his ambition of establis.h.i.+ng the British empire from the "Cape to Cairo."

Although not fully achieved, the BSAC came to control Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and most of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). Rhodes also became interested in Nyasaland (Malawi), buying tracts of land in the new colony and in the early 1890s maintaining influence in the area through a substantial subvention to Harry Johnston's fledgling administration. In 1896, Rhodes resigned from the office of prime minister because he supported Starr Jameson's failed invasion of the Transvaal. The land he owned in Nyasaland became part of a commission inquiry, the North Nyasa Reserve Commission of 1929.

RHODES, HERBERT. Cecil Rhodes's eldest brother, Herbert Rhodes, farmed cotton in Natal before joining the diamond rush in Kimberley, South Africa, in the 1870s. More interested in adventure than a settled business life, he sold his mining claims and left to travel north of the Zambezi, arriving in the Lake Malawi region in the 1880s. He hunted, mostly elephants, along the s.h.i.+re River, on the western sh.o.r.es of Lake Malawi, especially in the Karonga plains. He built a house in the area between Kambwe lagoon and present Karonga boma, the first European to do so in that area. Rhodes died when his house at Chikwawa burned.

RHODESIA. See ZAMBIA; ZIMBABWE.

RHODESIA NATIVE LABOUR BUREAU (RNLB). This organization was formed in Salisbury (Harare) in 1903 to recruit contract labor in northern Zambezia (Nyasaland), Mozambique, and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) for the emerging mining and agricultural industries in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The recently introduced taxes in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia and the rise of forced cash production in Mozambique made these areas easy targets for the bureau's recruiters whose methods were initially most ruthless. Ironically, in Nyasaland, the bureau promoted itself as m.u.t.h.andizi (the helper) and came to be known by that name; it built recruiting stations in most rural districts, especially those in the northern province where poor prospects of employment and problems of cash crops ensured a large pool of prospective labor recruits. Once laborers reached their places of employment in Southern Rhodesia, they encountered very harsh working conditions: extremely low wages, long working hours, poor and unsanitary accommodation, little health care, and employers and overseers who had no respect for Africans. It is for these reasons that one of the first measures of the first African-dominated government in Malawi, formed in 1961, was to cancel the operations of the Rhodesia Native Labour Bureau.

RHODESLIVINGSTONE INSt.i.tUTE. Famous as a pioneering Africa-based research center, jointly funded by mining interests in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and the government in that colony, the Rhodes Livingstone Inst.i.tute for Social Research was established in 1938 to carry out independent sociological and anthropological studies that it was hoped would promote race relations on the copper belt and along the railway line. Originally based in Livingstone, it moved its headquarters to Lusaka in 1952. G.o.dfrey Wilson, its first director, who had earlier undertaken some research in northern Nyasaland, modified the mandate of the inst.i.tute to include urbanization and socioeconomic change, especially in light of the industrialization taking place in the region. When Max Gluckman succeeded Wilson in 1942, he broadened the field even more to reflect emerging themes such as African legal systems, and by the 1950s a wide range of topics in the humanities and social sciences were subjects of study. The area covered was also widened to include the two Rhodesias, Nyasaland, and southern Belgian Congo.

Also by the 1950s, the inst.i.tute was attracting graduate students and postdoctoral students who would form the core of Africa specialists in most anthropology departments in England and the United States. Many of their papers, some of them path-breaking, were published in the inst.i.tute's journal, the RhodesLivingstone's Journal. Several scholars a.s.sociated with RhodesLivingstone undertook their research in Malawi: Clyde Mitch.e.l.l (1956) researched the social systems of the Yao; Jaap van Velsen (1959) researched the Tonga in Nkhata Bay; Barnes (1954), David Bettison, Raymond Apthorpe, and others (1958, 1961) researched the Mpezeni Ngoni and urban Blantyre, respectively. The inst.i.tute was much a.s.sociated with the University of Manchester, to which the majority of researchers were linked.

When the University of Zambia opened in 1966, the inst.i.tute became affiliated to it, and, five years later, it changed its name to the Inst.i.tute for African Studies of the University of Zambia. Its journal came to be known as African Social Research. In 1996, the inst.i.tute changed its name once again, this time to the Inst.i.tute for Economic and Social Research of the University of Zambia.

RICE. A popular grain, rice is grown mainly in the lakesh.o.r.e areas of Karonga, Nkhotakota, and Salima, and to a lesser extent in Mangochi, the Upper and Lower s.h.i.+re, and in the Lake Chilwa area. Although certain types of rice have been grown in Malawi for a long time, newer varieties such as the fragrant faya were introduced in the region by Swahili-Arab traders from the East African Coast in the 19th century. The colonial government cla.s.sified rice as an African economic crop and, in the interwar period, it encouraged growers to increase production so as to meet growing demands for the crop. At the end of the 1930s, plans were made to form a rice-trading establishment in Nkhotakota, but it did not materialize until the end of the war in 1945, when the Kota Kota Rice Trading Company was formed and began to play a major role in rice marketing in Malawi. At the same time, rice cooperative societies emerged, the most successful one being the Kilupula Rice Growers Co-operative Union in Karonga. For part of the colonial period, Nyasaland was the leading rice producer in South Central Africa, exporting rice mostly to the Rhodesias (Zambia and Zimbabwe), and South Africa and Mozambique.

Although the government disbanded cooperative societies in the 1960s, it further stimulated rice production through a bilateral arrangement with the government of Taiwan, China. Rice was central to the Taiwanese, which placed emphasis on high-yielding varieties and biannual yields. Mainly a smallholder crop, the production of rice fluctuated in the 1990s, varying from 39,000 metric tons in 1945 to 73,000 in 1990, and rising during the 2000s to 92,000 in 2007. See also AGRICULTURE.

RICHARDS, EDMUND CHARLES SMITH (18891955). Governor of Nyasaland from 1942 to 1947, Richards had earlier served in a junior capacity in Tanganyika, Nyasaland, and had just transferred from Basutoland, where he had been resident commissioner from 1935 to 1942. One of his notable acts in Nyasaland was the establishment of the Abrahams Commission of 1946 with a view to finally solving the land problem.

ROADS. See TRANSPORTATION.

ROBERTS, BRYAN CLIEVE, KCMG, QC (19231996). Born in England on 22 March 1923, and a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, Bryan Roberts served in Europe during World War II as an officer in the Royal Artillery and the Royal Horse Artillery. In 1950, he became a barrister after being called to the bar as a member of Grays Inn. After working in Viscount Hailsham's chambers and in the Treasury Solicitor's Department, he joined the Colonial Civil Service in 1953 and was posted to Northern Rhodesia as a Crown counsel and attained the position of director of public prosecutions six years later. In 1960, he transferred to Nyasaland, and was solicitor general at independence in 1964. After the Cabinet Crisis in August that year, he took over from Orton Chirwa as attorney general. Upon the retirement of Peter Youens in 1966, Roberts also became secretary to the president and cabinet and head of the civil service in Malawi. In this capacity, he became chairman of the Malawi Army Council and the National Security and Intelligence Council, making him one of the closest and most important advisors to President Hastings Banda.

In 1972, Roberts retired, and George Jaffu replaced him as head of the civil service. Back in England, he rejoined the British civil service, in Lord Chancellor's Department, and from 1982 to 1993, when he retired, he was a metropolitan stipendiary magistrate. Knighted in 1973, Sir Bryan was an active member of the Commonwealth Magistrates' and Judges a.s.sociation, serving as its chairman in 1979 and becoming its life vice chairman in 1994. He died on 6 December 1996.

RUBBER. One of the main exports from early colonial Malawi, rubber (latex) was produced from the local Landolphia vine, which grows naturally in the thick forests of the lakesh.o.r.e region of Nkhata Bay district. In the 1880s, the African Lakes Company (ALC) began to take interest in producing rubber commercially, using some seeds from Kew Gardens in London. Further experimentation did not take place until 1903, when seeds from Landolphia were nurtured, and within three years, 3 million seedlings were transplanted to a nearby area that would be developed as the Vizara Rubber Estates. At about the same time, seedlings of the Para and Castilloa varieties were brought from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), but many did not fare well in the area. By the beginning of World War I, rubber was no longer a significant export of the colony, and although the ALC continued to maintain the Vizara plantation, its production was greatly reduced. In the 1970s, the rubber estate expanded into the nearby Chombe tea estates, which the company bought from the Commonwealth Development Corporation. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a revival of interest in rubber, and redevelopment started at Vizara with the result that the estate expanded further.

In 2004, the ALC sold the Vizara Rubber Estate to Nyasa Investments, a firm with South African connections. By 2008, the Vizara estate consisted of 3,507 hectares, of which 2,285 were already planted with rubber trees; it also has a rubber processing factory. At the end of that year, it had latex rubber-producing trees yielding 1,300 tons per year, and there were strong possibilities of increasing this to 4,000 tons. Of the 1,300 tons, 10 percent was used locally, mainly in retreading tires and in manufacturing paint and mattresses. Two years earlier, Nyasa Investments started a subsidiary, the Vizara Eco Timber, which processes the old rubber trees into timber for local use and for export. In September 2008, President Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika officially opened the Vizara Eco Timber factory, which also treats wood from the nearby Viphya Highlands. See also AGRICULTURE.

RUGARUGA. Youthful mercenaries, sometimes full-time security employees, rugaruga guarded prominent traders in 19th century East Africa. With the help of the fearless rugaruga, many such traders, including Mirambo and Msiri, went on to establish powerful polities in their areas. As guns became readily available in the region, rugaruga tended to be equipped with guns, which they did not hesitate to use. Mlozi bin Kazbadema and his commercial a.s.sociates had their own rugaruga whom Europeans described as always ill-tempered and undisciplined; Europeans also often accused them of being responsible for violent incidents that led Mlozi and the Ngonde into conflicts.

RUMPHI. Name of the boma and district that shares borders with all districts of the northern region of Malawi, Rumphi is the traditional home of the Phoka and other Tumbuka-speaking peoples. Agriculturally rich, it is particularly famous as the main bean-producing area of Malawi and is also a.s.sociated with coffee, most of which is grown in the eastern section of the district. Since the 1980s, Rumphi has also become one of the major tobacco-growing regions of Malawi. The main features of the district are the Henga Valley in the east, the Nkhamanga plains in the west, and the rolling Nyika plateau in the north. Rumphi has long been linked with western education as the home of the Livingstonia Mission and also the site of the Overtoun Inst.i.tution, and from the 1980s, as the location of the Phwezi Education Foundation. Rumphi boma was the seat of the Northern Co-operative Union and, in the colonial period, it was a main labor-recruiting district for mining and farming establishments in South Africa or Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).

S.

SABBATINI, ALBERTO. One of the most successful tobacco farmers in early colonial Malawi, Sabbatini was born in the vicinity of Poggio Mirteto, just north of Rome, Italy, from where he went to Nyasaland in 1904. He bought 17,000 acres of freehold land at Mapanga, about nine miles from Limbe on the Zomba road, and turned it into a major tobacco-growing farm. He sold the tobacco to local exporters and processors and exported some of it directly to European interests. At the end of World War I, Sabbatini established sisal estates in the Lower s.h.i.+re and Mozambique and had numerous other business ideas, including an artificial manure-producing factory propelled by power generated from hydroelectricity. When the Great Depression forced him to close most of his operations, including those in the BlantyreLimbe area, he started a transport company on the s.h.i.+re, and with the sisal tried a rope and twine-making factory at Chiromo, but both ventures failed. At the end of the 1930s, he sold his Mapanga estate, which included his striking castle-like house. Ironically, during World War II, the colonial administration turned the house into a prison for many of the Italians, including Sabbatini himself. After the war, Sabbatini resumed farming, and as in the past, diversified his commercial interests. When he died, his children continued with his businesses; the motor repair shop in Blantyre has ensured that Sabbatini remains a household name in Malawi.

SACRANIE, ABDUL SATTAR (?1984). One of the most respected lawyers in Malawi, Sacranie was born in Limbe where his father was a prominent businessman. He received a university education in India and thereafter qualified as a barrister at one of the Inns of Court in London, England. On his return to Malawi, he practiced law in BlantyreLimbe, establis.h.i.+ng a flouris.h.i.+ng legal firm, Sacranie & Gow. In the late 1950s, Sacranie became leader of the Asian Convention, whose sympathies lay with the National African Congress (NAC) and its successor, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). He was legal counsel to many African politicians facing trials during the period following the State of Emergency of 1959. As leader of the Asian Convention, Sacranie attended the Lancaster House const.i.tutional talks in 1961, and within two years, he became the first non-European mayor of the munic.i.p.ality of BlantyreLimbe. After his term in munic.i.p.al politics, he devoted most of his time to his law practice. However, his a.s.sociation with Dr. Hastings Banda and the MCP continued as he often acted as personal legal advisor to the former, and counsel to the latter and to Press Holdings Ltd.

SADYALUNDA, FERN NAJERE (1944 ). Born in Lilongwe district, Sadyalunda trained as a teacher at Kapeni College, Blantyre, and subsequently obtained a Cambridge school certificate. In 1974, Sadyalunda was nominated to Parliament as a member for Lilongwe, and in October of the following year, was appointed minister of community development and social welfare, becoming the first female cabinet minister in Malawi. In a cabinet reshuffle she was a.s.signed to the Ministry of Health. As Sadyalunda was close to Albert Muwalo-Nqumayo and suspected of being part of his political designs, she was imprisoned without trial. Upon her release, Sadyalunda retired from politics and became a businesswoman in Lilongwe.

SALIMA. Name of the boma and district, Salima is located on the southwest sh.o.r.e of Lake Malawi, and since 1935 is the northern terminus of the Malawi rail system. Part of Dowa district until Malawi independence from British rule, in the 1970s Salima was linked to the new capital at Lilongwe by a railway, a project financed by the Canadian government. The district is a major cotton- and rice-growing area and was the site of the German-sponsored Salima Lakesh.o.r.e Development project aimed at improving the production of the two crops. It has also become a tourist destination and has hotels of varying sizes, the most prominent ones being the Livingstone Beach Hotel and the Kambili Lodge.

SALISBURY, LORD (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC, 18301903). Lord Salisbury was the Conservative Party prime minister of Great Britain when the Lake Malawi region was declared a British Protectorate in the period 188991. Originally reluctant to extend British authority in the area, Lord Salisbury bowed to overwhelming Scottish opinion, which, determined to ensure that the work of the Livingstonia and Blantyre Missions continued without Portuguese-Catholic threat, strongly pet.i.tioned him to take special interest in this part of northern Zambezia. In 1889, the s.h.i.+re Highlands fell under British rule and, two years later, most of what would become Nyasaland followed suit.

SANGALA, AARON (1958 ). Grandson of one of the most respected leaders in the Malawi decolonization movement, James Frederick M. Sangala, Aaron Sangala worked for Lever Brothers (see UNILEVER SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA) from 1974 to 1981 and taught languages and music at the French Cultural Center and at St. Andrew's Secondary School, both in Blantyre. He was also active in the arts in the city of Blantyre and was a founder of organizations, including the Sambang'oma Cultural Troupe, Capital Theatre, and the Tiakalulu Guitar Quartet, and was a member of the Blantyre Round Table. In 2004, he was elected to the National a.s.sembly as the member for the Blantyre Ndirande Malabada, and served as deputy minister of health (20067), deputy minister of women and child development (20078), and minister of national defense (20089). Reelected in May 2009, Sangala was appointed as minister of home affairs and public security.

SANGALA, JAMES FREDERICK MATEWERE (19001971?). Sportsman, gifted organizer, avid reader, a leading intellectual of his time, and with Levi Mumba and others, founding father of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), James Sangala was born in December 1900 on the Malosa side of the Zomba Mountain in Chief Malemia's area. His father, Grant, was a junior chief under Malemia and a mission-trained mason. James Sangala attended Church of Scotland Mission Schools at Malosa (191015) and at Domasi (191620) before going to the Henry Henderson Inst.i.tute (HHI), Blantyre (192023) to complete his education. He trained as a teacher at the HHI (192425) and returned to Zomba, where he taught at Katsonga and at the Domasi Central School. In April 1927, he resigned from his teaching job because he refused to follow his headmaster's instructions that, as an African, he should not wear shoes in cla.s.s. Three years later he joined the civil service as a clerk in the office of the senior provincial commissioner's office in Blantyre, where his immediate superior was Ellerton Mposa. Although happy with his new job, he would encounter many aspects of racism, such as the insistence that an African should not wear a hat in the presence of a European. Always optimistic, Sangala sought to establish good relations between races and, with M. E. Leslie, a European working in the same office, started the Black and White Club, which was short-lived because after the departure of Leslie and his successor, Ion Ramsay, there was no support from the European side.

As a filing clerk, Sangala came across much information on the growing number of African Welfare a.s.sociations, and soon he joined the one in Blantyre and that in Zomba. It became obvious to him that effective African representation required a vigorous national organization, just as the non-Africans had with the Convention of a.s.sociations. Encouraged by the advice given to him in 1938 by William Henry Mainwaring, a British Labour Party member of the Bledisloe Commission, on the power of unity in the fight against colonial rule, Sangala sought to change things. In September 1943, he organized a meeting in Blantyre attended by 21 people, including Charles Matinga, Charles J. Mlanga, Andrew Mponda, Frank Kahumbe, Lewis Bandawe, Isa Macdonald Lawrence, and Thomas Grant. This and subsequent meetings led to the formation of the Nyasaland African Council. Through the advice of W. H. Timcke, he contacted Mrs. Margaret Ballinger, a left-leaning member of the South African Parliament, and Charles Mzingeli, an activist in Southern Rhodesia. The two provided Sangala with the material with which to write a const.i.tution for the new organization. Levi Mumba drafted the const.i.tution, which was duly approved in 1944, and the name of the council changed to Nyasaland African Congress. Levi Mumba was elected president general of the new political party and, upon his death early in 1945, his deputy, Charles Matinga, became head of the organization.

Although Sangala did not immediately occupy a major office in the NAC, he remained a powerful force in the party. Sangala campaigned vigorously against the introduction of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. At his own expense, he visited most chiefs in the southern province and wrote to all of the other traditional rulers in the country, trying to dissuade them from accepting the Federation. In 1952, he, Mtalika Banda, and Elias Mtepuka, toured the Rhodesias to raise money from Malawian workers in the hope of sending a Congress delegation to London to oppose the proposed union. In the following year, Sangala, joined by the Anglican Church missionary Rev. Michael Scott, visited Northern Rhodesia to confer with local African organizations; back home he organized meetings in Lilongwe and Blantyre so that people could hear Scott's anti-Federation views. Again, at his own expense, he arranged for as many chiefs as possible to attend such gatherings.

By this time, Sangala had come to embrace peaceful resistance modeled on Gandhi's satyagraha, and he always made sure that he had the cooperation of chiefs, especially through the newly formed Chiefs Council. To his dismay, peaceful resistance failed as the 1953 disturbances in Ntcheu and four districts in the southern province showed. On 25 September, he himself was arrested and charged with possession of seditious material; acquitted, he continued his activism. By the late 1950s, Congress was in disarray because, among other things, the leaders.h.i.+p had in effect allowed Wellington Chirwa and Clement k.u.mbikano to go to the Federal Parliament. By the end of 1956, Sangala and others had virtually retired from active politics, leaving a younger generation to gradually take over. Thamar D. T. Banda became president general of the NAC.

James Sangala, or "Pyagusi," as his friends called him, had many other interests outside politics. Besides boxing, he was a keen football (soccer) player and organizer; in 1938, he and his European supervisor founded the s.h.i.+re Highlands Football League, which would flourish throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. In 1948, he led a team from Blantyre to play the formidable Grupo Desportivo Rebenta Fongo of Beira and, although his team lost, the compet.i.tion was a rare and cherished experience for Sangala and the Nyasaland players.

After independence, Sangala, now back home in Chief Malemia's area, was appointed to the Public Service Commission, which, besides his business concerns and interest in church matters, kept him very occupied.

SANGAYA, JONATHAN DOUGLAS (19071979). First Malawian general secretary of the Blantyre synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, and one of the most respected and influential clergymen in postcolonial Malawi, Jonathan Sangaya was born of Ngoni and Yao parentage in Blantyre in 1907. He qualified as a teacher and, except for the period 194045, he taught mostly in local schools until 1948 when he joined theological college at Mulanje Mission. After his ordination in 1952, he was posted to Bemvu in Ntcheu district and, two years later, was transferred to Blantyre Mission where he served until 1962 when he was appointed general secretary of the Blantyre synod, taking over from Rev. Andrew Doig, and becoming the first African to hold the position. Sangaya died in office in August 1979.

SCOTT, DAVID CLEMENT RUFFELLE (18531907). Head of the Blantyre Mission from 1881 to 1898, David Scott was a medical doctor as well as an ordained minister of the Church of Scotland. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and educated at the University of Edinburgh, Scott took over the mantle of the mission after the scandal that had led to the resignation and dismissal in 1880 of most of the original group of missionaries, including Duff Macdonald, John Buchanan, and George Fenwick. Convinced that the mission's aims and programs would flourish only with the involvement of local people, Scott promoted programs that strengthened African culture and worked closely with African colleagues. He laid the groundwork for the African church by encouraging his deacons to take charge of mission work in other parts of the s.h.i.+re Highlands and in Mozambique.

African students, among them Joseph Bismarck and Rondau Kaferanjila, from the mission school at Blantyre, were sent to Lovedale Missionary Inst.i.tute for further education. Others such as Mungo Chisuse and Nacho Ntimawanzako were trained in Scotland. Others still, including John Gray Kufa, were trained locally at colleges Scott had initiated at the Blantyre Mission: the teacher training, theological, medical a.s.sistant's schools, and technical college. Scott also often spoke against the land and labor situation in the s.h.i.+re Highlands, and for this, he earned the ire of the colonial administration in Zomba and of the European business and settler community whose att.i.tude toward indigenous peoples was mostly unfavorable. Without any meaningful knowledge of, or experience in, construction, Scott and his African workers built an impressive cathedral-like church in Blantyre, which was completed in 1892 and is known as St. Michael's and All Angels.

A keen student of Yao and Mang'anja cultures and languages, Scott wrote An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Mang'anja Language Spoken in British Central Africa (1892), which is 737 pages long and still highly regarded today. A compact issue of it was revised and edited by Alexander Hetherwick under the t.i.tle Dictionary of the Nyanja Language (1929). Another of Scott's numerous contributions was the mission's influential magazine, Life and Work in British Central Africa, which published articles covering a variety of subjects. Scott himself used the paper to publicize his views on, among other things, colonial rule. In 1898, Scott retired to Scotland, convinced that he had laid a strong foundation for an African church that was ready to move into the 20th century under a leaders.h.i.+p that would be significantly African. In 1901, he went to head the Church of Scotland Mission in the Kikuyu area, Kenya. He died there on 13 October 1907.

SCOTT, MICHAEL (19071983). Liberal Anglican missionary who became famous for taking on African causes, especially in southwest Africa (Namibia), Rev. Scott is also identified with the nationalist aspirations of the peoples of Nyasaland, where he actively supported their opposition to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In 1953, he and James Sangala addressed meetings of chiefs and other Nyasaland Africans in Lilongwe and Blantyre to voice resistance to the Federation, and the two visited Northern Rhodesia to discuss anti-Federation strategy with local nationalists. In May 1953, he was also present at Lizulu, Ntcheu, when the deputy commissioner of police and his party tried to arrest Inkosi Gomani II. Scott was himself threatened by the police, and soon afterward, he left the country.

SENA. This is the language and name of the inhabitants of the area between the s.h.i.+reZambezi confluence and Chinde on the east coast. Many Sena migrated northward to the Nsanje district of Malawi where they intermarried with the Mang'anja. Sena is also the name of the town on the Zambezi, just east of point where the s.h.i.+re and the Zambezi meet.

SETTLERS' AND RESIDENTS' a.s.sOCIATION OF NYASALAND (SARAN). This organization was formed on 11 January 1960, in Limbe, by Nyasaland Europeans, mostly businessmen and farmers, determined to fight the rising tide of African nationalism in the colony. The Europeans therefore sought to establish an organ to present their views to decision makers on the maintenance of the status quo in Nyasaland. The birth of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) at the end of September 1959 had reinvigorated African political activism. Harold Macmillan and his colonial secretary Iain Macleod were set on increasing the pace of decolonization in Malawi; furthermore, Macmillan himself was due to visit the colony in February 1960. The Monckton Commission was also about to start its inquiry into the future of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. And even more worrisome for them were indications that Dr. Hastings Banda would be released from Gweru prison.

Led by J. R. Ness, SARAN was totally against one man one vote elections and strongly supported the Federation and Roy Welensky's stand on the role of European settlers in the region. It made representations to the Monckton Commission and to all levels of colonial and imperial authority, but in the end const.i.tutional changes overtook SARAN, which was virtually dead at the end of 1963. Although some of its leaders left for South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, most of its members.h.i.+p continued to live in postcolonial Malawi.

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS. See RELIGION.

SHARPE, SIR ALFRED (18531935). Second commissioner and consul general (18961907), and first governor (190710) of Nyasaland, Alfred Sharpe was born in Lancaster, England, in 1853. After attending Haileybury Colllege, he trained as a solicitor, and then practiced law in Lancaster. In 1983, he married and, two years later, he and his family left for Fiji where he became a sugarcane planter on Viti Vetu Island; he also worked as a magistrate, covering several islands in the area. As his agricultural venture failed, Sharpe left Fiji for Africa, turning down the position of district commissioner offered to him in the Gold Coast, but choosing instead to hunt in northern Zambezia. While hunting he met Harry Johnston who immediately appointed Sharpe as his vice consul. From 1889 to 1890 Sharpe, along with Johnston, negotiated treaties with chiefs in the Lake Malawi area, the purpose being to ensure that local rulers did not cede territory to other foreign powers without British approval. In 1891, the Foreign Office declared Malawi a Protectorate. Sharpe more than anyone influenced Commissioner Johnston during the early days of establis.h.i.+ng the Protectorate government, and his legal training and knowledge proved invaluable in framing the judicial and fiscal measures necessary for the new administration. Sharpe was an able replacement when Johnston went on leave, and he was the logical successor to Johnston in 1897.

During his tenure of office, Alfred Sharpe faced problems of taxes, land, and labor. His attempt to give Africans tax rebates for growing cotton failed when European planters provided only their leftover seeds. Although Sharpe realized that continued allocation of land to Europeans had to be restricted, he also wished to encourage settlers with moderate means. The result was that Africans were frequently moved about to accommodate the Europeans. Sharpe worked hard to see that Nyasaland was connected to the Mozambican coast via rail, but a large subsidy to build the s.h.i.+re Highlands Railway, through suitable cotton-producing territory, further increased pressure on an already heavily populated land. While objecting to forced labor of Africans for European planters, Sharpe made continued concessions to settlers who, generally, ignored government regulations and paid excessively low wages to labor recruits. Malawi laborers preferred to migrate to Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and South Africa, where wages were comparatively better, and Sharpe and his successors attempted to control the exodus of workers, a phenomenon that increased in subsequent years. Although Sharpe retired in 1910, he returned to Nyasaland on several occasions and wrote many articles on Nyasaland and African affairs. He also published books, including The Backbone of Africa (1921). Sharpe died on 10 December 1935.

SHARRER, EUGENE CHARLES. A British national of German extraction, Eugene Sharrer was one of the most influential planter-traders in early colonial Malawi. Sharrer arrived in Nyasaland in the late 1880s and within a few years had t.i.tle to a total of about 372,500 acres of land in Blantyre, Thyolo, Zomba, and Liwonde. With his headquarters at Kabula Hill in Blantyre, Sharrer established retail shops, the Kabula Stores, which were rivaled only by the Mandala stores, operated by the African Lakes Company (ALC). In 1895, he formed two companies, the s.h.i.+re Highlands Railway Company (SHR) and the Zambezi Traffic Company, both floated in London, the former with a capital of 100,000, and the latter with a capital of 150,000. Through the two firms, Sharrer would be a leading player in the development of railways in the Zambezia region. In 1902, he established a holding company, the British Central Africa Company, which handled all his land and commercial interests. The SHR concentrated on its proposed line from Blantyre to Chiromo; Sharrer also had steamers on the s.h.i.+re River, which transported pa.s.sengers and cargo to and from the Zambezi. A founder of the powerful s.h.i.+re Highlands Planters' a.s.sociation, Sharrer was a major coffee, tea, and tobacco grower and was one of the first to introduce Egyptian cotton to the Lake Malawi area.

s.h.i.+LOH. Located at Chikunda at a disused mission station, five miles from Blantyre, established by Joseph Booth, and named after a place in New Jersey, it became a center to promote African industry. Conceived as a self-supporting project, the African Cooperative Society (ACS), as Booth christened it, would be involved in a variety of projects aimed to raise money for its members.h.i.+p. Booth negotiated contracts such as porterage for the African Lakes Company (ALC), and only he, as agent and treasurer, controlled the organization's finances and books. The ACS's energy also went into encouraging religious and general education, and it established its own schools and at times supported independent educational schemes such as those of Morrison Malinki and Alexander Makwinja in Blantyre, Charles Domingo in Mzimba, and Andrew Mhoni in Nkhata Bay. After Booth left Malawi, the s.h.i.+loh project was managed by Walter c.o.c.kerill, who arrived in Nyasaland in 1913. However, largely because the government was suspicious of anything relating to Booth and John Chilembwe, s.h.i.+loh and its a.s.sociated schemes came to an end after the 1915 uprising.

s.h.i.+RE HIGHLANDS. With alt.i.tudes ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 feet, the plateau in southern Malawi, covering a wide area from the Zomba Mountain in the west to Mulanje in the east, has been known as the s.h.i.+re Highlands since the first Europeans to live in the area gave it the name, primarily because of the s.h.i.+re River and valley, which forms its western borders and is a major part of the plateau's drainage system. The highlands are also a major agricultural area in Malawi: tea in Mulanje and Thyolo districts; tobacco in Zomba, Machinga, Chiradzulu, Blantyre, and Thyolo; and coffee in Mulanje, Thyolo, Zomba, and Chiradzulu districts. Maize, beans, and other staple crops are widely grown in this fertile area. Home to the Mang'anja, the indigenous people of the area, it is also inhabited by the Yao, the Lomwe, and the European settler community. It is the most densely populated section of Malawi, and Blantyre, the largest city in the country, is located in the area.

s.h.i.+RE HIGHLANDS PLANTERS' a.s.sOCIATION. Formed in 1892, the s.h.i.+re Highland Planters' a.s.sociation represented a powerful block of a group of European planters led by Eugene Sharrer, who was also its first president. Soon afterward, a rival organization, the Nyasaland Planters' a.s.sociation, was formed and was led by John Moir. The two would fight over transport business, especially over the matter of railways development in the area. Although in 1895 the two organizations came together to form the British Central Africa Chamber of Agriculture and Commerce, the compet.i.tion between Moir's African Lakes Company (ALC) and Sharrer's companies, such as the Kabula Stores, continued.

s.h.i.+RE HIGHLANDS RAILWAY COMPANY. Owned by Eugene Sharrer, it was formed to promote his railway scheme between Blantyre and Chiromo in the Lower s.h.i.+re Valley. Established in 1895 and with capital of 100,000, the company was floated in London and advertised as the most suitable organization to built the rail line. In 1902, it won the bid to construct the line, which was duly completed six years later. In 1915, the company extended the line from Chiromo to Chinde (Chindio).

s.h.i.+RE RIVER AND VALLEY. The extension south of the huge rift occupied by Lake Malawi is the s.h.i.+re Valley, which is extensively covered with floodplains and swamps, the largest of which is Elephant Marsh. The s.h.i.+re River drains from Lake Malawi and is additionally fed by tributaries in the southern region. As the river tumbles over the escarpment, the current increases and rapids and cataracts abound. Nkula Falls hydroelectric site is located along this portion of the s.h.i.+re River. South of the national border, the river slows substantially before it empties into the Zambezi River and ultimately into the Indian Ocean. The area below the Mpatamanga Gorge in Chikwawa district is usually referred to as the Lower s.h.i.+re Valley, and that above the cataracts as the Upper s.h.i.+re. Development projects aimed at improving the lives of 63,000 families in the Lower s.h.i.+re have concentrated on cotton, rice, sugarcane, maize, and fish culture.

SIBALE, JOB K. (19221990s). First Malawian to head the Pentecostal Holiness a.s.sociation, Rev. Sibale was born in Kameme, Chitipa district, and educated in Northern Rhodesia, where he was a contemporary of President Kenneth Kaunda. He trained as a teacher and, after some years, returned to Nyasaland to teach at the primary school at Kameme, which was part of the Kenya Mission of the Pentecostal Holiness a.s.sociation, an American-based church. Kameme, the southern-most station of the missionary organization, was in the 1950s manned by Clarabelle Orser and Rose Klob. In 1958, Job Sibale went to the United States for theological studies, and return two years later as an ordained minister. He took over the work of the two missionaries who had left for Mbeya, Tanganyika, during the State of Emergency in 1959. Sibale expanded the work of the mission to other parts of the Chitipa district and made contact with other Pentecostal-related organization that had began to work in other parts of the country.

SICHINGA, KALUMWENZO. One of the most ill.u.s.trious African elephant hunters and ivory traders in the Lake MalawiTanganyika region in the late 19th century, Kalumwenzo Sichinga was born in the Kaponda area of Unyiha in the southwestern part of modern Tanzania in the late mid-1840s. He became an ivory hunter very early in his life in Unyiha, an area that 19th-century European adventurers and traders called the ivory mart. Impressed by his hunting skills, Swahili-Arab traders who were becoming active in the area in the 1870s introduced, and then loaned, guns to him and his partner Wazingwa Mugala. Sichinga and Mugala stole the guns and moved to the Chifungwe area not far from the source of the Luangwa River, then teaming with herds of elephants. When the Swahili-Arabs reestablished contact with them, an arrangement was made whereby the two hunters would sell ivory to them. After some time, Sichinga and Mugala moved again, this time to Kabinde in the southern part of today's southern Chitipa district, giving them a wider hunting zone that would extend to the western part of the Karonga lakesh.o.r.e. Tradition had it that it was a member of the Sichinga family who introduced Mlozi bin Kazbadema and his partners to the Ungonde. By the 1890s, they had finally settled in Nthalire, not far from the Nyika plateau. The Mugalas made their home in the Bugulira-Chisenga area. By that time, Kalumwenzo Sichinga's children became converted to Christianity, and one of them trained as a teacher and preacher in the Livingstonia Mission.

SILOMBELA, MEDSON EVANS. Medson Silombela was raised in Mangochi district and in 1964 became one of the lieutenants of Henry Chipembere who was determined to overthrow Hastings Banda's government. He and others were accused of killing eight people, including a police officer's wife and an official of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). From 1964 to his capture in 1965, he became the most wanted man in Malawi. The government sentenced him to death and, despite protest from some local churches, governments, and pressure groups abroad, the government hanged him publicly.

SKINNER REPORT. Report of a commission appointed to examine and recommend on the conditions of the Nyasaland civil service as the country approached independence from British rule. Chaired by T. M. Skinner, the commission made its report in May 1964, and among the recommendations were: an increase in the salaries of lower-grade civil servants; a reduction in the salaries of those in the upper grades; and a status quo for those in the middle grades; a pension fund would also be started. Very few of the suggestions were explained to the African civil servants, with the result that deductions in salaries, and especially for the pension fund, were not understood and were highly resented. When the new prime minister, Hastings Banda, supported the Skinner Report, several of his ministers disagreed stating that their const.i.tuents were much alarmed. When Banda further announced that he could not hasten Africanization of the civil service unless the candidates were qualified, the Skinner Report took on another dimension and became an important factor in the Cabinet Crisis in September 1964.

SLAVE TRADE. From the 1850s onward, the Lake Malawi region became a major part of the east African slave trade carried out mainly by the Swahili-Arabs and their agents, the Yao, some of whom had already been Islamized at this time. Even before settling in the southern part of Lake Malawi in the 1860s, the Yao had engaged in ivory trade with the people of the latter area. The s.h.i.+ft from ivory and other items to the commerce in human beings occurred when their Swahili-Arab partners at the coast became deeply involved in the slave trade. Although large areas in the s.h.i.+re Highlands and the Upper s.h.i.+re River became engulfed in the commerce, the main slave trading center in the south was at Mangochi, the territory of Yao chief Mponda. In the central and northern regions of Malawi, Swahili-Arabs were the princ.i.p.al perpetrators of the slave trade. Nkhotakota was a major trading base, handling as many as 10,000 slaves annually in the late 19th century. The Swahili leader, or Jumbe, in this central region, maintained both economic and political control until 1895, when the newly established British colonial government exiled him to Zanzibar. In the extreme north, Mlozi bin Kazbadema was accused of carrying out this trade.

Europeans learned of the slave trade as a result of David Livingstone's visits to Malawi. Livingstone observed the trade during journeys made in 185456 and 185859 through south and central Malawi as well as along the western sh.o.r.es of Lake Malawi. When he returned to England, he advocated the promotion of legitimate commerce, Christianity, and Western civilization in this part of Africa, arguing that they would effectively drive out the slave traders. Three missions, the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), Livingstonia, and Blantyre responded immediately to Livingstone's appeals and soon found themselves embroiled in slave disputes, particularly when escaped slaves sought refuge at mission stations.

When the British Foreign Office formally announced the formation of the Protectorate in 1891, it instructed the commissioner and consul general, Harry Johnston, to stop the slave trade. After persuasion and diplomacy failed, Johnston used troops imported from India to fight any traces of it. In southern Malawi, the Yao involved in the slave trade either abandoned it or fled the Protectorate. By the end of 1895, Mlozi was captured and executed, and Mwene Heri, the last Jumbe at Nkhotakota, was deposed and sent to Zanzibar.

SMITH, GEORGE, KCMG (18781938). Born in England, George Smith joined the British civil service in 1878 as a clerk in the War Office. In the following year, he was transferred to Cyprus where he served in different capacities: clerk in the chief 'secretary's office (187983), a.s.sistant chief secretary (188391), district commissioner (189193), registrar general (18931905), and acting receiver and chief collector of customs (19059). In 1910, he was appointed colonial secretary in Mauritius and, three years later, was promoted as governor of Nyasaland. Sir George Smith is credited with the move toward the establishment of the Nyasaland police force in 1921. He retired in 1923, and died in England.

SOCIETY OF MALAWI. Formerly the Nyasaland Society, this organization, formed in 1946, promotes a better understanding of Malawi's past and present through a healthy discussion of a wide range of subjects, including history, anthropology, literature, travel, and the natural sciences. The articles in its main publication, The Society of Malawi Journal, reflect the a.s.sociation's aims; the society also maintains, in one of the old Mandala houses in Blanytre, a reference library for its members and visitors. In the late 1950s, the society was instrumental in encouraging the establishment of the national Museum of Malawi, and in the 1960s, it played an equally important role in the creation of the government's Department of Antiquities.

SOLOMON, HARTWELL. Born in Chiradzulu district, he attended school locally and briefly in South Africa before working in the Wit.w.a.tersrand area of South Africa, where he learned some skills in carpentry and was also introduced to Marxist ideas. Upon his return to Nyasaland in the period after World War II, he worked for the Nyasaland Transport Company (NTC) where he met fellow worker, Grant M. Mkandawire. The two, both widely read and interested in international affairs, became close friends and active in African politics. Upon leaving NTC in 1949, he joined a South African firm Trevor Construction, and a year later he left to become a brick maker and joiner. Soon after he bought a lorry, which he would hire out to his friends. In 1953, he, like Mkandawire and others such as James Mpunga, Lawrence Mataka, Kinross Kulunjiri, and Lali Lubani, became a founding member of the African Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He was also among the numerous Africans who were forced out of the Chichiri area during the rezoning of BlantyreLimbe of 1956 and had to settle in the KanjedzaSoche part of town. Between 1953 and 1956, he was one of the radical wing of the Nyasaland African Congress who rebelled against the leaders.h.i.+p of the organization, especially because of its weak stand on the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

SOMANJE, SYDNEY (?1986). Businessman, founding member of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), and treasurer general of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) from 1964 to 1986, Sydney Somanje belonged to one of the established Blantyre families. Educated at Blantyre Mission, he became involved in welfare politics in that town and in time became a close a.s.sociate of James Sangala, Charles Matinga, Ellerton Mposa, and other African leaders in Blantyre and in the Southern Province Native a.s.sociation. A team player and noted negotiator, Somanje was a key person in the meetings leading to the formation of the Nyasaland African Congress and he would remain an active member of the organization. In 1959, he was part of the group comprising Orton Chirwa, Aleke Banda, Dina Chechwa Bwanausi, Shadrek Khonje, and others who formed the Malawi Congress Party, the Central Committee of which he would be a member. After the Cabinet Crisis, Somanje replaced Henry Chipembere as treasurer general of the MCP and held that position until his death.

SONGWE RIVER. Marking the northern boundary of Malawi with Tanzania, the Songwe River rises in southern Tanzania and flows southeastward though Unyiha and Ulambya, cutting between the Misuku Hills and Ndali Hills and into the fertile plains which separate Ungonde from Unyakyusa, emptying into Lake Malawi near Kaporo, and becoming one of the lake's main sources of water. Most of the reliable tributaries of the Songwe flow from the hills in Undali.

SORGHUM. With a variety of names, including Guinea corn (West Africa) and kaffir corn (southern Africa), sorghum was the main staple in the Lake Malawi region before maize (corn) began to replace it in the 19th century. Although more resistant to drought than maize, its ripening seeds are a favorite food for birds, making it a labor-intensive crop. A smallholder crop and today mostly used for beer brewing, the production of sorghum fluctuated in the 1990s, varying from 20,000 tons in 1995 to 46,500 tons in 1997, and rising rapidly in the early 2000s to reach 127,396 tons in 2007. Generally the increase in the sorghum industry is directly attributable to the decision of Chibuku Products (Malawi) to use as much local sorghum as possible in the production of grain-based beer. See also AGRICULTURE.

SOSEYA. Of the village of Emveyeyeni and house of Lompetu, Soseya was the daughter of Zwide and mother of Ntuto, better known as Mpezeni, son of Zw.a.n.gendaba. She had become a wife of Zw.a.n.gendaba after her sister, the inkosikazi (great wife), had failed to bear a child. However, Mpezeni did not succeed his father as expected because Soseya had been demoted following suspicions that her house wanted to poison the Ngoni leader. Instead, Munene Nzima became the inkosikazi, and her son, Mhlalo, would succeed his father.

SOUTH AFRICA. South Africa and Malawi have had close linkages dating to the 19th century when the Ngoni migrated into the northern Zambezia region. In the 1880s, the first Malawian students from Blantyre and Livingstonia Missions went to study at Lovedale, the Free Church of Scotland educational center in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Early in the 20th century, Nyasaland, like Mozambique, became a major labor catchment area for the emerging mining and farming industries in South Africa. Labor agencies recruited thousands of Nyasalanders to South Africa on short-term contracts; many others went to the region on their own, working in a variety of jobs, including as domestic servants and as cooks and waiters in the hotel industry. Labor recruitment, mainly by the Wit.w.a.tersrand Native Labour a.s.sociation (WENELA) continued until the 1980s (see MIGRANT LABOR). Another early connection between South Africa and Malawi was tertiary education. In the 1950s, Malawians, such as Henry Chipembere and Orton Chirwa, studied at Fort Hare University in the eastern Cape, an inst.i.tution that educated many future leaders of southern Africa.

In 1967, Malawi established diplomatic relations with the South African government, despite the fact that most countries of the world were in the process of imposing economic, political, and cultural sanctions against that country because of its apartheid system. Malawi's action was loudly condemned, but President Hastings Banda argued that he had good economic and political reasons for moving closer to South Africa. Banda was interested in obtaining aid for the construction of a new capital at Lilongwe and for the completion of the Nacala railway line. Other economic motives included the need to expand its export market and to develop tourism in Malawi. South African business was encouraged to invest in Malawi, and many South African professionals were employed in key positions in industry, especially in the expanding Press Corporation Ltd.

Banda also pointed out that violence was not the key to changing black and white relations, but rather that promoting a dialogue with South Africa could produce reform. His policy of contact and dialogue, along with his anticommunist opinions, were popular in South Africa, which extended an invitation for a state visit to Banda in 1971. During his five-day stay, he visited both black and white leaders; shortly after this, the South African government accepted Malawi's amba.s.sador, the first black diplomat to reside in Pretoria. Throughout the Mozambican civil war, Malawi's rail connections to the east coast were greatly disrupted, resulting in a greater use of Durban for its external trade. Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana (RENAMO), the resistance movement that fought the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) government, and which was strongly suspected of receiving a.s.sistance from Banda's government, was significantly dependent on South Africa.

When the African National Congress (ANC) won the first universal adult suffrage general elections in South Africa in 1994, the government it formed was not particularly warm toward Malawi because of its history of close relations with the National Party government it had just defeated. Although in the period leading to the elections Banda had given a substantial amount of money to Nelson Mandela on behalf of the ANC, and in spite of the fact that there was a change of government in Malawi at about the same time as in South Africa, the relations remained cool for some time. The situation began to improve as the decade pa.s.sed; trade and diplomatic relations were never broken and were even strengthened. Under a trade agreement, Malawi has an open market with South Africa, meaning that Malawi's goods enter the latter country free as long as they satisfy the 25 percent local content.

However, attempts by the Bakili Muluzi government to resume contract labor migration to the South African gold mines failed because the high rates of unemployment in South Africa led President Mandela's administration to adopt protectionist measures. A phenomenon following political reforms in South Africa has been the brain drain of highly trained personnel from Malawi, as from other countries north of the Limpopo, to better paying jobs in South Africa. The Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika government, like its predecessor, has continued to work closely with the South African government in matters of mutual interests, especially through the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).

SOUTH RUKURU. One of the longest rivers in Malawi, and one of the major feeders of Lake Malawi, the South Rukuru rises in southern Mzimba district, flows westward and then northward, entering Lake Kazuni in the MzimbaRumphi border area where it turns northeastward through the gorge at Njakwa flowing through the Henga Valley, pa.s.sing east of the Nyika plateau, and finally dropping into the lake at Mlowe. Plans are to dam a section of it for hydroelectric purposes SOUTHERN AFRICA. Southern Africa refers to the region marked by Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, and Angola in the north and South Africa in the south. It also includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland. See also SOUTHERN AFRICA DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY.

SOUTHERN AFRICA DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY (SADC). The Southern Africa Development Community grew out of the Southern Africa Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) formed in 1980 by nine states of Southern Africa, including Malawi. The goals of SADCC were to coordinate regional development and to reduce their economic dependence on South Africa, which at the time was still guided by racial segregationist policies. The other eight SADCC states were Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe; in 1990 Namibia also became a member. Together, they represented a total population of over 80 million people. Each SADCC member was a.s.signed responsibility for specific sectors of development; for Malawi, it is fisheries, forestry, and wildlife. Each member is responsible for initiating project proposals, for seeking financial a.s.sistance from donors, and for implementing the projects.

A major priority of SADCC was to establish transport outlets independent of South Africa, and more specifically, to rehabilitate three transport corridors: the Beira corridor, connecting Zimbabwe with the Mozambique coast by rail; the northern corridor linking the region with Dar-es-Salaam via the Tazara Railway and the Zambian rail system; and the Malawi corridor to Mozambique's port of Nacala. In Malawi, the transportation project involved upgrading two trans.h.i.+pment ports and the maintenance of Chilumba port on Lake Malawi so as to help establish a link between Malawi and Dar-es-Salaam via the Tazara Railway.

SADCC has been very effective with its project approach. By the end of the 1980s, the organization had obtained the backing of foreign donors and had completed many of its transport and communication schemes. Ambitious and successful, SADCC had approved nearly 600 national or regional projects having a net worth of over US$7 billion.

In 1994, South Africa joined SADCC and its aims had to be modified and expanded to reflect this development. The name of this regional organization was then changed to Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), and its members.h.i.+p has expanded to include the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Mauritius, and the Seych.e.l.les. In 1997, Malawi hosted the SADC heads of state meeting, and President Bakili Muluzi has served a term as chairman of the organization. His successor, Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika, has continued to play a significant role in the organization, which hopes to be a monetary union one day. Throughout the 2000s, SADC has been involved in settling the political crisis in Zimbabwe.

SOUTHERN RHODESIA. See ZIMBABWE.

SOUTHWORTH COMMISSION. Led by Justice Frederick Southworth of Nyasaland's High Court, this commission was appointed by the governor, Sir Robert Armitage, to investigate the demonstration that took place on 26 January 1960, at the Ryall's Hotel, while Harold Macmillan, the British prime minister, was attending a civic luncheon in the hotel. Although a modest demonstration, especially given the state of emergency, its magnitude was much exaggerated in the reports of the press corp accompanying Macmillan. Calls were made locally to inquire into the demonstration, hence the name Southworth Commission.

SPECIAL BRANCH. This division of the police, which deals with matters pertaining to security and antistate political activities, was, until 1959, known as the Political Intelligence Bureau or the Security Branch and dates back to the World War II era when the British empire was beginning to be concerned with the spread of communist ideas in the world. It expanded greatly with the heightening of African political activities in Nyasaland during the post-1958 period, especially following the State of Emergence of 1959. The Special Branch would grow even more powerful under Dr. Hastings Banda's leaders.h.i.+p when it was used to spy on Malawians, especially those perceived to hold opinions not entirely favorable to the government. The division became an integral part in the abuse of human rights, sending many people into long periods of imprisonment without trial, often for unsubstantiated reasons. As a result, it was one of the most feared inst.i.tutions in Malawi. The advent of political reform in the 1990s ushered in a healthier att.i.tude in the Special Branch, which is no longer regarded as acting against the interests of the citizens of Malawi. When the Bakili Muluzi government established the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB