Yatuta Chisiza
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Yatuta Chisiza (born 1926 – died October 1967, near Blantyre, Malawi) was a Malawi minister of home affairs who led a brief guerrilla incursion into the country in October 1967. He is considered one of the most important figures in pre and post colonial politics in Malawi.
He entered Mwanza district from Tanzania with nine others.[1] In the following clash with security forces on 9 October 1967 he and two other members of insurgent forces were killed, five captured, others fleeing.[2]
Chisiza was born[3] in the Karonga district of northern Malawi (then Nyasaland) in 1926, to Kaluli Chisiza, a Group Village Headman. He was educated at Uliwa Junior Primary School and at the mission school at Livingstonia. He subsequently worked as an Assistant Inspector of Police in Tanzania (then Tanganyika) and returned to Malawi in 1958. For a short time he, together with his brother Dunduzu Chisiza, attempted to go in business operating a butcher's shop in Blantyre market,[4] but this venture soon failed.
Nyasaland Independence Movement
After the historic Nyasaland African Congress convention in January 1959, he was appointed as bodyguard to Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who later became the first premier of Malawi. He was arrested along with hundreds of others (including his brother) in the dawn raids of Operation Sunrise on 3 March 1959, when the colonial administration declared a state of emergency in Nyasaland. In 1960 he was named as Secretary General of the MCP under Banda's presidency. He was imprisoned in Khami Prison near Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia. He was released, some months after Banda, in September 1960.
Political career
After the death of his brother, Dunduzu Chisiza, in September 1962, Yatuta was elected to the Legislative Council for Karonga district and Banda appointed him Minister of Home Affairs.
Nyasaland cabinet crisis
Not long after Malawi had gained independence from Great Britain in July 1964, he was one of several cabinet ministers who, chafing under an increasingly autocratic leadership, were ousted by Banda in the Cabinet Crisis of 1964. He fled the country and, allegedly after undergoing military training in China, later conducted guerilla operations against the Banda regime from Tanzania. Here, Chisiza founded the Socialist League of Malawi (LESOMA), the most radical Malawian party in opposition to the Banda regime. Chisiza was succeeded by Attati Mpakati. Another exiled Malawian and important member of LESOMA was Mahoma M. Mwaungulu.