By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s first president and one of the last of the generation of African leaders who fought colonialism, has died aged 97.
Kaunda was admitted to a military hospital in the capital, Lusaka, on Monday suffering from pneumonia. His aides said he did not have Covid-19.
In the 1950s, Kaunda was a key figure in what was then Northern Rhodesia’s independence movement from Britain.
He became president following independence in 1964.
As head of the left-leaning United National Independence Party (UNIP), Kaunda then led the country through decades of one-party rule.
He stepped down after losing multi-party elections in 1991.
Meanwhile the Nelson Mandela Foundation is saddened by the news that former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda has passed away. “Our thoughts are with his family, friends and comrades.”
It is no accident that former President Kaunda was one of the speakers at the funeral of Nelson Mandela. Madiba first met Kaunda in 1962 during his travels through Africa to secure support for a nascent armed struggle in South Africa. He next saw him soon after his release from prison in February 1990, when he visited Lusaka at the start of another tour of the African continent. The two leaders then maintained a friendship which would endure until Madiba’s passing in 2013.
That 1990 visit to Lusaka was emblematic of the role Zambia played in South Africa’s liberation struggle under Kaunda’s leadership. African National Congress (ANC) headquarters were located in Lusaka for many years. Zambia paid a heavy price for its support, with the country suffering systematic destabilisation by the apartheid state. In the 1980s Kaunda began to give his support to initiatives designed to find a negotiated transfer of power in South Africa. Many of the earliest engagements between the ANC and structures of the South African state and civil society took place in Zambia.
In 1991 Kaunda stepped down from power after losing a democratic election. Soon thereafter Madiba was asked what lessons this offered the leadership of the ANC. Madiba responded: “No, there were really no new … lessons. We have seen established politicians … being defeated by other political parties which were in opposition and there was nothing new in that. Kaunda had … played his role, had served Zambia, the Southern African region of this continent and the rest of the continent, and the people wanted change, that is all. That would have happened anywhere in the world.”
“We will not forget Kaunda’s contributions to the struggles against colonialism and apartheid, nor the lessons his life holds for reflection on how democracy should be measured and how it can be deepened.”
President Hage Geingob said Africa has lost a giant of a man as he reacted to the death of Zambia’s Founding President, Kenneth Kaunda.
Dr Geingob described KK, as he was affectionately known, as generous, affable and above all resolute in his commitment to freedom of Southern Africa.
He said Africans, especially Namibians will be eternally grateful for Kaunda’s stellar contributions to Namibia’s struggle for independence.
During the 2016 visit to Lusaka Zambia, President Geingob held talks with Kaunda whom he likened to a father who took up the responsibility of providing shelter to Namibians.
Zambian President Edgar Lungu said the country was mourning “a true African icon”.
“I learnt of your passing this afternoon with great sadness,” he wrote on Facebook. “On behalf of the entire nation and on my own behalf I pray that the entire Kaunda family is comforted as we mourn our first president and true African icon.”
The government declared three weeks of national mourning with all forms of entertainment suspended.
Kaunda – popularly known as KK – was a strong supporter of efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. He was also a leading supporter of liberation movements in Mozambique and what is now Zimbabwe.