Former Malawi President Kamuzu Banda, an autocrat with a streak of brutality who led the former British colony to statehood, has died. He was believed to be 99.
Banda died of respiratory failure Tuesday night at the Garden City Clinic in Johannesburg, where he had been under intensive care for pneumonia, hospital spokeswoman Amelda Swartz said Wednesday.Banda, who underwent brain surgery in South Africa in 1993, was hospitalized in Malawi on Nov. 15, suffering from fever and pneumonia. He was transferred to the Johannesburg clinic two days later in a coma.
His longtime companion, Cecilia Kadzamira, and his personal physician from Malawi were at his bedside when he died, Swartz said.
Banda led Malawi to independence in 1964 and went on to head one of Africa's most brutal and isolated dictatorships for three decades. He was ousted in 1994 in the country's first democratic elections.
Malawi is a small impoverished land of 8 million bordered by Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia.
"We have lost the founder of the nation," said John Chikago, the Malawi high commissioner in South Africa. "We will miss him."
Chikago said Banda's body would be transported back to Malawi, perhaps as soon as Thursday, for a state funeral.
A spokesman for President Bakili Muluzi, who defeated Banda in the 1994 election, said on state radio that Muluzi's Cabinet would meet today to make plans for the funeral and a period of mourning.
The announcement showed that despite Banda's oppressive rule, Muluzi intended to let Malawians pay last respects to the man who ruled their country for most of their lives.
During Banda's rule, thousands of political opponents were killed, tortured, jailed without trial or hounded into exile. He was known for peculiar dictates that banned long hair on men, short skirts on women and even the Simon and Garfunkel song "Cecilia" in deference to Kadzamira, one of the country's most powerful figures who held the title of "official hostess."