INSURGENCY IN MALAWI

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05850377
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: August 14, 2018
• Case Number: F-2017-01462
• Publication Date: March 9, 1965

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OCI No. 0933/65
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Current Intelligence
9 March 1965
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
Insurgency in Malawi
1. The 12 February raid on Fort Johnston, a dis-
trict headquarters within 100 miles of the Malawi capi-
tal, apparently marked the start of a terrorist campaign
by the former cabinet ministers determined to overthrow
Prime Minister Banda. This dramatic show of force has
improved their prospects for receiving assistance from
foreign African nationalists who share their resentment
of Banda's collaboration with the Portuguese in neighbor-
ing Mozambique. Although a popular uprising does not
appear imminent, guerrilla operations, sustained with
minimal foreign aid, could in the long run tip the bal-
ance against Banda.
2. Banda is currently in a strong position. He
is, however, faced with the difficulty of trying to ride
two horses at once. Because of Malawi's exposed geo-
graphical position vis-a-vis Mozambique and the fact
that Malawi's only transport route to the sea runs
through Portuguese territory, Banda has felt forced to
maintain cordial and friendly relations with the Por-
tuguese. On the other hand, he is acutely aware of Af-
rican nationalist pressures, and on the surface at least
he is trying not to be put in the position of opposing
the advance of African liberation. He is likewise aware
of the threat to himself posed by armed Mozambique "free-
dom fighters" who sometimes transit Malawi territory.
If pressures from the various anti-Portuguese elements
become too strong, Banda may well renounce collabora-
tion with the Portuguese.
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3. The present guerrilla movement in Malawi
arose from a political stalemate that has prevailed
since last September, when the six most capable
members of Prime Minister Banda's cabinet broke with
him--a heavy blow for a talent-starved government
barely two months after it had achieved nominal in-
dependence from Britain. Initially the breach was
essentially a personality clash without clear-cut
issues; the dissident ministers challenged Banda's
blatantly autocratic conduct. In September, they
barnstormed around Malawi, stressing Banda's re-
fusal to replace British civil servants with
Africans. Then all except former education minister
Henry Masauko Chipembere assembled in Dar es Salaam
where,theybegan soliciting support from foreign
African nationalists and calling attentj,on to Banda's
manifest policy of collaboration with the Portuguese
authorities in Mozambique. The dissidents at first
professed readiness to compromise with Banda, but
by December Chipembere circulated a manifesto in
Malawi asserting that he and his former colleagues
were organizing a liberation movement with unspec-
ified foreign support. Remaining in Malawi, Chipem-
bere eluded intensive police searches and apparently
organized a resistance movement in the Fort Johnston
district, his home constituency.
4. Chipembere
is the leader of the guerrilla band, some 240 strong,
which attacked the district headquarters. During
the night of 12 February they struck two police
stations and a post office, cut communications,
seized 85 weapons and several vehicles, and success-
fully withdrew.
5. When government troops reached Fort Johnston
the morning after the attack they found the raiders
had disappeared. However, an all-out drive to capture
Chipembere's followers has so far yielded only limited
results. Many suspects have been rounded up in the
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Fort Johnston area, but no more than a fourth of the
guerrilla band had been captured or killed by 3 March.
The majority are dispersed in extremely rugged terrain,
where individuals or small groups can survive indef-
initely with minimal help from the populace. Several
hit-and-run attacks since 12 February have been at.
tributed to the rebels, including the killing of a
village headman near Fort Johnston and a strike at
a police outpost within 10 miles of Zomba.
6. Rumors of an imminent attack on Zomba continue
to gain wide credence, and the rebels apparently hope
that a continuation of minor strikes and grand threats
will tip the psychological balance against Banda.
However, a widespread popular uprising does not appear
imminent. Banda retains firm control of the Malawi
Congress Party--the only political party in the country
--while Chipembere and his colleagues apparently have
not gained mass support outside the Fort Johnston
district and Zomba itself where many civil servants
have become disaffected at Banda's increasingly
arbitrary rule. The Malawi Army of four infantry
companies and the 2,800-man police force are officered
mostly by British expatriates, who are still Banda's
mainstay in default of Malawians qualified for key
positions.
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7. Apart from the elimination of Banda, the
dissidents' objectives are unknown, and the extent
and origin of their foreign support are not clearly
established. Banda's charges that several of the
ex-ministers have accepted bribes from Communist
China are unsubstantiated. Tanzania's President
Nyerere professes a policy of nonintervention, and
has ostensibly banned political action by the refugees
from Malawi,but Oscar Kambona, the radical Tanianian foreign
minister, has occasionally given favorable publicity (b)(1)
to the ex-ministers. (b)(3)
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In any case, it is clear from the precise organization
and execution of the Fort Johnston raid that the
guerrillas have received foreign paramilitary training.
8. Aside from Chipembere's movement, the most
immediate external threat to Banda's regime is posed
by the Tanzania-based Mozambique Liberation Front
(FRELIMO), whose guerrilla fighters occasionally
take refuge in Malawi. FRELIMO also apparently main-
tains a regular smuggling channel through Malawi into
central Mozambique. In January the Malawi police
arrested ten FRELIMO agents who were carrying arms,
ammunition, radios, and Portuguese uniforms.
Continuation of FRELIMO arms smuggling nevertheless
leaves an effective channel which could be used for
arming Banda's enemies within Malawi. Unless Banda
completely reverses his pro-Portuguese policy, the
Mozambique freedom fighters and their Tanzanian sup-
porters still have an overriding motive for giving
covert assistance to the anti-Band movement. (Map)
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