Our Leader of Delegation, the indomitable, the most hard working, the most travelled, the dealmaker (dulimaker) of all time, the Genuine Professor Dr Joyce Befu, MG 33 and MEGA-1, has told us, no, has commanded us, rather has ordered us to thank President, Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, PhD, for his gesture.
It has been a long wait. Sixty-six years. For 66 years, people have cried. In the 66 years, presidents have come and gone. Kamuzu Banda came and went out of power and to his grave. Nothing happened apart from speeches.
Bakili Muluzi came and went (out of power) but without a single day of acknowledgement. Bingu wa Mutharika came and went out of power and to his grave, nothing happened apart from speeches. However, (ka)Ngwazi Bingu wanted to unearth the truth and he sent excavators to dig up and found nothing.
Joyce Banda came and went out of power. Peter Arthur Mutharika came and went out power without setting his holy foot there.
You, Mr President, went there and promised. And your promises have birthed reality.
For 66 years, we dramatised the people’s frustrations. In the 66 years, the majority of witnesses died. Even perpetrators died. But in 66 years some were courageous, kept clinging on to hope.
They remember what happened as John Brock, acting on behalf of the British government, ordered the massacre following those songs that reminded him about the agreement. They sang those old songs; songs of defiance.
Tingupangana mchaka chiya cha 1891/We agreed in 1891
Asani tasambila/When we get educated
Azungu kwawu ku Yuropu/Europeans back to Europe
Amwenye ku India/ Indians back to India
Nanga Tawafipa? /And we, the Africans?
Afipa mu Afirika/Africans in Africa
And this one:
Ndamukambiya Buloko/ I told (DC) John Brock
Lutanga kwako ku London/Go back to London
Ndawelezgapu kachiŵi/ I repeated
Lutanga kwako ku London/ Go back to London
Wadandaula Buloko/ Brock wept
Kwidu nkhutali ku London/Home, London, is far
Kulivi malu ghakujaku /I don’t own land there.
Then they were shot. In cold blood. They were unarmed but they were gunned down like criminals, in their own land, their fatherland.
In the last-half of the 66 years, lawyers and politicians have tried to get compensation for the martyrs. Prominent among these has been Ralph Mhoni whose file is still in Britain. Unfortunately, it is fellow Malawians who have reinforced the British resolve not to pay compensation for mass murder and refusal to indicate where the people they killed were buried.
Mr President, thank you for remembering to console, not compensate, the families of the martyrs, from Blantyre, Thyolo, Lilongwe, Likoma, Karonga and Nkhata Bay murdered in their localities. The consolation was long overdue but it has been accepted.
Thank you, Mr Minister of Justice for taking our appeal seriously when we came to meet you in your office.
Thank you, Counsel Viva Nyimba, for selflessly serving your people. Don’t tire. Now, we need those remains back, even if it is one bone, like Patrice Lumumba’s tooth. We will bury it and close the chapter.
