ZAMBIA’S FIRST PRESIDENT KENNETH KAUNDA DIES AT 97

Thu 17 June 2021:

Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s founding president and liberation hero, has died at a military hospital in Lusaka where he was being treated for pneumonia, his son, Kambarage, said on Thursday. He was 97.

Kaunda ruled Zambia from 1964, when the southern African nation won its independence from Britain, until 1991, and afterwards become one of Africa’s most committed activists against HIV/AIDS.

“I am sad to inform (members) we have lost Mzee. Let’s pray for him,” Kambarage said on the late president’s Facebook page.

The former president had been feeling unwell and had been admitted to the Maina Soko Medical Centre in Lusaka earlier this week.

Although Zambia’s copper-based economy fared badly under his long stewardship, Kaunda will be remembered more for his role as an anti-colonial fighter who stood up to white minority-ruled South Africa and in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

The youngest of eight children, Kaunda’s father died when he was eight years old. His mother was a teacher – a rare profession for Zambian women in those days.

He started his political career as organising secretary of the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress (ANC) in the Northern Province of Zambia.

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