Zambia first President, Kenneth Kaunda dies at 97

Kenneth Kaunda, First President of Zambia

 

Tony Nwakaegho and Agency Report  

Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s founding president and liberation hero, has died at a military hospital in Lusaka where he was 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 became 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.

Zambia Shall Be Free is a 1962 political autobiography by Zambia’s first president Kenneth Kaunda that was published as part of the Heinemann African Writers Series. The biography is a critique of colonial rule, and the power of democracy in liberating the varied people ruled in the new Zambia.

 

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