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The UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa joins the rest of world in mourning Zambia’s former President Kenneth Kaunda who passed away on 17 June 2021 at the age of 97.

President Kaunda ruled Zambia from 1964, when the Southern African nation won its independence from Britain, until 1991, and afterwards became one of the most committed activists against HIV/AIDS in Africa.

The former president – affectionately known as KK started his political career as the organising secretary of the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress (NRANC) in the Northern Province of Zambia. In 1958, he broke from the NRANC to form the Zambian African National Congress (ZANC). The colonial authorities banned it a year later, and Kaunda was imprisoned in Lusaka for nine months. ZANC became the United Party for National Development (UNIP) in 1959.

The following year, Kaunda was released from prison and elected president of the nationalist, left-of-centre UNIP. He then started organising civil disobedience known as the Cha-cha-cha campaign.

It was the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi that made Kaunda committed to non-violent principles. Kaunda was not ashamed to weep in public and had a unique speaking style, emphasising key thoughts by repeating whole sentences, his trademark white handkerchief in his left hand. He espoused an ideology of “humanism” mixing Christian ethics, traditional African values and socialistic principles. Using his rhetorical skills to appeal to the public, Kaunda won independence for his nation without resorting to violence in 1964. 

In foreign policy, President Kaunda provided logistical help to other African liberation movements, including the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa.

The ANC’s Radio Freedom was allowed to broadcast from Lusaka and it was under Kaunda’s protection that the ANC waged an armed struggle, then a diplomatic one against apartheid. Zambia also helped Zimbabwe gain its independence from white minority rule in 1980.

President Kaunda became an AIDS campaigner, announcing publicly that one of his sons had died from the illness. Throughout the African continent, many streets, buildings and airports are named after him. And even in old age, he repeatedly raised his voice in public against perceived injustices as well as the oppression of minorities.

UNESCO ROSA expresses its deepest condolences to the people of Zambia, Africa and indeed the rest of the world on this tragic loss.