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The Malawi Government and South African Labour Recruiters, 1974–92

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Wiseman Chijere Chirwa
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Extract

In April 1974, 74 Malawian migrant labourers returning from work in South Africa died in a plane crash in Francistown, Botswana. Immediately, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the then [Life] President of Malawi, banned all labour recruiting activities in his country. Miners on holiday were not allowed to go back to their jobs, and those under contract with the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA), known as Wenela, were to be repatriated — a decision that cost the South African mining industry some R7 million during the next two years. Thereafter, Dr Banda frequently boasted that ‘I have killed Wenela’, as for example on two public occasions in 1983: I have killed two recruiting agencies, the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, Wenela, in short, and the Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau, or Mthandii… They no longer recruit in Malawi. They have surrendered all their buildings to the government…, because the majority of the people have responded to my appeal to stay here and work in their gardens or on the estates.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , December 1996 , pp. 623 - 642
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 State Address to Parliament, 3 August 1983. It should be noted that the Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau had officially stopped operating in Nyasaland (as Malawi was then called) in the late 1950s.

2 Opening Address to the Annual Convention of the Malawi Congress Party, Lilongwe, 4 September 1983.

3 Christiansen, Robert E. and Kydd, Jonathan G., ‘The Return of Malawian Labour from South Africa and Zimbabwe’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 21, 2, 06 1983, pp. 311–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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5 See, for example, Humphrey, D. H., ‘Malawi's Economic Progress and Prospects’, in East Africa Economic Review (Nairobi), 5, 2, 1973, pp. 71–104;Google ScholarThomas, S., ‘Economic Development in Malawi since Independence’, in Journal of Southern African Studies, 2, 1, 1975, pp. 30–51;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Acharya, S. N., ‘Development Perspectives and Priorities in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in Finance and Development (Washington, DC), 18, 1, 1981, pp. 16–24,Google Scholar and ‘Perspectives and Problems of Development in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in World Development (Oxford), 9, 2, 1981, pp. 109–47.Google Scholar

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12 Ibid.

13 Government of Malawi and the United Nations, Malawi: situation analysis of poverty (Lilongwe, 1993), p. 74.Google Scholar

14 Ibid. p. 9.

15 State Address to Parliament, 3 August 1983.

16 Christiansen, Robert E. and Kydd, Jonathan G., ‘The Pattern of Internal Migration’, p. 129.Google Scholar

17 The River Banga is in the Limphasa Settlement Rice Scheme that was developed with Taiwan Chinese technical aid in the early 1970s.

18 Kydd, ‘Malawi in the 1970s’, p. 348. For an opposing view, see Pryor and Chipeta, loc. cit. pp. 50–74.

19 Hirschmann, David, ‘Malawi's “Captured” Peasantry: an empirical analysis’, in Journal of Developing Areas (Macomb, IL), 24, 07 1990, p. 473, using figures taken from Kydd and Christiansen, ‘Structural Change’.Google Scholar

20 Kydd, ‘Malawi in the 1970s’, p. 348.

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22 National Statistical Office, Employment and Earnings Annual Report, 1984–1986 (Zomba, 1986), as cited in Malawi: situation analysis, p. 124.Google Scholar

23 Cf. Head, Judith, ‘Migrant Mine Labour from Mozambique: what prospects?’, International Conference on Transforming Mine Migrancy in the 1990s, Cape Town, 27–29 June 1994.Google Scholar

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27 Dr Banda addressing Parliament, Zomba, 6 March 1980.

28 Record of Proceedings, 7 February 1980.

29 See Vail, Leroy, ‘Ethnicity, Language and National Unity: the case of Malawi’, in Bonner, P., Working Papers in Southern African Studies, Vol. 2 (Johannesburg, 1981);Google ScholarAfrica Watch, Where Silence Rules: the suppression of dissent in Malawi (London and New York, 1990);Google ScholarLwanda, J. L., Kamuzu Banda of Malawi (London, 1991);Google Scholar and Kamwambe, N., The Tragedy of Malawians: legacy of one party rule (Mojo Press, 1992).Google Scholar

30 For details, see Coleman, Gilroy, ‘International Labour Migration from Malawi, 1875–1966’, in Journal of Social Science (Zomba), 2, 1973, pp. 31–46,Google Scholar and ‘Regional and District Origins of Migrant Labour from Malawi to 1966’, in ibid. 6, 1977, pp. 44–59. Also, Chirwa, W. C., ‘“Theba” is Power: rural labour, migrancy and fishing in Malawi, 1890s–1985’, Ph.D. dissertation, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, 1992.Google Scholar

31 Record of Proceedings, 7 February and 13 March 1980.

32 Ibid. 27 March 1980.

33 TEBA Office, ‘Memorandum on the Malawi Agreement: some alternatives’, Lilongwe, undated 1980.Google Scholar

34 Ibid.

35 TEBA reports, Lilongwe.

36 Rickett, E. W., Manager, TEBA Office, Lilongwe, 21 October, 1982.Google Scholar

37 TEBA reports, Lilongwe.

38 See Massey, loc. cit. pp. 439–44; Fion de Vletter, ‘The Implications of Changing Migration Patterns in Southern Africa’, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, 1994; and Head, Judith, ‘Migrant Mine Labour from Mozanbique: employment prospects and policy options in the 1990s’, in Journal of Contemporary African Studies (Grahamstown), 13, 1, 1995, pp. 91–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Jeeves and Yudelman, loc. cit. pp. 117–18.

40 De Vletter, loc. cit. p. 9.

41 Ibid. and Jeeves and Yudelman, loc. cit. pp. 116 and 122–3.

42 For more details, see my other papers: Chirwa, Wiseman Chijere, ‘“No TEBA…Forget TEBA”: the plight of Malawian ex-migrant workers to South Africa, 1988–1994’; ‘Aliens and AIDS in Southern Africa: the Malawi-South Africa debate’; and ‘Malawi Migrant Labour and the Politics of AIDS, 1985 to 1993’, International Conference on Transforming Mine Migrancy in the 1990s, Cape Town, 27–29 June 1994.Google Scholar

43 Crush, Jonathan S., ‘Mine Migrancy in the Contemporary Era’, International Conference on Transforming Mine Migrancy in the 1990s, 27–29 June 1994, pp. 5–7.Google Scholar

44 Head, ‘Migrant Mine Labour’, p. 92.

45 James, Wilmot G., Our Precious Metal: African labour in South Africa's gold industry, 1970–1990 (Cape Town and London, 1992).Google Scholar

46 Crush, ‘Mine Migrancy’, p. 8.

47 See Hanlon, Joseph, Beggar Your Neighbours: apartheid power in Southern Africa (London and Bloomington, 1986),Google Scholar and Libby, Ronald T., The Politics of Economic Power in Southern Africa (Princeton, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 See Richards, Geraint, From Vision to Reality: the story of Malawi's new capital (Johannesburg, 1974).Google Scholar

49 Crush, ‘Mine Migrancy’, p. 3.

50 Ibid.