Mwenifumbo gives HRDC thumbs up: Malawi pro-democracy hero Chihana honoured

Outspoken politician Frank Tumpale Mwenifumbo has given a thumbs up to Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) leaders for their continued fight against human rights abuses in the country.

Mwenifumbo said this on Saturday in Mzuzu when HRDC held a special event to honour Alliance for Democracy (Aford) leader Chakufwa Chihana and those butchered in cold blood by police in the small city during the July 20, 2011 protests.

“You are bold and continue to fight for human rights despite threats to your lives and property,” said Mwenifumbo.

He says the threats on HRDC lives were aimed at silencing the rights activists but said it was encouraging that the activists have the fighting spirit which late Chihana had which led to the birth of the country’s democracy in 1993.

HRDC leaders and Aford members gathered at the burial site of Chihana to honour him for the role he played to bring about multiparty democracy in the country.

On 6 April 1992, Chakufwa Tom Chihana walked into the den of lions when he landed at Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) and openly did the unthinkable. He challenged the entrenched Kamuzu Banda’s 31-year-old autocratic rule under the Malawi Congress Party (MCP).

Effectively, he put into motion, with others, a movement that saw the feared MCP regime crumble; hence entered into the annals of history as one of the founding fathers of Malawi’s multipartyism.

Chihana died in June 2006.