Historical Dictionary of Malawi Part 18

In 1900, the governor, Sir Alfred Sharpe, increased the hut tax to 12 shillings in response to appeals from settler farmers who argued that the fall in coffee production that year was attributed to labor shortages and that an upward reevaluation of the tax would force Africans to seek wage labor on European plantations. Not keen to work under the harsh conditions in the Shire Highlands estates, and afraid of imprisonment if they did not pay the tax, many Africans opted to go into labor migration south of the Zambezi (see MIGRANT LABOR; SOUTH AFRICA). In 1911, Governor William Manning announced the reduction of the African rate, subject to a taxpayer selling prescribed cash crops to European buyers. The generally preferred crops were cotton (56 pounds), rice (100 pounds), and tobacco (36 pounds). Other tax reviews, all containing rebate provisos, would follow. In 1921, a nonrebate flat rate of six shillings was adopted, and under the 1928 Income Tax Ordinance, non-African men were to pay a poll tax at the rate of 2 per adult annually. The income system was revised at regular intervals.

In postcolonial Malawi, the basic criterion for taxability is that the work be done, or services be rendered, within Malawi. The exceptions to this include salaries from foreign governments or international organizations. There are three types of tax: minimum, graduated, and income tax. The first is paid by all males 18 years or older, regardless of their employment status. Elderly disabled persons are exempt from taxation. Unless employed, women do not pay tax. The graduated tax is collected by employers from their employees who earn less than an annual amount of money specified by Parliament. Most full-time employees are on pay as you earn income tax, which may be collected weekly or monthly. Taxation on income may take into account marital status, insurance premiums, and educational deductions. The rate of taxation for the first MK1,200 is 3 percent, and depending on the income, the rate increases to 45 percent. Corporate tax also varies: Malawi-based companies pay taxes at a fixed rate (38 percent) of chargeable income, and those incorporated externally pay 5 percent additional tax. The government has an array of tax incentives that it uses to encourage local and foreign firms to operate in Malawi. Goods determined to be luxury are subjected to a surtax of 30 to 35 percent; such items include cosmetics and alcohol.

The Act of Parliament of 1998 replaced the Income Tax Department, which for a long time had been responsible for all matters concerning taxation, with the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA), one of the International Monetary Fundinspired fiscal discipline enhancement measures meant to improve the collection of tax revenue. The MRA became fully operational in 2000, and one of the many measures that it took toward maximizing the efficiency of revenue collection was improving the surveillance in areas where the border trade is particularly active. This meant building more collection points along Malawi borders and training personnel to manage them. By 2010, it had offices in all three regional centers of Mzuzu, Lilongwe, and Blantyre, and 32 in various parts of the country, especially along the Malawi borders.

In the 200910 period, the tax revenue was 16.5 percent of the gross domestic product. The majority of employees pay tax through a pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) system. The corporate and upper level tax rates are 30 percent, and among other taxes are the inheritance income and the value added tax (VAT). In 2009, the Ministry of Finance announced that it lost the equivalent of US$125 million in tax allowances, a significant part of this expected to be generated from multinational companies, all of which are given generous tax incentives to establish their presence in Malawi.

TEA. Malawi is Africa's second largest tea producer, and tea is its second major export crop after tobacco. It is also the most popular drink in the country, consumed in the majority of households, and the first food item that a host offers a visitor within a few minutes of arrival. Produced mainly in Mulanje and Thyolo, the first seedlings were brought into the country in 1878 by Jonathan Duncan, a gardener at the Blantyre Mission but, unlike coffee seedlings, they died. The real beginning of the tea industry in Malawi dates from 1891 when Henry Brown, manager of the recently opened Lauderdale Estate at the southern foot of Mulanje Mountain, planted the first tea bushes imported from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where he had worked prior to going to the Shire Highlands. From Lauderdale Estate, tea spread to other European plantations in the area, and by the early 1900s, it had replaced coffee as the colony's leading cash earner. Tea planting attracted individual European farmers as well as some of the Malawi-based companies, such as British & East Africa Ltd. and the British Central Africa Company, and it also enticed the larger British-based companies with major tea interests in Asia, among them Brooke Bond and J. Lyons & Company. This highly labor-intensive industry employed thousands of people, including children, at minimum wages; thousands of Lomwe immigrants from Mozambique also made the tea plantations in Shire Highlands viable, partly explaining why the area is identified with them today.

Tea's preeminence as a cash crop was greatly reduced in the interwar period, especially in the period 192732, primarily because of successive bad rainy seasons and poor prices on the international markets. The tea restrictions that followed the International Tea Agreement of 1933 as well as World War II further affected the stability of tea production so that, by 1952, all individual planters in Malawi had been replaced by companies. The restrictions were lifted at the end of the 1940s, and by the end of the 1950s, the Malawi tea industry was healthier than it had been for a long time. In 1957, tea production commenced in Nkhata Bay district at the Chombe Tea Estates, across from the Vizara rubber plantation, and would be in operation until the early 1990s when it was abandoned. After independence, the Malawi government and the Commonwealth Development Corporation promoted smallholder production of tea, particularly in the ThyoloMulanje region, and today this sector contributes 10 percent of the crop, most of which is exported to the London tea market. Smaller quant.i.ties are shipped to South Africa, Pakistan, the United States, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique. The industry has now been modernized, with new processing machines, bed dryers, and fermenting systems. In 2008, Malawi exported US$19.1 million worth of tea, an increase of 2 percent on earnings from the previous year. It remains the second to tobacco as Malawi's main export. See also AGRICULTURE; TRADE.

TEMBO, JOHN ZENAS UNGAPAKE (1932 ). Teacher, first Malawian minister of finance, first local governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi and close advisor of President Hastings Banda, John Tembo, son of Zenas Tembo, a Dutch Reformed Church minister, was born in Dedza district in September 1932. He completed his primary school education at Mlanda Mission in 1949 and, four years later, he obtained his Cambridge School Certificate at Blantyre Secondary School. After working for the government Auditor's Department, Tembo received a Nyasaland government scholarship to study at Pius College, now the National University of Lesotho, graduating with a BA in 1958. Early in 1959, he proceeded to the University of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, now the University of Zimbabwe, where in November of that year, he was awarded a certificate in education.

On his return home, Tembo taught at Kongwe Secondary School and, at the same time, he played an active role in the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). In 1961, he was elected to the Legislative Council (LEGCO) as a member for Dedza, and in the following year was appointed parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Finance, replacing Dunduzu Chisiza who had died in a car accident. Tembo was reelected to Parliament in 1964, and at independence was appointed minister of finance, the position previously held by Henry Phillips, and for a brief time also added the portfolios of ministries of Trade and Industry and Development and Planning. In 1969, he relinquished the Ministry of Finance position, moving to Trade and Industry, and in that capacity, was responsible for the Africanization of Asian business in rural areas (see ASIANS). In 1971, he became the first Malawian governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi, but he retained his growing influence as a member of the Central Executive Committee of the MCP. In the early 1980s, President Hastings Banda moved Tembo from the Reserve Bank, and in 1986, he became treasurer general of the MCP, a post long held by Sydney Somanje, who had pa.s.sed away that year.

Although throughout the 1980s Tembo would not hold an official government position, he became a close advisor of President Banda, acting as an unofficial prime minister, and increasingly became one of the most powerful and feared men in Malawi. Among the offices he held were chairman of Press Holdings Ltd., Commercial Bank of Malawi, Air Malawi, University of Malawi Council, and Limbe Leaf Ltd. From 1987, he headed the Malawi delegation to the Joint Security Commission with Mozambique and sat on the National Economic Commission created in the late 1980s to, among other functions, deliberate on economic projects. These offices, and numerous others, placed him in a dominant position in Malawi's political and economic affairs. In the period leading to political reform, Tembo became minister of state in the president's office, a particularly influential appointment because its duties included national security matters. He campaigned vigorously against multiparty politics, and in 1994, was elected to the National a.s.sembly as MCP member for Dedza, this time sitting on the opposition benches.

Following the Mtegha Commission of 1994, the government charged Tembo, Hastings Banda, and Cecilia Kadzamira in 1995 with the death of the four politicians murdered in Mwanza district in 1983. They were acquitted later that year (see MWANZA ACCIDENT AND TRIALS). Following Banda's death in 1997, Tembo was elected vice president of the MCP, the presidency going to Gwanda Chakuamba. In June 1999, he returned to Parliament and has remained active in national politics. In the 2004 presidential elections, he stood as the MCP candidate, but he only recieved 27 percent of the vote mainly from his central region stronghold, losing to Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika. However, he won his Dedza const.i.tuency seat and returned to the National a.s.sembly as leader of the opposition.

In 2009, he retained his parliamentary seat but, with 30.7 percent of the total votes, he came second in the presidential elections in which he stood as the MCP's candidate. He contested the results but later accepted them after leaders of the various political parties, including his own, persuaded him to do so. However, he refused to retire from politics as advised and staved off potential challenges for the leadership of the MCP. When the National a.s.sembly met, it voted for a new leader of the opposition, a rather unusual step considering that Tembo's party had the largest number of members in the house after Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). He challenged the decision in court, which ruled in his favor. In September 2010, the government announced that it would contest the ruling of the appeals court, and although it was reported in January 2011 that Tembo would not stand as his party's presidential candidate in 2014, he was still very active in national politics in September 2011, and indications were that he was not about relinquish the leadership of the MCP soon.

TEMBO, MAWELERA (?1937). Mawelera and his elder brother, Makara, sons of Kalengo Tembo, a highly regarded Senga-Ngoni traditional doctor, were among the first Christian converts at Njuyu mission station. They were baptized in 1890, having been pupils at the school that had opened there in December 1886; Mawelera would later become one of its teachers. When Rev. Dr. George Steele died in 1895 Mawelera took charge of Njuyu and, in 1900, was bestowed the honor of being one of the four Africans to be appointed to the first Kirk Ngoni session. For many years, he served as clerk of Ekwendeni Kirk sessions and, from 1923 to 1924, he was president of the Mombera Native a.s.sociation. An excellent singer, Tembo is also regarded as the most productive composer of hymns, the majority of which were in ciNgoni. Among his most famous hymns, "Dumisani u'Yehova lin'zinceku zake" (Oh praise the king of heaven all ye who are his people) has become a cla.s.sic. His career as a teacher and evangelist continued until he retired in 1934.

TENGANI. Area and t.i.tle of a chief whose ancestors were part of the southward expansion of the Maravi in the 16th century. Of the Phiri matriclan, and a junior to Lundu, Tengani would settle in the vicinity of modern Nsanje boma and have overall supervision of the Khulubvi shrine, home of M'bona. This position, in addition to the key location on the Shire River, ensured that the Tenganis would play a significant role in the political, cultural, and social history of the Lower Shire Valley. European travelers, traders, and missionaries entering the Lake Malawi area via the Shire River had to deal with the Tengani chiefs who, like other rulers of the Shire Valley, became entangled in economic and political rivalry between the British and the Portuguese at the end of the 19th century.

TENGANI, CHIEF MOLIN (?1967). One of the most controversial chiefs in late colonial Malawi, Molin Tengani belonged to the long line of the Tengani dynasty of the Mang'anja of the Lower Shire Valley. Tengani was converted to Christianity in 1902 and, although he worked for the railways for a time, he became a teacher and taught at several mission schools, including the main one at Chididi, where he remained until 1936 when he was installed as Chief Tengani after the death of his uncle, Thenzwa, two years earlier. Against tradition, Molin Tengani refused to observe the obligations of his office to the Khulubvi shrine, including repairs to it. Molin also acquiesced with Christians who refused to undertake their usual Mang'anja duties to the shrine; furthermore, shrine priests who had hitherto avoided paying government tax were now forced to do so. There was even talk that M'Bona had left the area in response to the new chief's att.i.tude toward the shrine, and many people in the area reacted by refusing to observe new agricultural rules, which Molin Tengani tried to enforce on behalf of the government. Rebuilt by its most ardent supporters, the shrine and M'Bona also became the center of opposition to the establishment of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which was a.s.sociated with the new agricultural regulations. This was not helped by the fact that Molin Tengani supported the move toward the Federation. Tengani retired in 1963 and died four years later. This marked the end of a feud that has been interpreted by some as compet.i.tion between traditional religion and Christianity.

TENGATENGA, JAMES (1958 ). Anglican bishop of southern Malawi and one of the influential clergymen in Malawi, Tengatenga was born in Kwekwe, Zimbabwe, on 7 April 1958, completed secondary school education there, and in 1979 enrolled at the Zomba Theological College. After graduating in 1982, he went to the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas, and in 1985 he received a master of divinity degree. Upon his return to Malawi, he was ordained as deacon and, among other duties, served as parish priest, as leader in the youth ministry, and as a diocesan training chaplain based at St. Thomas's Church in the diocese of Lake Malawi. In 1989, he went to the Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham, England, where he trained as a youth and community worker, and in the early 1990s he joined the Zomba Theological College as a tutor. While there he also studied for a PhD, and the University of Malawi awarded him the degree in the mid-1990s. He became a lecturer at Chancellor College and, in 1998, he was consecrated as bishop of southern Malawi.

He is also involved in many other organizations in Malawi and internationally. He was chairman of the Malawi Council of Churches and is a member of the National AIDS Commission. He is on the executive committee of the Malawi Partnership Forum, a consultative body that coordinates AIDS-related matters between the Malawi government and all parties involved in the struggle against HIV/AIDS. Bishop Tengatenga is also a member of the Pan African Civic Educators Work. In 2009, he was elected as chair of the Anglican Consultative Council, one of the important major London-based organs of the Anglican church. He also sits on the International Standing Commission on Ec.u.menical Relations and on the International Board of the Sharing of Ministries Abroad.

TENNENT, A. J. One of the influential European planters in colonial Malawi, Tennent was managing director of the J. Tennent & Company Ltd., a company with many interests, including the Magunda and Luchenza Estates in Thyolo district. Located in an area in which Africans faced the problem of land shortage, there was always an underlying tension between the planters, on the one hand, and their African neighbors and workers, on the other. In August 1953, the Magunda Estate was the center of a clash between African workers and Tennent's sons, Basil and Desmond. On 18 August, the brothers accused some of their workers of theft, and in the fracas that followed, one of the laborers was injured. Rumors spread to the effect that an African had been killed by a planter, and this led to a riot, which the police had difficulty controlling. Headman Ngamwane, the traditional ruler of the area, was arrested and spent a brief time in the Blantyre prison. Other riots, not directly connected with that at Luchenza, followed in Thyolo, Mulanje, and elsewhere in the southern province. See also GUDU, WILFRID; THANGATA.

THANGATA. In chiChewa/ciMang'anja, the term thangata means help, and in traditional society, it also referred to a system of services exchanged between chiefs and their dependents. In colonial Malawi, it referred to labor tenancy practiced mostly on European plantations in the Shire Highlands. In this area, African squatters living on a European estate were not required to pay rent as in most tenant arrangements, but rather were compelled to work a prescribed amount of time for the European landlord. The period of time required by the Europeans frequently increased, and typically tenants worked at least one month as a "rent" and another month for hut taxes; they were not permitted the privilege of working elsewhere. Thangata soon was described by African laborers as work that was done without real benefit. Instead, the benefits went to the landlord and to an administration, which rarely provided the African with any services in exchange for his taxes. Thangata was a major factor in the Chilembwe uprising.

When two-thirds of Malawi's male population became involved in World War I, either voluntarily or compulsory, the thangata system was again applied. The men were used as soldiers (askaris) and carriers (tenga tenga). They were frequently mistreated and their experiences generally produced a resentment against colonialism expressed in the postwar era in the rise in popularity of dance and Nyau societies, in native a.s.sociations, and in Islam.

Although Governor Geoffrey Colby began to dismantle thangata in the early 1950s, notable aspects of it continued to be practiced until the first Malawi Congress Party (MCP) government pa.s.sed legislation abolishing all its vestiges.

THEUNISSEN, JEAN-BAPTIST HUBERT, BISHOP (19051979). This bishop of the archdiocese of Blantyre from 1952 to 1968, was born in the Netherlands where he was ordained in 1929 as a priest in the order of Missionaries of the Company of Mary (the Montforts), and became Dutch Provincial for the Montforts. In 1949, he was appointed vicar apostolic of Blantyre, Nyasaland, and a year later, he was consecrated as bishop of Blantyre and the Shire vicariate. Theunissen had experience in working in Africa, having served 12 years as a missionary in Mozambique prior to his Dutch posting. When Pope John XXIII instructed all vicariates in the colony to become dioceses, Blantyre was raised to an archdiocese and Theunissen became archbishop in 1959 and, consequently, leader of the Catholic hierarchy in Nyasaland.

In October 1960, the archbishop became the subject of a long lead page article in the Malawi News attacking him on the suspicion that he was behind the newly formed political organization, the Christian Democratic Party, led by Chester Katsonga, a Catholic. Signed by Aleke Banda, the newspaper's editor, the article gave the impression that the new party was aimed at forestalling the nationalist ambitions of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Although the archbishop and the Catholic Church strongly denied the accusation, the relations between Theunissen and the new MCP-led government remained lukewarm. He retired in 1967 and was succeeded by Bishop James Chiona.

THOLE, PETER ZIMEMA (?1950). From the core Zansi, of the M'mbelwa Ngoni hierarchy, and a former student of Rev. Walter Angus Elmslie, Peter Thole entered the theological course at the Overtoun Inst.i.tution in 1920, was ordained five years later, and in 1927 was called to Emchisweni Congregation in central Mzimba district. In 1926, Thole was a member of the Livingstonia delegation to the Blantyre synod. Although considered a moderate in the numerous disagreements between the African and the European clergy, Thole hosted at his Elangeni home the historic meeting on 7 January 1920, which led to the formation of the Mombera Native a.s.sociation. Well over six feet tall, Thole was, besides Mawelera Tembo, the most prolific and exciting composer of hymns in the Livingstonia synod, and almost all of his hymns were included in the church hymnal. Thole's father and grandfather had been in the Zw.a.n.gendaba's original migration group, and many of his compositions were in Zulu and were incorporated into the Ngoni hymnbook Izingoma zo Bukristu, which also benefited from the Zulu hymnbook Amagama Okuhlabela, published in Natal.

THONDEZA. See GUDU, WILFRID.

THONDWE. Located eight miles from Zomba on the ZombaBlantyre road, Thondwe is in the center of a tobacco-growing area and throughout the colonial period was a.s.sociated with large European plantations, such as that belonging to Roy W. Wallace. This was also an area into which the Lomwe migrated, finding jobs on tobacco estates, where for a long time forms of thangata were practiced. Before the Africanization of Asian business, Thondwe had a thriving small population of Indian retail traders. Thondwe is also famous for its Sat.u.r.day market, which attracts sellers and buyers from beyond the confines of the area. Declared a rural growth area, Thondwe has a modern health clinic, a post office, a police station, a school, and an Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMARC) market. It also is a main center for the Catholic Church and the Church of Christ.

THORNE, FRANK OSWALD. Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) bishop of Nyasaland from 1936 to 1960, and member of the Legislative Council (LEGCO) in the 1940s, Frank Thorne was educated at Christ College, Oxford, and at St. Boniface College, Warminster. Ordained in 1922, he joined mission work three years later and was posted to St. Cyprian's Theological College, Tunduru, in the Masasi diocese, southern Tanganyika. In 1936, he replaced Gerald Douglas as bishop of Nyasaland. Thorne was nominated to LEGCO where often he spoke on African causes.

THORNEYCROFT, GEOFREY (?1967). Founder of the Chimpeni Estate just south of Zomba airport, Thorneycroft was born in England and arrived in Nyasaland in 1912 after working in Guyana and the Senna Sugar Estate in Mozambique. In World War I, he saw service in Karonga and Tanganyika, and after losing a leg, was sent to England for recovery. Thorneycroft returned to Nyasaland in 1919 to grow tobacco at the Chimpeni Estate, one of the most successful agricultural concerns in Malawi. He died in September 1967, and his son, and later his grandson, continued to manage Chimpeni.

THYOLO. Name of the district and boma located between Blantyre and Mulanje district, and particularly famous as a major tea-producing area in Malawi. Thyolo is also identified with tung production from the 1930s to the 1960s. An important center of European agricultural activity, Thyolo was also a major region of Lomwe settlement at the beginning of the 20th century, and because of this, land has always been a sensitive matter in the district. Thangata was widely practiced here in its purest form, and tension between Africans and Europeans often led to open conflict (see GUDU, WILFRID; TENNENT, A. J.). In 1966, the Malawi government started a smallholder tea program in Thyolo, based on the Kenya model, and aimed at involving Africans in tea production. Over 1,000 acres are now cultivated by smallholders. To ensure ease of communication between this rich agricultural region and BlantyreLimbe, the road between the two areas has been widened and greatly improved. A major banana growing district, Thyolo is also the home of the Malamulo Mission, the main center of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Malawi. See also AGRICULTURE.

TIMKE, W. H. Friend of early nationalists in Malawi, Timke was born in South Africa, went to Malawi after World War I, and until 1929 was manager of the European planters agricultural cooperative society in Thyolo. After the cooperative collapsed, he farmed tobacco and built stores in Thyolo, which he rented to Indian retail traders. He also became active in the European settler organization, the Convention of a.s.sociations, and for two years sat on the Legislative Council (LEGCO). As World War II progressed, Timke became close to politically minded Africans, such as James Sangala, and encouraged them to better organize themselves so as to realize their nationalist ambitions. Timke advised on some of the best means of making African opinion known to government officials and to European settlers. He encouraged Sangala to contact Arthur Creech-Jones, then the British Labour Party's shadow colonial secretary, in the hopes that questions on the colonial situation in Malawi would be raised in Parliament. Timke himself also contacted Creech Jones. Throughout 1944, he urged Sangala and his a.s.sociates, such as Charles Matinga, to demand African representation on all important government bodies, including the LEGCO, and to form one organization to represent African opinion. Timke perished in the MV Viphya, which sank off the Chiweta coast in 1946.

TOBACCO. The leading export crop of Malawi for part of the colonial era, and throughout the postcolonial period, commercial tobacco was first grown in the country in 1889 at the Buchanan Brothers estate in Zomba. It was slowly taken up by other planters in the Shire Highlands, notably by planters such as R. S. Hynde, the African Lakes Company (ALC), Eugene Sharrer, Ignaco Conforzi, Roy W. Wallace, and A. Francis Barron. Although they grew their own tobacco, they also bought it from African producers. The real expansion of tobacco production took place in the interwar period when mainly Conforzi, Wallace, and Barron established major estates in central Malawi, mostly in Lilongwe, Mchinji, Dowa, and Kasungu. Here substantial quant.i.ties of tobacco were produced by tenant growers who were trained, loaned seeds, and given other a.s.sistance by European estate owners, on the condition that their tobacco would be sold to them. By the 1950s, tobacco was overtaking tea as an export product.

Burley and flue-cured Virginia tobacco varieties are grown on estates, whereas oriental (Turkish) fire-cured and sun/air-cured varieties are grown by smallholders; Malawi is second only to the United States in the production of dark-fired tobacco. Burley is now Malawi's most important tobacco crop, as there is 50 percent more of it produced than flue-cured tobacco. In the 1970s, production expanded as small-scale farmers increased their holdings and as market conditions favored Malawi. A major development that decade was the expansion of tobacco growing to the northern region of Malawi, especially Rumphi, Mzimba, and to a minor extent, Chitipa.

Marketing of tobacco is done through the auction system introduced in 1946, and there are auction floors in Lilongwe, Limbe, and Mzuzu. Farmers, individual marketing agents who buy leaf from farmers, or larger agencies such as the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMARC) and Press Farming present their tobacco at auction floors where traders from within Malawi and from abroad bid for the tobacco. The auction floors at Lilongwe and Mzuzu process all burley, flue, and sun-cured tobacco from the northern and central region, and Limbe handles the southern region. Until 1987, tobacco smallholders were not permitted to sell on the world market because ADMARC had the monopoly of the rural Malawi produce.

Between 1961 and 1963, the average level of tobacco production annually was 15,000 tons but, by the early 1970s, it was 29,000 tons, an increase about 90 percent. Production continued to increase to more than 110 tons in the 1990s, and, in 2000, it was 160,000 tons, and of this 142,000 tons was burley tobacco. By the mid-2000s, most of it was produced by more than 30,000 smallholder growers, making Malawi second to Brazil as the largest producer of burley-leaf tobacco in the world. Although in the late 2000s tobacco remained as the leading foreign exchange earner, and despite the fact that production continued to increase, the tobacco industry contended with many problems: the devaluation of the kwacha, which rendered the cost of fertilizers and agricultural equipment particularly high; the fluctuation in the prices offered to tobacco growers; increased compet.i.tion from countries such as Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Brazil; and the campaign against smoking, mostly in the Western nations. In 2010, US$410 million worth of tobacco was exported, down from US$434 million in 2009. See also TOBACCO a.s.sOCIATION OF MALAWI; TOBACCO CONTROL COMMISSION; TRADE.

TOBACCO a.s.sOCIATION OF MALAWI (TAMA). Formed in 1929, this organization oversees the tobacco industry in Malawi and is affiliated to international tobacco bodies. It seeks to protect and speak for the tobacco industry. In recent years, TAMA has strongly criticized the tenant farmer system, which is commonly practiced by many growers, especially on the estates that grow burley tobacco. TAMA blamed the newer African owners for bad management and at one time threatened to punish those malpractices registered with its office: overcharging for food, late payments, and physical threats. The facilities and conditions on the burley estates tend to be poor, with school enrollment levels well below average.

TOBACCO CONTROL COMMISSION. Created in 1938, this is the regulatory body of the tobacco industry in Malawi.

TONGA. Inhabitants of central and southern Nkhata Bay district and northern Nkhotakota, the Tonga speak ciTonga, which is an independent language, having affinities with chiChewa to the south and ciTumbuka to the north. Mostly patrilocal, descent is generally matrilineal, especially among those linked with traditional rulers such as Kanyenda, Kabuduli, and Kapunda Banda who have strong ChewaMaravi connections. Other rulers, including the Mankhambira, are balowoka, meaning that they originally came from across Lake Malawi and are generally patrilineal. Sections of the Tonga were conquered by the M'mbelwa Ngoni but, in the 1870s, they successfully rebelled and repelled attempts to resubjugate them. Famous as fishermen, the Tonga hosted Dr. David Livingstone when he visited their home in 1859, and when the Livingstonia Mission set up a base at Bandawe in 1882, they would be the main beneficiaries of Western education, producing famous Malawians, such as Elliot Kamwana, Clements Kadalie, Ernest Alexander Muwamba, Orton Chirwa, Wellington M. Chirwa, and Aleke Banda. The Tonga are also much a.s.sociated with labor migration to various parts of southern Africa.

TOURISM. Although developing tourism has been one of the government projects in postcolonial Malawi, despite the fact that a separate department created to deal with this matter has been in existence since the 1960s, Malawi has not been very successful in attracting tourists to the country. The Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife, and Culture has in the past actively promoted and marketed Malawi in European tourism fairs in an effort to penetrate the European and North American sales market. Compared to Kenya and South Africa, the Malawian tourist industry has not developed, and many prospective visitors would prefer countries where the infrastructure is good and where, because of heavier air traffic, the fares are compet.i.tive. Before political changes in South Africa, European (white) settlers not welcome in other African countries tended to spend some of their vacations in Malawi. Although they still continue to visit Malawi, they now have a wider choice of destinations, including Kenya and Tanzania. Furthermore, hotels, hire of local transport, and the cost of fuel in Malawi tend to be very expensive, thereby discouraging prospective tourists. For "backpackers" or "world travelers," as they are sometimes called, Malawi is a popular destination, as they prefer the numerous affordable and more basic facilities along the lake.

Among the attractions drawing visitors to Malawi are Lake Malawi and the national parks: Nyika, Kasungu, Lengwe, and Liwonde. Animals roaming the parks include kudu, elephant, eland, zebra, lion, buffalo, leopard, and antelope. Two hundred species of fish live in Lake Malawi, some of which are not found elsewhere. A variety of wetland birds (tropical and temperate species) and reptiles are also found along the lakesh.o.r.e. Other popular tourist sites are the mountain areas of Mulanje, Zomba, Dedza, and Viphya. The Malawi Development Corporation (MDC) invested heavily in hotels, modernizing and expanding facilities for tourists, and hired Protea Hotels of South Africa to manage the hotels on its behalf. When the Malawi government privatized MDC in 2006, a new company, the Sunbird Hotels and Resorts, took control of all the hotels of the corporation. In the 2000s, private hotels of varying standards have mushroomed in the main cities and along the sh.o.r.es of Lake Malawi, and among them are Hippo Lodge on the banks of Shire River at Liwonde, Sun 'n' Sands Holiday Resort in Mangochi, Kambiri Lodge in Salima, and Ilala Crest Lodge in Mzuzu. Government Rest Houses and Inns, located throughout the country, also provided good accommodations, but since the late 1990s, they have been privatized. Meanwhile, the Hotel Staff Training School in Blantyre, in operation since the late 1970s, has continued to train personnel in the hospitality industry.

Although the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife remains a relatively small budget department, it continues to work closely with the private sector to improve tourism in Malawi. Budget Doc.u.ment 5 for the 201011 fiscal year shows that tourism improved its earnings significantly in the 2000s, especially in the period 200810. According to the doc.u.ment, 742,000 international tourists spent some time in Malawi in 2008 and, in 2009, the number increased to 752,000, representing a 1.5 percent rise. This translated to earnings of about US$4 million in 2008, about US$4.6 million in 2009, and about US$6 million in 2010.

The Ministry of Tourism and the private sector advertise Malawi in Europe and in the United States and, in this regard, they send representatives to some trade fairs in the European Union. See also ECONOMY.

TOZER, WILLIAM GEORGE (18291899). Successor of Bishop Charles Mackenzie, William Tozer was born at Teignmouth, England, educated at St. John's College, Oxford University, and at Wells Theological College. He was vicar of Burgh-c.u.m-Winthorpe, Lincolnshire, when he was chosen to be the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) bishop in the Lake Malawi area. Soon after his consecration at Westminster Abbey on 2 February 1863, he left for Africa, arriving in the Lower Shire Valley in June of the same year. Of a different disposition from his predecessor and with less empathy with regard to the refugees and orphans he found at the Chibisa base of the mission, Tozer decided to move the mission to Mount Morambala farther south toward the ZambeziShire confluence. In 1864, he and other UMCA missionaries left Morambala for Zanzibar, where he established a major UMCA presence, including the founding of St. Andrew's College, Kiungani, which would train hundreds of African clergy, many of whom would work in the Lake Malawi area. In 1873, Tozer resigned his bishopric because of ill health and returned to England where he died in June 1899.

TRADE. Malawi's main trading partner is Great Britain, followed by South Africa, Germany, j.a.pan, France, the United States, Zimbabwe, the Netherlands, China, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam. Increasingly, more trade has been conducted with the 19 member countries of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), a group of east and south-central African nations determined to promote more trade and cooperation among its members. Malawi's main exports are tobacco, tea, sugar, groundnuts (peanuts), coffee, and wood products. Other export products include rice, rubber, textiles and apparel, and cut flowers. The main imports include machinery, automobiles, fuel, equipment, consumer goods, footwear and footwear components, and medical and pharmaceutical products. The country has had a deficit in the trade balance since 1966. This trade balance is governed by world market prices and the level of production of major export crops, such as tobacco, sugar, and tea. The serious transportation difficulties increase the cost of imports when these goods must travel greater distances than is cost-effective.

Imported commodities include food, consumer goods, spare parts and tools, equipment, petroleum products, and transportation equipment. In 1996, the total value of exports was MK1,805 million (US$435 million), whereas that of imports was MK22,704 million (US$528 million). In 2009, Malawi exports were worth US$945 million, and its imports were valued at US$1,625 millon. According to the 2008 government budget statement, the trade deficit in 2007 was 14.9 percent of the gross domestic product, a major improvement on that of 2005 and 2006 of 19.6 and 17.4 percent, respectively. Although further improvements were expected in the 200912 period, the depreciation of the Malawi kwacha, among other factors, would continue to make the cost of imports particularly high. See also CURRENCY; ECONOMY.

TRANSPORTATION. The most common form of travel in Malawi is road transport, and it is also the most practical means of conveying agricultural produce and other trade items from growers and manufacturers to markets. Postindependent Malawi recognized this factor, and in the 1960s, it allocated 40 percent of development program resources for transportation, the highest priority being to integrate the three regions with reliable all-weather roads and to encourage agricultural development by improving access to rural areas.

At independence in 1964, there were only 242 miles of bituminized roads in all of Malawi, and by the 1990s, there were over 8,000 miles of roads. In the early 1970s, the 168-mile ZombaLilongwe highway was completed, and by 1982, the 534-mile lakesh.o.r.e road project from Mangochi to Karonga was also finished. Not long after this, the LilongweMzuzu road was modernized, as was the Matope road connecting Blantyre and the ZombaLilongwe road at Nsipa, just south of Ntcheu boma. Earlier, the roads from Blantyre to Chikwawa in the Lower Shire, and from Salima to the Zambia border at Mchinji via Lilongwe, were also upgraded. To enable Malawi's access to the port of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, the British-sponsored KarongaMbeya road was constructed and improved to all-weather standards in 1984. In 1999, the project to widen and resurface the BlantyreMulanje road through the main tea-growing area of Malawi, was completed 1999. There have been other major road improvements, and they include the widening and paving of the ZombaJaliPhalombeChitakale road and the NtchisiMponela road, and among the major ones still under construction are the ThyoloMakwasaMuonaBangula and the KarongaChitipa roads. In 2009, about 4,000 miles of roads of about a total of 10,000 miles had been paved.

At independence, the new Malawi government also recognized the importance of rail transport, especially its ability to secure cost-effective rail access to the sea. The railway was the core of the Malawi cargo transport system, and roads were used primarily as feeders to bring goods to railheads. Conceived in the 1890s, the railway was slowly extended, starting with the BlantyreNsanje (Port Herald) rail line, which the Shire Highlands Railway Company built between 1902 and 1908. In 1913, the Central Africa Railway Company, like the Shire Highlands Railway a.s.sociated with Eugene Sharrer, extended the line south to Chinde (Chindio). Seven years later, the Trans-Zambezi Railway Company constructed the Trans-Zambesia line linking Beira with Murraca, opposite Chindio on the banks of the Zambezi River. Until 1935, all goods and pa.s.sengers were ferried across the river. The construction of the two-and-a-half-mile-long Lower Zambezi Bridge commenced in 1931, and the first train crossed it in January 1935. The northern extension from Blantyre to Salima was also completed by the mid-1930s. The railway system acted as a development agency during the years of the Protectorate, determining crop patterns and integrating the Malawi laborers into the European settlers' economic schemes. Further extensions of the Malawi rail system did not take place until after independence.

Two years after independence the Malawi government nationalized the Malawi Railways, the organization that operated the rail system. In 1970, the government used financial aid from South Africa to add a 63-mile eastern extension, connecting Liwonde to the Mozambique border at Nayuchi and thence to the Indian Ocean port of Nacala. With a loan from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), in 1974, Malawi began building 70 miles of new track from Salima to Lilongwe. Completed in 1978, this MalawiCanada project was officially opened in February 1979. Canada provided an additional MK29 million to link Lilongwe with Mchinji on the Zambian border.

In the early 1990s, a FrenchPortugueseCanadian consortium rehabilitated the Nacala railway, which had been adversely affected by the civil war in Mozambique. The largest rail project, however, has been the upgrading of the Beira line, the Malawi portion of which, from Nsanje to Dondo, was closed by the Resistencia Nacional Mozambicana (RENAMO) insurgents. The European Union and the World Bank have been involved in the project. Meanwhile, in 1987, a formal agreement between Malawi and the Tanzania-Zambia railway (TAZARA) opened up the northern corridor, meaning that cargo can now be transported by rail from Dar-es-Salaam to Mbeya where it is transferred onto haulage trucks to Chilumba on the northern Malawi lakesh.o.r.e, then via lake transport to ChipokaSalima, and finally by rail to Lilongwe or LimbeBlantyre. In the late 1990s, a third of Malawi's external trade was transported via the northern corridor route, significantly reducing dependence on the more distant South African port of Natal.

In 1999, the government privatized the Malawi Railways and a MozambiqueNorth American syndicate, the Rail Road Development Corporation, bought it and renamed it the Central East African Railway Company Limited (CEAR). In March 2000, the new owners announced that they would be investing US$26 million over 15 years, mainly on rolling stock, and on the rehabilitation and purchase of new equipment. Although its pa.s.senger service would continue, it would concentrate on transporting cargo, such as agricultural produce and fuel, to and from Nampula on the Mozambican coast or as it is generally called, the Nacala corridor line. In 20089, the Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika government embarked on rehabilitation and modernization of the rail system, and the Nacala corridor line would be among the first to receive attention. This would be a project of three Southern Africa Development Community governments-Mozambique, Zambia, and Malawi-with the plan being to shorten the routes to the coast for the latter two countries. The project involves improving the SalimaMchinjiZambia border line.

For most of the 20th century, lake transport was part of the Malawi Railways Corporation. In 1994, the government reorganized the corporation, creating the Malawi Lake Services Ltd. (MLS), which began to manage all water transport, including the operation of the freight and pa.s.senger services on the MV Ilala II, MV Chauncy Maples, and MV Mtendere. There is a raillake interchange station at Chipoka from which there are steamer services to northern ports, including Likoma Island, Nkata Bay, Usisya, Ruarwue, Chilumba, and Mbamba Bay on the Tanzanian side of the lake. Monkey Bay is the headquarters of the Malawi Lake Services and is also the site of Lake Malawi's dry dock. In 2002, the government gave a 20-year concession to Glens Waterway Ltd. to run water transport, but six years later it canceled it, accusing the concessionaires of inefficiency, and proceeded to search for a replacement organization. In the meantime, as part of a regional project, funds had been acquired externally to dredge the Shire River so as to create a viable waterway linking to the Zambezi and Chinde on the Indian Ocean. This would involve Zambia, which it was expected would be helped further by having an additional shortened route.

Other forms of land transport are also used in Malawi, including nationwide daily bus services from Blantyre to many parts of the country, including Karonga and Nsanje. In the mid-1990s, Stagecoach, the British firm that managed the oldest and largest bus service, sold its fleet to the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMARC), primarily because the cost of repairs rose steeply and because of fierce compet.i.tion from the numerous local transport companies that had emerged throughout the country. In the mid-2000s, ADMARC liquidated parts of Stagecoach (Malawi) a.s.sets, selling part of them to a private local consortium. By the end of 2008, the road transport system in Malawi, dominated by minibuses, had been completely privatized.

Air Malawi is the parastatal inst.i.tution providing air service to Blantyre, Lilongwe, and, until recently, to Mzuzu, Karonga, and Mangochi, as well as to several regional destinations, including Lusaka (Zambia), Harare (Zimbabwe), Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania), Nairobi (Kenya), and Johannesburg (South Africa). The main airport, the Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) in Lilongwe was inaugurated in 1983 and was constructed to international standards with advanced aeronautical equipment and a capability of handling the latest aircraft. Carriers using the KIA include South African Airways and the national airlines of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe. For most of the 1990s and 2000s, Air Malawi operated at a loss, and in 2009, the government was trying to privatize it completely, seek an external partner in the same manner as Kenya Airways did in the early 2000s, or simply liquidate it.

TUMBUKA. Tumbuka or ciTumbuka is the dominant language in the northern region of Malawi. It is the main language of the inhabitants of Mzimba and Rumphi districts and is widely spoken in Karonga district, Chitipa south, northern Nkhata Bay, and north Kasungu. Tumbuka is also a major language in eastern Zambia, especially in Lundazi and Isoka districts.

TUNG. Tung is a bush from which oil is extracted and used in the manufacture of paint and varnish. Tung bushes were first grown in Malawi in 1927 in Thyolo and Mulanje and, by the beginning of the 1930s, it was being produced commercially, attracting some of the major planters including Ignaco Conforzi and the Naming'omba Estates of Malcolm Barrow. Its importance increased during World War II and, in the late 1940s, the Colonial Development Corporation embarked on a very ambitious tung-producing project in the Viphya Highlands in northern Malawi. Mzuzu was founded as the center of this plan and, throughout the 1950s, thousands of tung trees were planted south and north of the emerging town. Malawi became the largest tung-producing country in the British empire and commonwealth. By the late 1960s, the importance of tung to the paint manufacturing industry diminished and prices plummeted, contributing to its virtual demise.

TWEYA, HEZEKIAH MAVUVU (?1930). Of TongaNgoni origins, Hezekiah Tweya was educated in Ungoni, trained as a teacher, and after some years of service, entered theological college at the Overtoun Inst.i.tution. After a long period of probation, he, Yesaya Zerenji Mwasi, and Jonathan Chirwa were ordained on 14 May 1914, the first Africans to become church ministers in the Livingstonia synod of the Free Church of Scotland. He was posted to Ekwendeni and, in 1917, transferred to Karonga to replace Rev. Duncan R. Mackenzie who had temporarily left for war service. In 1923, he was called to Enukweni as minister, the first African pastor to have such an honor in a congregation in Ngoni-dominated country. A gifted composer, Rev. Tweya wrote hymns, some of which were included in the hymnal used in the Church of Central African Presbyterian (CCAP) and remain favorites of church goers. Tweya was also the founding president (192022) of the Mombera Native a.s.sociation.

U.

ULAMBYA. Ulambya is the country of the Lambya, the main group of which live in Chitipa district where the Mwaulambyas (rulers) have lived since the Lambya state was founded around 1600. In precolonial times, Ulambya covered part of the Songwe region of modern southern Tanzania, where it bordered with the Safwa, Nyiha of Mbozi, and Ndali. In the south, the Ulambya extended to modern Zambia, where their neighbors were the Namw.a.n.ga and Bisa. The colonial boundaries established between the British and the Germans divided the Lambya.

UNDALI. Land of the Ndali in Tanzania, whose neighbors are the Sukwa of the Misuku Hills to the south, the Nyakyusa to the east, and the Nyiha and Safwa to the west. Many inhabitants of Chitipa and Karonga districts trace their origin to Undali, and trade between Undali and the Malawi side of the Songwe River continues to flourish today.

UNGONDE. Land of the Ngonde of the Karonga lakesh.o.r.e, bordering with Unyakyusa in the north, and with the Tumbuka-speaking area of the Mwafulirwa in the south. Ungonde is one of the leading rice- and cotton-growing areas of Malawi and is also known as a cattle-raising area.

UNGONI. Country of the Ngoni, generally understood to mean the area in modern northern Malawi in which the Ngoni, the main Zw.a.n.gendaba group, settled.

UNILEVER SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. Known in Malawi as Lever Brothers, this was the country's main producer of, among others, cooking oil, detergents, soap, and petroleum jelly. Based in Limbe, Lever Brothers was one of the dominant firms in Malawi from the 1950s to the early 1990s when Unilever combined its ZambianZimbabwean operations to form Unilever South and East Africa. From the mid-1990s the Lever Brothers Malawi virtually stopped manufacturing and acted only as a sales office, with most of the products coming from factories in Zimbabwe. By early 2009, the Malawi branch of Unilever South and East Africa was beginning to manufacture a few items at a lower level.

UNITED DEMOCRATIC FRONT (UDF). The ruling political party of Malawi between 1994 and 2004, the UDF party was formed in September 1992 by people including Brown Mpinganjira, Bakili Muluzi, and Aleke Banda, who for some time had been secretly working toward political reform in Malawi. Many in the upper echelons of the UDF, including Bakili Muluzi, Aleke Banda, Edward Bwa.n.a.li, and Chakakala Chaziya, held national leadership positions in the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and had fallen out of favor with Dr. Hastings Banda and the ruling party. In the period leading to the referendum of 1993, the UDF and the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD) cooperated, thus ensuring a resounding defeat of the MCP platform of maintenance of the status quo.

In the general elections of June 1994, Muluzi, the UDF's presidential candidate, won, and the party also obtained the majority in Parliament. The UDF formed the government, and a few months later, included AFORD members in an expanded cabinet; Chakufwa Chihana, leader of the AFORD party, was appointed as second vice president. In 1996, this arrangement between the two parties ended, and three years later, the UDF campaigned independently and was returned to power. Overwhelmingly, the party's main base is the southern region, which is Muluzi's home area and also the most populous part of Malawi. Although it has made inroads into the central and northern regions, it continues to rely heavily on the south for its support.

The economic and social policies of the UDF are not very different from those of the AFORD and the MCP. They all believe in free enterprise, but they also advocate government intervention in health, education, and social services. However, unlike the MCP and its government, Muluzi and the UDF have insisted on respect for the Const.i.tution, freedom of a.s.sociation and expression, and regard for human rights. Muluzi would win a second term in 1999 but failed to change the Const.i.tution to allow for a third term for president. His presidential successor, Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika, contested on the party's ticket, but a few months after taking office formed his own Democratic Progressive Party. In 2009, Muluzi was still directing the policy of the UDF in his capacity as the national chairman of the organization, and there were calls for him to relinquish the position. In 2009 it was announced that he would be retiring from the chairmanship of the party. See also FOREIGN POLICY.

UNITED FEDERAL PARTY (UFP). See NYASALAND CONSITUTIONAL PARTY; POLITICAL PARTIES.

UNITED NATIONS (UN). Malawi has been a member of the United Nations since gaining independence in 1964 and has had representation at the amba.s.sador level at the UN headquarters in New York. Malawi also partic.i.p.ates fully in most of the UN agencies, which have an active presence in Malawi. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) spearheads many of the UN development a.s.sistance programs in the country, including partic.i.p.ating in Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS). Other UN agencies that have been prominent in the country are the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank Group (WBG), International Monetary Fund (IMF), International Labour Organization (ILO), International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The UN has also been interested in the state of human rights in Malawi and, early in 2010, it expressed concern at the situation of gay rights activists in the southern African country. While on a visit to the country in May that year, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, addressed the National a.s.sembly and discussed with President Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika the case of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza, leading to their immediate release from prison.

UNITED PARTY (UP). Headed by Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika, the United Party was formed in 1997 and fielded candidates in the June 1999 general elections. It failed to win seats in the National a.s.sembly, and with only 22,073 votes, its presidential candidate was defeated. It was disbanded soon afterward.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Malawi's a.s.sociation with the United States dates back to the early 20th century when John Chilembwe studied there and John Booth encouraged American Christian missions to set up operations in Malawi. Missions, such as the Seventh-Day Baptist and the Seventh-Day Adventist, would play a major role in the life of Malawians (see MALAMULO; PLAINFIELD INDUSTRIAL MISSION). Chilembwe's own Providence Industrial Mission (PIM) was greatly a.s.sisted by African Americans including Landon Cheek and Emma Delany. Malawi's first president, Dr. Hastings Banda, was educated in the United States and was much influenced by American life, especially its anticommunist att.i.tudes.

At independence, the relations between the two counties were cordial but suffered a slight setback not long after Dr. Banda ejected the Peace Corps from Malawi. The Malawi government was supportive of the American involvement in Vietnam, a policy in line with Dr. Banda's anticommunist leanings. Many Malawians have studied and continue to study at U.S. universities. Dr. Banda visited the United States in 1978 when he was honored at the University of Indiana and the Meharry Medical College, both of which he had attended in the 1930s. In many fields, America became Malawi's closest ally and a significant aid donor, at times supplanting Great Britain. Washington supported projects covering a wide range of areas: education, especially through the U.S. aid funds targeted at secondary and university scholarships and teacher training programs; health; fiscal reform, particularly economic restructuring; and transportation, including the rehabilitation of the port of Dar-es-Salaam.

Although the post-Banda government maintained good relations with the United States, the close links between President Bakili Muluzi, a Muslim, and Arab countries such as Libya and Sudan, led to fears of Islamic fundamentalist influence in Malawi. Muluzi presented his foreign policy as nonaligned, but Washington remained suspicious of it. The United States and other Western donor countries were opposed to Muluzi's attempts to change the Const.i.tution to enable him to contest for a third term. During the second term of the Muluzi presidency, the United States reduced aid to Malawi because of evidence of mismanagement. It restored most of it when Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika's government showed signs of tackling the problem.

In the 20059 period, the United States was one of the major aid donors to Malawi and a significant importer of Malawi sugar (see FOREIGN AID; TRADE).

Through direct grants to the government and to nongovernmental organizations, the U.S. government has been active in promoting democratic inst.i.tutions and good governance in post-Banda Malawi. Among other measures, it has supported local government reforms and free flow of information in the country. The United States has given a.s.sistance in other fields, including health, education, and energy. In January 2011, it was announced that through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact, Malawi would receive a grant of US$350,700 million to a.s.sist in improving its electricity supply.

UNIVERSITIES' MISSION TO CENTRAL AFRICA (UMCA). The UMCA was formed by the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Durham, and by Trinity College Dublin, in response to Dr. David Livingstone's address at Cambridge University on 4 December 1856, in which he called upon the British to follow up his work in Africa with missions and programs aimed at promoting Christianity, commerce, and Western civilization. The first UMCA, high Anglican in nature, led by Bishop Charles Mackenzie, left England in October 1860, arriving in the Shire Valley in May of the following year, and finally establishing a station at Magomero, the site of the mission recommended by Livingstone. This first UMCA mission had problems, and after the death of Mackenzie and other missionaries, it moved to Chibisa on the Lower Shire. In 1863, Bishop William Tozer abandoned the site, moving to Mount Morambala toward the ShireZambezi confluence; in 1864, he moved the mission to Zanzibar from where it would later spread its activities into mainland Tanganyika and back into the Lake Malawi region in the 1880s. For a long time, its Lake Malawi region headquarters were at Likoma, but from the 1960s, Likwenu (Malosa) in Machinga district became the recognized seat of the UMCA (Anglican Church) in Malawi.

UNIVERSITY OF MALAWI. Established in 1964 following the recommendations earlier that year of the Johnston Report, the University of Malawi opened its doors to students in October 1965 (see EDUCATION). Within two years, the university had five const.i.tuent inst.i.tutions: Chancellor College, the main campus at Chichiri, Blantyre; Soche Hill College, Limbe, which had opened in 1963 as a government inst.i.tution to train secondary school teachers; the Polytechnic (1965) in Blantyre as the technology and business inst.i.tute; Bunda College of Agriculture (1967) in Lilongwe district; and the Inst.i.tute of Public Administration or IPA (Mpemba, Blantyre), which for some time had been primarily a civil service college but which now also offered University of Malawi law degrees. In 1974, the IPA and Soche Hill College were absorbed into Chancellor College, which in that year moved to its new location at Chirunga in Zomba. The central university administration offices also moved to a new home in Zomba. Two colleges were added later: in 1979, Kamuzu College of Nursing in Lilongwe and Blantyre; in 1991, the College of Medicine in Blantyre. In the mid-1990s, the university began to graduate its own medical doctors. Two new inst.i.tutions that are not directly part of the University of Malawi were established in the early 1980s: the Malawi College of Accountancy, Blantyre, and the Inst.i.tute of Education, Domasi. In 2010, there were about 6,500 students enrolled in degree, diploma, and certificate courses in the University of Malawi. In 2011, the government announced that it had changed the status of Bunda College to full university status, changing its name to Bunda University.

In April 2011, the University of Malawi Council, the main government-appointed policy-making organ, closed two colleges, Chancellor College and the Polytechnic, following two months of cla.s.s boycotts by students and faculty in defense of academic freedom. The boycotts started in February, shortly after the inspector general of police, Peter Mukhito, questioned a political scientist at Chancellor College about a lecture he had given in which he referred to the upheavals taking place in North Africa. In sympathy, the teaching staff at the Polytechnic followed suit in boycotting as did the students at both colleges. In March, President Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika and the University Council ordered the faculty and students to return to cla.s.ses, but they ignored the order. In the following month, the University Council closed the two colleges and, in May, President Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika appointed a commission of inquiry to recommend solutions to the problems at the university. In July, the Polytechnic reopened whereas although Chancellor College students returned to the college as instructed by President Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika, cla.s.ses did not restart because the faculty insisted that teaching could not resume before their original complaints were addressed. On 27 August, the president ordered the college to close until further notice.

UNYAKYUSA. This is the country of the Nyakyusa and it lies north of Ungonde, across the Songwe in Tanzania. Unyakyusa, whose modern capital is Tukuyu, is one of the major coffee- and rice-producing areas of Tanzania.

UNYIHA. Land of the Nyiha, defined as areas north and south of the Songwe River where the Nyiha have always lived. In precolonial times, the area north of the Songwe was known as a cotton-growing and textile- and ivory-producing region. In colonial times, the mountainous parts of the Mbozi sector in southern Tanzania became identified with coffee production.

URBANIZATION. Although prior to the arrival of Europeans in the Lake Malawi area, centers such as Nkhotakota were built up relative to others, urbanization in the Western sense is a mainly post-19th century phenomenon. Blantyre was the first urban center to emerge because, in 1876, it became the site of the main station of the Church of Scotland mission, followed two years later as the headquarters of the African Lakes Company. As the work of both establishments expanded, they attracted Africans to the area. At the same time, as the plantation economy grew in the Shi