Thread by @Kauswe3

LEWIS CHUNGUFU
THE CHA CHA CHA MASTERMIND

October 1927 - 27 April 2016

Thread

AS A way of compelling the British government to end the unpopular Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the United National Independence Party (UNIP) embarked on a campaign dubbed Cha Cha Cha meant to make the then Northern Rhodesia ungovernable.

Initially, there was a war cabinet which was constituted to oversee the whole operation. Its members were Lewis Changufu as leader, first independence Minister of Finance Arthur Wina and an Irish party member, a Mr Edmund.

The committee was to identify targets for attack, and to do so, they engaged a group of youths to execute the scheme. One of the targets was a fleet of new government vehicles that were parked at the former Mechanical Services Branch (MSB) premises in Lusaka.

However, on the eve of the attack, and to everyone's surprise, they found that all the vehicles had been driven off and hidden elsewhere. The issue was later tabled before the UNIP Central Committee which then decided that there should be only one war planner, Mr Changufu.

With that, Mr Changufu went on to establish Cha Cha Cha uprising committees on the Copperbelt, Northern, Luapula and Eastern provinces which regularly gave him briefings.

Each province was reporting to him on what they thought was the best way to bring about independence for Zambia.

In one of the many interviews reflecting on Zambia's independence struggle, Mr Changufu explained that the uprising was to be carried out in four phases with the last being so destructive as to make the Mau Mau uprising of Kenya look like a child's play.

"We only went as far as the second stage. My goodness, if we had gone to the last stage, this country would have been different from what it is today".

"We were not talking about guerrilla warfare; ours would have been an open onslaught. It was planned in such a way that action would take place in all the districts at the same time", he explained.

The first phase involved destruction of bridges and blocking of roads while the more serious one entailed loss of human life.

The reaction by the Africans was ruthless; a Ndola resident by the name of Lilian Burton was ambushed and burnt in car by protesting Africans. The plan was easy; target a well-known Briton and not a Boer, that way, the message would be loud and clear.

Four people were arrested, convicted and hanged in connection with the attack. Two other brothers who were connected to the attack were sent out of the country by UNIP and only returned home after qualifying as medical doctor and accountant.

But other than being the mastermind of the Cha Cha Cha, Mr Changufu, who had undergone training at the International Police Academy in Washington and was attached to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in the United States

He was also in charge of intelligence gathering in UNIP with the main task being the recruitment of civil servants into the party in readiness for independence which was on the horizon.

With his training in security affairs, at independence, he was appointed Minister of State for Defence and Security before being elevated to the position of Minister of Information and Postal Services in January 1965.

He was to later serve as Minister of Home Affairs, twice in 1967 and between 1970 and 1973, and also at Labour and Health, and Power Transport and Works.

In the 1973 elections, he was moved from his traditional constituency of Mansa which he had held since independence to go and stand in Kasama. He stood against his in-law, Joe Kapilikisha, and lost.
It marked the end of his political career.

Mr Changufu died on 27 April 2016

Courtesy of Zambia Daily Mail