Kenneth Kaunda, the founding president of Zambia, died at the age of 97

Kenneth Kaunda, first president of Zambia and XX of Africa. One of the last survivors of the struggle to liberate himself from the colonial rule of the century has died at the age of 97.

The government of President Edgar Lungu on Thursday said Kaunda, “our beloved founding father, icon and statesman,” had died in Lusaka, the capital of the southern African nation, leading independence in 1964 until a multi-party election was revived. unilateral rule in 1991.

Authorities have declared 21 days of national mourning for a man who ruled with an iron fist for decades, but then became an example of the region’s powerful authorities when he allowed the election, accepted the verdict of his people and left power in peace.

Kaunda was born in 1924, Robert Mugabe was a Zimbabwean liberation leader and became an autocrat the same year. The men grew up in the middle of the territories of British Rhodesia at the time.

Both were of religious origin and the dignity of white minority rule clashed with civil disobedience and participation in African liberation policy.

Mugabe would end up waiting much longer for power. By 1960 Kaunda was leading a new force, the United National Independence Party, and was an internationally renowned figure. He toured the U.S. during the civil rights struggle, where he met black rights activists Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

During independence, Kaunda led a nation with enviable mineral wealth and a commitment to unity under the phrase “One Zambia, one nation”. It remains the second largest exporter of copper in Africa and one of the most peaceful countries in the region.

It became a legend of liberation for many Africans along with Samora Machel of Mozambique and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Located next to Ian Smith’s Rhodesia in Zambia and on the front lines of the fight against apartheid in South Africa, Kaunda hosted the region’s exiles, including the heads of the South African National Congress.

In power Kaunda preached his own brand of African socialism, but when his government took over the Zambian copper mines in 1969 it was one of the highest nationalizations in history. Copper prices fell in the oil crisis of the 1970s, with the country increasing its debts and exacerbating the economic turmoil.

Zambia avoided falling into civil strife or war, but a paranoid Kaunda hardened it politically and appointed him a unilateral party in 1972. It would last for decades when Kaunda manipulated his party and successive votes.

But his rule was gradually crushed when he was increasingly rejected by ordinary Zambians and the promising African economy was shaken. Bread riots and mass protests in 1990 were the turning point.

Kaunda allowed other candidates to run against him in next year’s election to free him from the polls. He admitted that Frederick Chiluba’s Multi-Party Democracy Movement had ended his 27-year reign. Although he was later tried for treason and tried to lose his citizenship, Kaunda left politics and became the old head of state of the region.

At the time, Kaunda’s departure was an unusual act in South African politics, especially as Mugabe ruled Zanu-PF from across the border as it was reaching Zimbabwe.

But it was an important precedent for the region to move above the old liberation movements that still control much of southern Africa, including Zanu-PF and Frelimo in Mozambique.

Despite concerns over Lungu’s authoritarian rule, this year the Zambians will embark on another presidential vote. Kaunda’s former side, long out of power, will hardly appear in the race.