Nyasaland Emergency 1959 sources, including Special Branch reports, and the recollections of expatriates, and the reduction of African leaders to stereotypes. Nyasaland Emergency 1959 The Nyasaland Emergency 1959 was a state of emergency in the protectorate of Nyasaland (now Malawi), which was declared by its governor, Sir Robert Armitage on 3 March 1959 and which ended on 16 June 1960. Under the emergency powers that operated during the Emergency, over 1,300 members or supporters of the Nyasaland African Congress (Congress) were detained without trial, and most of the party's leaders including its president, Dr. Hastings Banda, were imprisoned in Southern Rhodesia after being
Nyasaland Emergency 1959 Whatever inflammatory rhetoric may have been used by Congress leaders, there is no evidence that they planned to match their words with actions. However, Banda and his colleagues refused to condemn the violent actions of Congress members, which were increasingly directed toward Africans who failed to support Congress, who the party denounced as "stooges". There is uncertainty about what the Nyasaland and British governments considered was the true extent of the murder plot. The Commissioner of Police reported to the Governor on 18 February that: This report also claimed that African “quislings” would be murdered, and attached a more detailed