Nyasaland was banned in 1958 was re-formed as the Malawi Congress Party in 1959. After the emergency, a commission headed by Lord Devlin exposed the failings of the Nyasaland administration. The Commission found that the declaration of a State of Emergency was necessary to restore order and prevent a descent into anarchy, but it criticised instances of the illegal use of force by the police and troops, including burning houses, destroying property and beatings. It rejected the existence of any "murder plot", but noted: The report concluded that the Nyasaland administration had lost the support of Nyasaland's African people, noting their
Nyasaland Emergency 1959 Nyasaland through a lack of political judgement, including a failure to understand nationalism in either dependency. McCracken also considers Armitage had failed to control a political crisis in Cyprus, so was determined not to fail again in Nyasaland, and that, by October 1959, the contempt he expressed for African political aspirations, even in official correspondence, amounted to racial paranoia. McCracken also suggests that Baker's underlying aim was to “set the record straight” by restoring the reputation of Nyasaland's colonial officials of the 1950s and 1960s, while attacking African nationalists and their sympathisers. Like Macmillan, he notes Baker's reliance on official