Operation Sunrise (Nyasaland) Operation Sunrise (Nyasaland) Operation Sunrise was the name given to a police and military action conducted by the authorities in the Central African protectorate of Nyasaland (now known as Malawi) which started on the 3rd March 1959, initially to detain and intern 350 individuals who were considered a potential threat to law and order. Although it is sometimes considered to involve only the incidents of 3rd March, the Devlin Commission report is clear that it was one of two distinct operations by the security forces, reinforced from outside Nyasaland, involving the arrest and detention members of the Nyasaland African Congress,
Nyasaland Emergency 1959 a list, originally prepared in June, of those to be arrested if a State of Emergency were declared. The Colonial Office's rejection of Armitage's very limited proposals for reform and, from late October, increasingly aggressive Congress demonstrations directed against Europeans and Asians and intimidation of African opponents increased tensions. At the end of 1958, Banda and other Congress leader attended an All-African People's Conference in Accra, in recently-independent Ghana and they returned to Nyasaland determined to press for constitutional change When the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was set up in 1953, provision had been made for the Federal constitution