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 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