Page 59 - Number 2 2021 Volume 74

Catherine Chipembere 47

activities of the Malawi Congress Party Youth League, the secretive Special
Branch, and the Police Mobile Force in the Mangochi area and the general
atmosphere of ‘hunt the rebels’ at the time, will understand the fear and anxiety
that would have descended on Catherine and her young family. This fear was
worse especially outside Malawi where there was no support base to shield them
as they, at least, had at Malindi. This apprehension could have been even worse
when living in Tanzania, which shares a border with Malawi. A number of Malawi
‘rebels’ were kidnapped or assassinated while sheltering in Tanzania.
Catherine Chipembere’s life can be summed up as a life of political
courage. Standing with a man who was described as an enemy of Dr Banda, a
rebel who mounted the first armed resistance to Dr Banda’s rule was not easy in
the one-party state era. Any action by Chipembere put his young family in danger,
not just from Dr Banda, but from his supporters as well.
The price was high: months hiding in the Malindi area and then being
whisked away from Malindi to Likoma with the aid of Bishop Arden and his wife
12
Jane, a frightening and clandestine operation. And then came the escape from
13
Likoma, being smuggled ‘aboard the Ilala at midnight…’ There then followed a
brief period in California, USA before returning to live in Tanzania for three years,
14
years during which the family was always short of money. The family then
returned to the United States in June 1969. Henry had found a place at the
University College of Los Angeles where he studied for his PhD and also taught
as an assistant professor of history. Catherine was also busy. She looked after her
own children, worked as a child minder, opening a 24-hour childcare centre in her
15
home, and studied for and passed a bachelors degree in early childhood
16
education.
After her husband died, Catherine raised the family, as a single parent
and remained in the USA for another nineteen years.
In 1994, she returned to Malawi under the colours of the United
Democratic Party (UDF). Some influential elements in the UDF, like Dumbo
Lemani and Edward Bwanali, wanted her to stand as an MP in her husband’s
former constituency, Mangochi Northeast. The Chipembere name was a great
asset to the UDF at a time when they were competing against the MCP in the first
multiparty elections in Malawi following a thirty-year dictatorship. When
Catherine came back to Malawi, she may have felt that she had come back to help

12 Baker, Colin 2001 Revolt of the ministers, pages 206 – 208.
13 Baker, Colin. 2008. Chipembere: The missing years, page154.
14 Ibid, page 167.
15 Gordon-Chipembere, Natasha 2009 Watch this Woman, Scrutiny2, 14:2, page
16.
16 Ibid, page 170.