Malawi marked its 37th year of independence from Britain on Friday, with ceremonies that highlighted the nation's ongoing struggles against poverty and corruption.
President Bakili Muluzi delivered an independence day speech at a packed stadium with 20,000 people in the northern town of Mzuzu City, but used the address to lash out at political opponents.
Muluzi hit at residents in northern Malawi for being "ungrateful for the development" his ruling party had brought, saying he had built a university and a new hospital hospital -- funded by Taiwan -- for the people.
"When are you going to thank me? We have spent billions of money on these projects and this has happened within my seven years of being in power," Muluzi said.
Residents in northern Malawi, which is a stronghold of the opposition Alliance for Democracy (AFORD), complain about the slow pace of development in their region.
The political tension erupted into a riot last month, when police killed three people as they broke up a protest over delays in paving the dirt road linking Mzuzu City to Chitipa on the Tanzanian border.
Muluzi, commenting for the first time on the riot, said there was no need for the demonstration because construction of the road, to be bankrolled by Taiwan and the African Development Bank, "will start soon."
"We need to achieve economic and social development for our people. Politics alone will not feed our hungry mouth," he said.
"Don't play with me. Who are you to divide Malawians?" he said, in remarks directed at AFORD.
Anonymous pamplets circulated in Mzuzu City had urged people not to attend the event because "safety cannot be guaranteed and we have nothing to celebrate on this day. It should be a day to take stock of where we have come from and where we are going."
For most of its time as an idependent nation, Malawi was ruled with an iron fist by former dictator Kamuzu Banda. Muluzi ousted Banda in the nation's first multiparty polls in 1994.
Malawi remains one of the world's poorest and least developed nations, with about 60 percent of its people living in poverty.
"We may be poor, yes, but I will not allow anybody to dictate to me how to run Malawi," Muluzi said, in comments one political commentator said were directed at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which sponsor the country's tough economic reforms.
"We are committed to deliver what people need most and to create opportunities for them," he said.
Muluzi arrived at the stadium in a triumphant mood in a colourful convoy, complete with outrider motorcyclists. He said the national day was to remember the collapse of dictatorship and seven years after fighting Banda's one party rule.
Muluzi has increasingly tried to tighten his grip on power, and a pressure group has already formed to prevent him from running for an unconstitutional third term in 2004.
At an inter-denominational prayer service for independence day on Thursday, his supporters booed an Anglican bishop who criticized Muluzi's handling of corruption in government.
Security at the stadium was tight, after the distribution of the anonymous pamphlets intensified in the morning.
But in his speech Muluzi vowed that his government will uphold "principles of democracy and never again allow another dictatorship." |
