Education
Educated at Livingstone then at the Technical Secondary School in Lusaka. He completed his academic career in England at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Oxford University, reading political science and international relations.
Educated at Livingstone then at the Technical Secondary School in Lusaka. He completed his academic career in England at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Oxford University, reading political science and international relations.
In preparation for his diplomatic career he was attached to the British Embassy in Rome in 1963. At that time until independence in 1964 he served in the Prime Minister’s Office as Administrative Officer. When the first diplomatic mission was established in London in October 1964 he was appointed Deputy High Commissioner. From London he was assigned as permanent delegate in 1964 to 1965 to the preparatory committee for the second Afro-Asian conference at Algiers. In 1965 he was promoted Ambassador to Moscow. President Kaunda recalled him to be his Permanent Secretary from 1966 to 1968. He handled all the major issues which faced the President over Zambia’s confrontation with Rhodesia. He was always at Kaunda’s side at conferences of Commonwealth and OAU leaders. In 1968 he was sent to the United Nations as ambassador with the extra responsibility of being High Commissioner to Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Jamaica.
In New York he was Zambia’s delegate on the UN Security Council from January 1, 1969, to December 31, 1970, and chairman of the Fourth (Decolonisation) Committee during 1970. Throughout his four years he was on the Council for Namibia. He was vice-chairman of the preparatory committee for the environment conference at Stockholm in 1972. As a gifted writer he also found time for articles and was the joint author of “Southern Africa in Perspective” published in New York in 1970.
His approach to the responsibilities of an editor since 1972 has been cautious but fully consistent with the high standards he set himself as a diplomat. He has brought to journalism some of the outspokenness of debate in the UN Security Council and some of the discretion of the delegates’ lounge at the UN.
His diplomatic talents were switched by President Kaunda to the national newspaper at a time when many people in party and government were becoming highly sensitive to Press criticism. Although he vowed at the outset not to abandon the newspaper’s role as a forum for self-criticism in Zambian society his tones have been much less strident than those of the previous editor Dunstan Kamana.
