1931 Africa

Africa

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Angola

*The Trans-African Railroad opened, connecting Benguela, Angola to Katanga in the Belgian Congo (July 1). 

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Democratic Republic of the Congo

(Belgian Congo)

*The Trans-African Railroad opened, connecting Benguela, Angola to Katanga in the Belgian Congo (July 1). 

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Ethiopia

(Abyssinia)

*The first Constitution of Ethiopia was promulgated (July 16).

The 1931 Constitution of Ethiopia was the first modern constitution for Ethiopia, and was intended to officially replace the Fetha Negest, which had been the supreme law since the Middle Ages. It was promulgated in "an impressive ceremony" held on July 16, 1931 in the presence of Emperor Haile Selassie, who had long desired to proclaim one for his country. It is noteworthy that this was the first instance in history where an absolute ruler had sought voluntarily to share sovereign power with the subjects of his realm.

While still Regent, Haile Selassie had wanted Empress Zawditu to proclaim such a document, but some of the great nobles, to whose advantage it was to rule the country without a constitution, had pretended that it would diminish the dignity and authority of Queen Zawditu if a constitution were set up. Once he became Emperor, Haile Selassie then appointed a commission to draft the document. The commission's leading members included the Europeans Gaston Jèze and Johannes Kolmodin, but most prominently Ethiopian intellectuals such as Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam and Gedamu Woldegiorgis.

Haile Selassie introduced Ethiopia's first written constitution on July 16, 1931, providing for a bicameral legislature.  The constitution kept power in the hands of the nobility, but it did establish democratic standards among the nobility, envisaging a transition to democratic rule. The constitution limited the succession to the throne to the descendants of Haile Selassie, a point that met with the disapprobation of other dynastic princes, including the princes of Tigrai and even the emperor's loyal cousin, Ras Kassa Haile Darge.  

This constitution was based on the Meiji Constitution of Japan,  a country that educated Ethiopians considered a model for its successful grafting of Western learning and technology onto the framework of a non-Western culture. However, unlike its Japanese model, the Ethiopian Constitution was a simple document of 55 articles arranged in seven chapters. It asserted the Emperor's own status, reserved imperial succession to the line of Haile Selassie, and declared that "the person of the Emperor is sacred, his dignity inviolable, and his power indisputable." All power over central and local government, the legislature, the judiciary, and the military was vested in the emperor. The constitution was essentially an effort to provide a legal basis for replacing the traditional provincial rulers with appointees loyal to the emperor. It was not intended to be a representative democracy, as the Emperor alone had the power to designate senators.

According to Haile Selassie, the importance of this legal innovation was not understood "on the side of the officials and the people". To educate them on constitutional theory, he called the leading members of both groups to an assembly where its principal author, Tekle Hawariat, delivered a lengthy speech which not only described the contents of the document, but expounded a theory of constitutional law.

The 1931 Constitution consists of the Decree proclaiming the constitution and seven chapters divided into 55 articles. The contents of the chapters are:

1. The Ethiopian Empire and the Succession to the Throne. Five articles stating that Ethiopia is the domain of the Emperor, who shall be a descendant "of his Majesty Haile Selassie I, descendant of King Sahle Selassie,  whose line descends without interruption from the dynasty of Menelik I, son of King Solomon of Jerusalem and of the Queen of Ethiopia, known as the Queen of Sheba. 
2. The Power and Prerogatives of the Emperor.  Twelve articles setting forth the powers of the Emperor.
3. The Rights Recognized by the Emperor as belonging to the Nation, and the Duties Incumbent on the Nation.  Twelve articles stating that "The Law" will define the conditions to become a subject of Ethiopia, and the duties of these subjects. This chapter also sets forth some rights subjects enjoy "except in the cases provided by law" (Articles 25, 26, 27) and while they "in no way limit the measures which the Emperor, by virtue of his supreme power, may take in the event of war or of public misfortunes menacing the interests of the nation" (Article 29).
4. The Deliberate Chambers of the Empire.  Eighteen articles which established a bicameral parliament for Ethiopia. Until this document, there had never been a formal legislative body in Ethiopia. The lower chamber would temporarily be chosen by the Nobility (Mekuanent) and the local chiefs (Shumoch) "until the people are in a position to elect them themselves" (Article 32), while the upper chamber would be appointed by the Emperor.
5. The Ministers of the Empire.  Two articles on the duties of government ministers, a system of executive officers which Menelik II had established in 1908.
6. Jurisdiction.  Five articles setting forth the judicial system. Article 54 establishes Special Courts, required by the Klobukowski agreement of 1906, which gave foreigners extraterritoriality in Ethiopia, exempting them from both Ethiopian law and her justice system.  
7. The Budget of the Imperial Government. One article requiring the Government Treasury to set an annual budget, which directs how the government will spend its money.

A few months later, on November 3, 1931, the day after the anniversary of the Emperor's own coronation, Haile Selassie convened the first parliament of the new constitution. The Emperor hoped that the institution would stimulate nationalism and unity and that its members would popularize socio-political change in the provinces.

Following the restoration of Haile Selassie in 1941, Emperor Haile Selassie re-established the 1931 constitution, convening the parliament  on November 2, 1942. This body included a chamber of deputies which was double its pre-war size, who were selected by an election to elect a group of 20 for each of the 12 provinces,  who would then meet at the provincial capitals to select five of their numbers to be deputies.

Despite the resurrection of the parliament, Haile Selassie promulgated a number of laws in the form of proclamations and decrees. It was not until his proclamation 34/1943 that the authority of the parliament was included. Laws were issued under the authority of the Emperor and the parliament until the end of February 1944, when the sole authority of the Emperor again was used, which continued until the beginning of November of that year, when the parliament was again in session.

The Constitution of 1931 was superseded at the time of Emperor Haile Selassie's Silver Jubilee in 1955, when a new constitution was promulgated.

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*On November 3, 1931, the anniversary of the Emperor's own coronation, Haile Selassie convened the first parliament of the new Ethiopian constitution. 

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Guinea-Bissau

*Luís Severino de Almeida Cabral, the first President of Guinea-Bissau, was born in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea (April 11). 

Luís Severino de Almeida Cabral (b. April 11, 1931, Bissau, Portuguese Guinea – d. May 30, 2009, Torres Vedras, Portugal) served as President from 1974 to 1980, when a military coup d'etat led by Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira deposed him. Luís Cabral was a half-brother of Amilcar Cabral, with whom he co-founded the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) in 1956.

Cabral completed his primary school studies in the Cape Verde archipelago, which was also a Portuguese territory at that time. Later on he would receive training in accountancy.

In the early 1960s, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) launched an anti-colonial guerrilla war against the Portuguese authorities. Luís Cabral's rise to leadership began in 1973, after the assassination in Conakry, Guinea, of his half-brother Amilcar Cabral, the noted Pan-African intellectual and founder of the PAIGC. Leadership of the party, then engaged in fighting for independence from Portuguese rule for both Guinea-Bissau (then known as Portuguese Guinea) and for Cape Verde, fell to Aristides Pereira, who later became the president of Cape Verde. The Guinea-Bissau branch of the party, however, followed Luís Cabral.

Following a military coup in April 1974 at Lisbon, the new left-wing revolutionary government of Portugal granted independence to Portuguese Guinea, as Guinea-Bissau, on September 10 that same year. The PAIGC had unilaterally proclaimed the country's independence one year before in the village of Madina do Boe, and this event was recognized by many socialist and non-aligned member states of the United Nations. Luís Cabral became President of Guinea-Bissau. A program of national reconstruction and development, of socialist inspiration (with the support of the Soviet Union, China and the Nordic countries), began. But some suspicion and instability was present in the party after Amilcar Cabral's death and independence. Relations with Portugal after independence were relatively good. The Guinean president visited Portugal in 1978 and President Ramalho Eanes visited the former colony the next year, referring to the Luso-Guinean relationship as a model for those Portugal sought to establish with Angola and Mozambique.

Some sections of the party accused Luís Cabral and the other members with Cape Verdean origins of dominating the party. Alleging this, Cabral's Prime Minister and former armed forces commander Joao Bernardo Vieira organized his overthrow on November 14, 1980 in a military coup. Luís Cabral was then arrested and detained for 13 months.

After the military coup in 1980, he was sent into exile, first in Cuba, which offered to receive him, then (in 1984), in Portugal, where the Portuguese Government received him and gave him measure to live with his family, until his death in 2009.

Shortly after being appointed Prime Minister following the Guinea-Bissau Civil War,  Francisco Fadul called for Cabral's return from exile in December 1998. Cabral said in response, in the Portuguese newspaper 24 Horas, that he would be willing to return, but not while Vieira remained in power; Vieira had said that he could not guarantee Cabral's safety, and Cabral said that as a result he feared for his life should he return while Vieira remained president. On October 22, 1999, following Vieira's ouster, coup leader Ansumane Mane invited Cabral to return, giving him a passport marking him as "President of the Guinea Bissau Council of State" while in Lisbon. Cabral was in Bissau in mid-November 1999, and said on the occasion that he did not want to become active in politics again or to rejoin the PAIGC.

Cabral died aged 78 on May 30, 2009 in Torres Vedras, Portugal. His death followed a long bout of illness.

As the President of Guinea-Bissau, Cabral's authoritarian single-party regime was severely repressive and the country was hit by severe food shortages. Luís Cabral was also accused of being responsible for the execution of a large number of black Guinea-Bissauan soldiers who had fought alongside the Portuguese Army against the PAIGC guerrillas during the Portuguese Colonial War, a claim that Cabral always denied. One of the massacres occurred in the town of Bissora. After the military coup, in 1980 PAIGC admitted in its official newspaper Nó Pintcha (dated November 29, 1980) that many black Guinea-Bissauan soldiers were executed during the colonial war and buried in unmarked collective graves in the woods of Cumerá, Portogole and Mansaba.

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Kenya

*Mwai Kibaki, (b. November 15, 1931, Gatuyaini, Kenya Colony), a Kenyan politician who was the third President of Kenya, serving from December 2002 to April 2013, was born in Gatuyaini, Kenya Colony (November 15).

Kibaki was previously Vice-President of Kenya for ten years from 1978 to 1988 under President Daniel arap Moi. He also held cabinet ministerial positions in the Kenyatta and Moi governments, including time as minister for Finance (1969–1981) under Kenyatta, and Minister for Home Affairs (1982–1988) and Minister for Health (1988–1991) under Moi.

Kibaki served as an opposition Member of Parliament from 1992 to 2002. He unsuccessfully stood as a presidential candidate in 1992 and 1997. He served as the Leader of the Official Opposition in Parliament from 1998 to 2002. In the 2002 presidential election, he was elected as President of Kenya.

Mwai Kibaki, in full Emilio Mwai Kibaki (b. November 15, 1931, Gatuyaini, Kenya),

a member of the Kikuyu people, attended Makerere University (B.A., 1955) in Uganda and the London School of Economics (B.Sc., 1959). He then worked as a teacher before becoming active in the Kenyan struggle for independence from Great Britain. After Kenya became independent in 1963, he won a seat in the National Assembly as a member of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party. He later served as minister of finance (1969–82) and vice president (1978–88) but increasingly found himself at odds with President Daniel arap Moi, who headed KANU. In 1991, Kibaki resigned his membership in KANU to form the Democratic Party.

Kibaki unsuccessfully challenged Moi in the presidential elections of 1992 and 1997, and in 1998 he became the official head of the opposition. With Moi constitutionally barred from seeking another presidential term, Kibaki sought the presidency for a third time. In September 2002 he helped create the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), a multiparty alliance that nominated Kibaki as its presidential candidate. A few weeks before the election, Kibaki was involved in a car accident and suffered serious injuries. Although he was confined to a wheelchair, he continued his campaign and easily defeated Moi’s chosen successor,  Uhuru Kenyatta (a son of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president). In parliamentary elections NARC routed the ruling KANU, which had dominated Kenya since the country’s independence.

As president, Kibaki pledged to eliminate the government corruption that had ruined the country’s economy and had resulted in the withdrawal of foreign aid. Although he established anti-corruption courts, his attempts to pass anti-corruption bills were largely unsuccessful. In 2003 legislators voted themselves large raises, which they said would discourage bribe taking. The move, however, was met with public criticism. Kibaki’s government also suffered from power struggles among the ruling coalition’s various constituent parties. This tension increased as lawmakers struggled to draft a new constitution, which Kibaki had promised during his campaign. Disagreements concerning reforms, especially the creation of a prime ministership, further divided NARC and delayed enactment of a new constitution, leading to public unrest. Members of his administration were mired in corruption in 2005, which further fueled public discontent. A new constitution, backed by Kibaki, was finally put to referendum in November 2005, but it was rejected by voters; the rejection was viewed by many as a public indictment of Kibaki’s administration.

In preparation for the December 2007 elections, Kibaki formed a new coalition, the Party of National Unity (PNU), which, surprisingly, included KANU. Several candidates stood in the presidential election, which was one of the closest in Kenya’s history and boasted a record-high voter turnout. After a delay in the release of the final election results, Kibaki was declared the winner, narrowly defeating Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). Odinga immediately disputed the outcome, and international observers questioned the validity of the final results. Widespread protests ensued throughout the country and degenerated into horrific acts of violence involving some of Kenya’s many ethnic groups, most notable of which were the Kikuyu (Kibaki’s group) and the Luo (Odinga’s group); both groups were victims as well as perpetrators. More than 1,000 people were killed and more than 600,000 were displaced in the election’s violent aftermath as efforts to resolve the political impasse between Kibaki and Odinga were not immediately successful.

On February 28, 2008, Kibaki and Odinga signed a power-sharing plan brokered by former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan and Jakaya Kikwete, president of Tanzania and chairman of the African Union. The plan called for the formation of a coalition government between PNU and ODM and the creation of several new positions, with Kibaki to remain president and Odinga to hold the newly created post of prime minister. Despite the agreement, however, conflict persisted over the distribution of posts. After several weeks of talks, the allocation of cabinet positions between PNU and ODM members was settled, and on April 13, 2008, Kibaki named a coalition government in which he retained the presidency. The coalition, however, was often fraught with tension.

A new constitution finally materialized during Kibaki’s second term. Designed to address the sources of ethnic and political tensions that had fueled the violence that followed the December 2007 election, the new constitution featured a decentralization of power and was supported by both Kibaki and Odinga. It was approved by voters in a referendum, and Kibaki signed it into law on August 27, 2010.

Barred from holding a third term as president, Kibaki stepped down at the end of his term in April 2013. He was succeeded by Uhuru Kenyatta, who had defeated Odinga in an election held the previous month.

Niger

*Seyni Kountché (b. July 1, 1931, Damana Fandou, Niger, French West Africa – d. November 10, 1987, Paris, France), a military officer who led a 1974 coup d'etat that deposed the government of Niger's first president Hamani Diori, was born in Damana Fandou, Niger, French West Africa.  He ruled the country as military head of state from 1974 to 1987.  Stade General Seyni Kountche, Niger's national stadium in Niamey, is named after him.

Born in 1931 in the town of Damana Fandou, the child of Djerma aristocracy who traced their origins to the Djermakoy Tondikandie, Seyni Kountché began his military career in 1949 serving in the French colonial army. In 1957, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant. The French territory of Niger became independent as the Republic of Niger on August 3, 1960.  One year after his country gained its independence, Kountché transferred to the Niger Army.  From 1965 to 1966, he studied at the officer's training school in Paris and became deputy  chief of staff of the armed forces soon after. He was promoted to armed forces chief of staff in 1973.

During this same period, the newly independent country of Niger faced many problems. Politically, the nation was ruled as a one-party state led by president Hamani Diori. Opposition to the regime was suppressed, sometimes violently. A severe drought lasted from 1968 to 1974, leading to food shortages and growing dissatisfaction with the government. The economy remained weak despite attempts to exploit the large reserves of uranium in the country. Widespread civil disorder followed allegations that some government ministers were misappropriating stocks of food aid.

On April 15, 1974, Seyni Kountché led a military coup that ended Diori's rule. Kountché's first official acts were to suspend the Constitution, dissolve the National Assembly, ban all political parties, and release political prisoners. A Supreme Military Council (CMS) was established on April 17, 1974 with Kountché as president. Its stated mandate was to distribute food aid fairly and to restore morality to public life. A consultative National Council for Development (CND) replaced the National Assembly. Although political parties were outlawed, opposition activists who were exiled during Diori's regime were allowed to return to Niger.

The military government's major preoccupation was planning an economic recovery. Generally amicable relations were maintained with France, and new links were formed with Arab states. Domestically, the country stabilized although personal and policy differences developed within the CMS. Plots to remove Kountché were thwarted in 1975 and again in 1976.

In 1981, Kountché began to increase civilian representation in the CMS, and in 1982 preparations were undertaken for a constitutional  form of government.  A civilian prime minister, Mamane Oumarou, was appointed on January 24, 1983. One year later, in January 1984, he established a commission to draft a pre-constitutional document, termed a 'national charter'. It was later approved in a national referendum. The charter provided for the establishment of non-elective, consultative institutions at both national and local levels.

Economic adjustment efforts during this period were impeded by the recurrence of drought in 1984 and 1985 along with the closure of the land border with Nigeria from 1984 to 1986. Niger's dependence on external financial assistance was increased. Relations with the United States (by now the country's principal source of food aid) assumed considerable importance. Meanwhile, a period of renewed tension between Niger and Libya had fueled Libyan accusations of the persecution of the light-skinned, nomadic Tuareg population by the Kountché regime. In May 1985, following an armed incident near the Niger-Libya border, all non-Nigerien Tuaregs were expelled from the country.

Seyni Kountché's health deteriorated in late 1986 and it continued to worsen during 1987. He died at a Paris hospital of a brain tumor on November 10, 1987.  

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South Africa

*The Franchise Laws Amendment Act was passed (June).

The Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931, was an act of the Parliament of South Africa which removed all property and educational franchise qualifications applying to white men. It was passed a year after the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930,  which extended the franchise to all white women. The consequence of these two acts was that all white people over the age of 21 (except for those convicted of certain crimes and those declared mentally unsound by a court) were entitled to vote in elections of the House of Assembly. 

The act retained the property and educational qualifications for black and coloured men, who were in any case only eligible to vote in the Cape Province.  The result was a further dilution of the electoral power of the non-white population.

The act was repealed in 1946 when the franchise laws were consolidated into the Electoral Consolidation Act, 1946. 

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*Desmond Mpilo Tutu, a South African social rights activist and Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid, was born in Klerksdorp, Western Transvaal, South Africa (October 7). Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu (b. October 7, 1931, Klerksdorp, Western Transvaal, South Africa) was the first black Archbishop of Cape Town and bishop of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa). 

Tutu campaigned to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, poverty racism, sexism, the imprisonment of Chelsea Manning, homophobia and transphobia. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984; the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism in 1986; the Pacem in Terris Award in 1987; the Sydney Peace Prize in 1999; the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2007, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.  He also compiled several books of his speeches and sayings.

Tutu was born of Xhosa and Tswana parents and was educated in South African mission schools at which his father taught. Though he wanted a medical career, Tutu was unable to afford training and instead became a schoolteacher in 1955. He resigned his post in 1957. He then attended St. Peter’s Theological College in Johannesburg and was ordained an Anglican priest in 1961. In 1962 he moved to London, where in 1966 he obtained a master of arts degree from King’s College London. From 1972 to 1975 he served as an associate director for the World Council of Churches. He was appointed dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg in 1975, the first black South African to hold that position. From 1976 to 1978 Tutu served as bishop of Lesotho.

In 1978 Tutu accepted an appointment as the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches and became a leading spokesperson for the rights of black South Africans. During the 1980s he played an unrivaled role in drawing national and international attention to the iniquities of apartheid.  He emphasized nonviolent means of protest and encouraged the application of economic pressure by countries dealing with South Africa. The award of the 1984 Nobel Prize for Peace to Tutu sent a significant message to South African President P. W. Botha's administration. In 1985, at the height of the township rebellions in South Africa, Tutu was installed as Johannesburg’s first black Anglican bishop, and in 1986 he was elected the first black archbishop of Cape Town, thus becoming the primate of South Africa’s 1.6 million-member Anglican church. In 1988 Tutu took a position as chancellor of the University of the Western Cape in Bellville, South Africa.

During South Africa’s moves toward democracy in the early 1990s, Tutu propagated the idea of South Africa as “the Rainbow Nation,” and he continued to comment on events with varying combinations of trenchancy and humor. In 1995 South African President Nelson Mandela appointed Tutu head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated allegations of human rights abuses during the apartheid era.

Tutu retired from the primacy in 1996 and became archbishop emeritus. In July 2010 he announced his intention to effectively withdraw from public life in October, though he said he would continue his work with the Elders, a group of international leaders he co-founded in 2007 for the promotion of conflict resolution and problem solving throughout the world. On October 7, 2010—his 79th birthday—he began his retirement.

Tutu authored or coauthored numerous publications, including The Divine Intention (1982), a collection of his lectures; Hope and Suffering (1983), a collection of his sermons; No Future Without Forgiveness (1999), a memoir from his time as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time (2004), a collection of personal reflections; and Made for Goodness: And Why This Makes All the Difference (2010), reflections on his beliefs about human nature. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Tutu received numerous honors, including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009), an award from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation that recognized his lifelong commitment to “speaking truth to power” (2012), and the Templeton Prize (2013).

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Zimbabwe

(Rhodesia)

*Walter Kamba, a Yale Law School graduate who became the first black president of the University of Zimbabwe, was born (September 8).

Walter Kamba (b. September 6, 1931 – d. May 18, 2007) was a Zimbabwean lawyer and academic. One of the few black lawyers practicing in the then British colony of Rhodesia, he fled following the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Prime Minister Ian Smith.  He joined the Faculty of Law at the University of Dundee, Scotland, where he taught Jurisprudence and Comparative Law. He also served for some years as Dean of the Faculty.

He served as a legal advisor to the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF) and Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) delegations at the Lancaster House Conference. After independence, he served as principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe from 1981 to 1992. Under his tenure, the University expanded its overall size, its intake of black Zimbabweans and the range of academic disciplines offered. He resigned in a controversial speech at the 1992 graduation, citing government interference and threats to academic freedom.