Royal Barotseland Government is the only way forward, not Any Alliance or Activist Movement - Shuwanga Shuwanga, BFM It is time to bury the hatchet. Those who cannot imagine themselves working together with the initiators of the now existing Royal Barotseland Government must consider themselves opportunists or simply traitors of self and nation. After all, the present Barotseland Government is only an interim one; set up to stir us out of the troubled waters. In the struggle to wrestle Barotseland out of Zambia’s illegal occupation, a lot has been said and done. Activists groups have been formed and ideologies hatched. Sacrifices of individuals’ freedom through unjustified arrests and self imposed (internal or external) exiles; sacrifices of individual’s health and life, have been made. Our people have, over the years, also made countless financial and material sacrifices to the noble cause; not to mention valuable time which can never be recovered. We have almost turned every stone. Journeys to distant foreign lands have been undertaken. Many letters to organizations like the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), the Commonwealth, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and even the relatively irrelevant Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) have been tirelessly written; not to mention deep research into the legality of Barotseland’s nationhood. Frankly speaking, our efforts, though genuine and founded, have thus far yielded very little, if not only succeeding in exposing us to the historical divisions which put us in this quagmire in the first place. Only those foreign to our issue would deny that it was the elitists’ mentality that created a serious division between those who saw themselves as being more privileged (better educated than the rest and, therefore, better poised to comprehend what was the best route for Barotseland to take in order to survive as a nation) and those who were deemed as being less privileged and irrelevant to the cause. Such mentality was largely driven by a toxic mixture of pride, greed and revenge, whose result is the harsh predicament we find ourselves in today. Attempts, in the gone by years, to reverse the shame of the Barotseland Agreement 1964 by paradoxically calling for its “restoration” (post its malicious unilateral termination) inevitably failed miserably because of the same elitist mentality. Those who made such attempts did so while deliberately ignoring and sidelining the Barotse masses. Relatively well to do individuals (largely from Lusaka), working with an edgy and perennially untrustworthy Barotse Royal Establishment (BRE), had “engaged” successive Zambian governments in highly secretive “negotiations” which were more centred on personal interest than Barotse nationhood. It was not until the Barotseland Freedom Movement (BFM) and Linyungandambo appeared on the scene that, for the first time in almost five decades, the masses felt ownership of the struggle. However, the elitist mentality reared its ugly head again as soon as the masses, under the above mentioned groups’ leadership, begun to seriously shake BRE and openly challenged the powers in Lusaka. The idea of “restoration” had appeared more convenient to the Lusaka and some Diaspora based elitists who were also more than ready to disown those persecuted by the Rupiah Banda regime in 2011. Sadly for them (elitists), the revolution for our total independence was already unstoppable. Only months after the 14th January 2011 massacre, a couple of positive events related to our independence took place in quick succession. The Rupiah government was voted out of power in Zambia and Mr Michael Sata, under his Patriotic Front (PF), became the new President. He promptly released all Barotse activists from Zambian jails and further invited some of their leaders for a meeting at the Zambian State House. A Commission of Inquiry into Barotseland shootings was also set up. This move by Mr Sata brought much needed hope to our long suffering people. The majority of submissions made to the Commission called for total separation with Zambia. However, in a move to save the new Zambian Government face, the Commission, inter alia, had recommended the restoration of the BA’64, a suggestion which Mr Sata publicly turned down in his off the cuff style. Official findings have never been made public to date. On 24th January 2012, ten days after BFM successfully held the first Barotseland shootings commemorations, three main Barotse activist groups handed their joint report of the 28th December 2011 meeting with Mr Sata to His Majesty the Litunga in Kashandi. The Litunga, perhaps out of feeling betrayed by Mr Sata for squarely fingering him out as Barotseland’s enemy number one, wasted no time in pointing out that an urgent Barotse National Council (BNC) conference was needed in order to come up with Barotseland’s public and irreversible stand on Barotseland’s nationhood issue with Zambia. Alliance formed only after March 2012 BNC Resolutions The BNC Conference eventually took place on 26th and 27th March 2012 in Limulunga Royal Village. Its eventual Resolutions essentially declared Barotseland free of Zambia. Disengagement work was to follow ….soon. But as repeatedly stated in the resolutions, such work could only be headed by a Barotseland Government and not an activists’ group or alliance of the same. The “alliance” that was formed following the sudden resignation of former ngambela, Honourable Clement Sinyinda, was an idea that had been coined soon after our meeting with the Litunga two months before the BNC conference. Barotse activist had met at Lyambai Hotel following the report to His Majesty. The meeting’s agenda was to create a working liaison committee representing the three groups of BFM, Linyungandambo and Moreba. Given the history of past BNC conferences, the Lyambai meeting could have never been in the position to foreknow the outcome of the March 2012 BNC conference. We did not even know whether the conference was actually going to take place at all since it had already been postponed several times before. We certainly could not have foretold its eventual outcome so as to even resolve, in advance, to form an alliance that would oversee the disengagement with Zambia as well as effectively lobbing the international community on our internationally legal declaration of independence. It would be an insult to sane reasoning to believe that after our declared independence, an “alliance” and not a Barotseland government would be in a better position to effectively represent Barotseland on the international stage. The famous BNC Resolutions, which are now, essentially, our only defence for nationhood, never mention an “alliance” but a “government”, as being a body that would consolidate our independence. Post 2012 BNC Barotseland Reasonably speaking, forming an “alliance”, and not the Barotseland Government to oversee the disengagement from Zambia was never going to get us anywhere fast other than ushering us into yet another situation of limbo and uncertainty. An “alliance” that only emerges after the 2012 BNC would always be undefinable and ambiguous. A government of Barotseland, on the other hand, would be more understandable and without much need for self definition. Furthermore, unlike the “alliance”, a government of Barotseland would be more effective and readily acceptable internationally. As such, an “alliance” could be seen as the work of aloof elitists jostling for possible positions and undue recognition in the new Barotseland if not at all to stall the revolution altogether. An “alliance”, post the BNC 2012, has no relevance and no moral responsibility to talk about Barotseland’s independence to anyone (certainly not on behalf of any Morotse) regardless of whatever documents or resources it may have at hand. Such a set up only serves to bring more confusion to our long suffering people just as we saw it play out in the recent arrests where some activists had serious nationality identity challenges….post 2012 BNC. It is amazing how some activists even contradicted themselves by saying that they stood by the BNC resolutions and yet had problems with their national identity! We cannot call ourselves Zambians if we believe and support the March 2012 BNC Resolutions although we may currently be registered as Zambians; that is if we acknowledge the BNC as Barotseland’s highest policy making body in our land at the moment. Essentially, the Zambian Government had shot itself in the foot when it arrested only selected citizens of Barotseland instead of taking on the entire BNC and BRE who had declared us free of Zambia. It may feel nice to write letters to the UN, AU and the rest, and it may sound promising to be members of the UNPO to which South Africa’s Freedom Front (a legal political party in South Africa) is also a member. However, it is only the Barotseland Government that can challenge whatever powers may be on issues concerning Barotseland nationhood. What does the Barotseland issue really have in common with the South African FF “struggle”? What should be very clear in the minds of all genuine Barotse activists is that the declaration of independence by a territory must be followed by the creation of a government for that territory. A single activist’s group cannot morally claim to champion Barotseland’s independence. People of Barotseland can now no longer beg anyone to form their own government. We are a ship cut loose from another ship and it will be suicidal to just drift away aimlessly, unless we are mentally deceiving ourselves that we still are in the Zambian ship as our detractors would like us to believe. Our enemy is certainly not happy about our well founded UDI. However, it all depends on whether we really believe the BNC Resolutions and our ancient nationhood. Persecution by the enemy, as things stand, may not be avoided but can even be made more worse if we do not recognize our own unitary leadership in form of the Royal Barotseland Government, regardless of who the Administrator General may be. It is high time that the Royal Barotseland Government is supported by all genuine Barotse activist groups. Such support certainly should not mean the demise of Linyungandambo, BFM, the “Alliance”, or Moreba. We only cannot afford to prolong the suffering of our people while at the same time buying our enemy more time he needs (using her vast resources) to plot yet other pit falls for us. It is hard to imagine how others even entertained the idea of seeking recognition from a country we were cut off. It is time to bury the hatchet. Those who cannot imagine themselves working together with the initiators of the now existing Royal Barotseland Government must consider themselves opportunists or simply traitors of self and nation. After all, the present Barotseland Government is only an interim one; set up to stir us out of the troubled waters. Activist groups may remain as they are. Let the Royal Barotseland Government be allowed to lead and let all those who sincerely believe in our independence render their undivided support to it. Anything else is not only confusion but dangerous to our nationhood and time wasting. How can we be believed by anyone sensible when we claim that we had declared ourselves independent of Zambia and yet we do not have a government? In simple terms, Barotseland’s independence cannot be reversed. Shuwanga Shuwanga, BFM
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 07:20:23 +0000
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