ZAMBIA OUR HERITAGE: MY FINAL SAY BEFORE THE PRESIDENT ASSENTS TO THE DRAFT CONSTITUTION
[By Brigadier General Godfrey Miyanda, 4th January 2015]
On 16th December 2015 I wrote a petition to the Republican President, Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu, titled “At least Ten Reasons Why the President Must NOT Assent to the Constitution with His Eyes Closed”. I wish to make it clear that, contrary to deliberate misrepresentations by both some media and PF zealots, I never asked the President NOT to assent; I advised him NOT to sign with his eyes closed as he declared in Kasama! But as he signs and assents this afternoon he is probably chuckling “do not listen to him; he is just a simple soldier!”
I did NOT react to the sponsored PF cadres and organisations such as the Young African Leaders (YALI) because I naively believed that the President would grant me audience to elaborate on the issues and bring up the remaining contentious issues as I indicated in my Petition. Since the President is signing today (6th January 2016) I consider it my national duty to elaborate, contextualize and leave a record for posterity.
Talking of posterity I wish to quote from a previous statement to provide a vivid background of my concerns. Sometime in October 2012 The Post newspaper requested me to comment on the First 12 months of the Patriotic Front in Government. I issued my statement on 15th October 2012. The Post published part of my statement on page 4 in their issue No. 5844 dated Thursday October 18, 2012.
I quote the opening paragraph from the said statement “The first twelve months of the PF in Government provide good material for assessing a regime that came in on an incredible wave of presumed popularity, because the debate comes at the advent of the independence celebrations, a time when we recall the reason for the struggle and hoping to recommit ourselves to the unity of all our peoples. In reviewing the first steps of the PF this is what has to be assessed. It is our independence and unity that has to be guarded, protected and defended. This analysis is premised on this in order to see to what extent the PF has helped our young democracy to remain united and remain a beacon of hope for all its peoples.”
It can be seen from that statement that my Petition is not malicious, frivolous nor is it an afterthought intended to thwart the constitution-making process.
Land:
I contend that the Constitution that President Edgar Chagwa Lungu is signing today will further entrench the raping of our precious land by foreign interest forces through dubious business deals with those we have entrusted with managing our country. These actions are against the spirit and purpose of our independence journey; they are against the spirit and letter of the Constitution and other laws that preceded the granting of the independence trophy that we fought so hard to get. Land is what identifies us as Zambians. So what happened to our land when we were an occupied country under the British Power? We lost the land as we had no control over its usage. And what happened after the breakup of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and on the road to actual independence? Although there were no reparations we got something; it was called Native Reserves or land for “natives”. Although this sounds demeaning, it is a better deal to day and we must not allow the President, let alone any politician or individual in authority, to give away our inheritance to all and sundry.
When Mr Mwanza of YALI criticised my Petition on the MUVI TV Assignment (Sunday 3rd January 2016) to which I was unethically not invited to defend my Petition he even raised some racial slurs against me, mischievously slanting the grounds I presented to the President, and naively blurting out that “Zambia is a country for many colours”!
Our legacy as a former occupied country is that, whether by design or oversight, Her Majesty’s Government left some land safe and secure “for the natives”. Since God is not creating any more land, it is prudent and safer to keep our “native reserves” than become a country of many undefined colours. Provided we put our chiefs in check to fit in their role as trustees in these modern times. Her Majesty’s Government segmented the land in Zambia in distinct categories: State Land and Reserves (later Trust Land). By this arrangement the Reserves meant lands ‘set apart for the sole and exclusive use of the native inhabitants of Zambia’. One definition of a native in Zambia was “any member of the aboriginal tribes or races of Africa and includes any person having the blood of any such tribe or race and living among and after the manner of such tribe or race”. Seventy three such races were identified as belonging to the new state that was to be called Zambia. These are the owners of Zambia and no one must be ashamed to say so in the Constitution, especially in the Preamble. Why must this structure of “Zambianness” be changed because some investors are building our roads? Or because YALI says they have married across races? This is a red herring intended to distract attention from the real issue and make us feel guilty as perceived racists: it is a fact that Zambians are the owners of Zambia; that Zambians are hospitable people and have always welcomed people from other lands.
President Lungu must today state clearly his vision on the land of Zambia. Is he going to let loose vultures from afar to grab everything in the name of investment? The system of vesting land in the President is a carry-over from the Colonial arrangement. Mr Mwanza of YALI was busy trashing our traditional land because it has no Title Deed. Even without that piece of paper our people and their chiefs new whose land was where. Even today this is so, except for the epidemic of greed and corruption that has spread as a cancer throughout the nation and in all institutions including the Church!
Some of our chiefs have betrayed and are betraying their people for a bottle of whisky. The YALI man questioned my service in Government, saying we can make amendments later – seriously? There will be nothing left by these vultures when they are through with their schemes. Today President Lungu and his government are busy enticing chiefs to release more land to the state “for investment”, land that belongs to indigenous people under the pretext of development. This is a conduit for stealing our birth right while we are watching. How come foreign investors have the means to develop our country but we do not have the capacity and capability to develop it ourselves? It is because those in power choose to betray their people. I say that chiefs and their subjects are THE GOVERNMENT OVER ‘NATIVE LAND’ OR WHAT IS NOW CALLED TRADITIONAL LAND. I urge all Zambians who care for their inheritance to adopt the use of the word NATIVE (as in “say it loud I am a NATIVE of Zambia”). This word connotes indigenous which I mentioned to the President who has kept quiet but his supporters are telling us that we shall a make amendments later! This is the main issue so why must it come later? I emphasise, without land there is no Zambia; without land there is no Zambian; without land there is no chief, not even President Lungu; anyway, without our land what is there to celebrate at the stadium? Let President Lungu give us our Jubilee, if indeed he is a Jubilee President.
SECURITY:
The President comes into the fight for our inheritance because he is the Commander-In-Chief. This title means Chief Defender and Warrior for the state and all its peoples, not Chief Schemer or Betrayer or Traitor of the people. I petitioned the President I got no response. Security is not only about the grave offence of treason. There are several crimes related to the security of the state. Their gravity is reflected in the several separate pieces of legislation, which one hopes may one day be codified into one law. They number at least eight. Additionally there are several other Acts that may not directly be security provisions but have or may have a bearing on state security. I urge the President to always remember his solemn Oath of Office.
To borrow from the English of our Nigerian relatives “I have said my own”. I am done!
GODFREY MIYANDA,
BRIGADIER GENERAL,
A SIMPLE SOLDIER
[5TH JANUARY 2016]