EDITOR’S CHOICE: Kikonge Massacre and the Price of Economic Collapse
By Dr Lawrence Mwelwa
There’s blood in the soil of Mufumbwe—and the government can’t scrub it off. Whether it’s two lives or fourteen, the dead don’t lie. What happened in Kikonge is not just a security incident. It is a scandal. It is a moral indictment. It is the moment the State fired bullets into a crowd of its own forgotten people—people who had already been abandoned by jobs, by justice, and by every promise made in campaign season.
The official line is weak and offensive. They say only two were killed. As if the value of life has dropped so low that body count is a matter of public relations. As if two is somehow a number to be proud of when you fire live rounds into thousands of unarmed citizens trying to feed their families with picks, shovels, and borrowed hope.
Fifty thousand people. That is not a protest. That is not a criminal ring. That is a human avalanche caused by hunger, unemployment, and systemic betrayal. It is the economic apocalypse in broad daylight. People do not travel over 100 kilometres into the bush for fun. They go because the economy has shut them out. They go because the State has become a fortress of broken promises guarded by uniforms and barricaded by bureaucracy.
And what did this government do when its people cried out—not with placards, but with bare hands in the soil? It met them with boots, shields, and bullets. This is not governance. This is war. A war on the poor. A war on those who believed the dream that Zambia was ready to rise again.
Let’s be clear: the blood spilled in Kikonge is not an isolated tragedy. It is the harvest of an economy that grows only on Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. We have leaders talking about “debt restructuring,” “macro stability,” and “foreign reserves,” while on the ground people are dying over dust, digging in the dark for scraps of copper and gold that they will never benefit from. This is extractive capitalism meets post-colonial incompetence.
As one whistleblower from within the mining sector revealed anonymously, “The same government that kills villagers over mining licenses is the same one that gives away mineral wealth to foreign corporations for a song.” What do we call this? Policy? No. This is a scandal of betrayal. A betrayal of Zambians by the very leaders who promised to restore dignity.
And now, to cover up the mess, the government spins narratives. “No massacre,” they say. “Only two dead,” they say. “Calm down,” they say. But what they don’t say is that these deaths were avoidable. That poverty is a State failure, not a personal choice. That this tragedy was years in the making—carved out by IMF conditions, shrinking budgets, and hollow slogans about job creation.
This scandal must not be buried with the bodies. It must be investigated. It must be prosecuted—not in court alone, but in the court of public opinion, in the memory of the youth, and in the conscience of a nation that must never get used to the sound of gunfire over a loaf of bread.
To the government: the scandal is not that people said 14 died. The scandal is that even one died, and you think you can manage the fallout with press statements and denials. The blood of Kikonge will stain every speech, every promise, every handshake until the truth is owned and justice is done.
Zambia is bleeding. And it’s not just from the mines. It’s bleeding from the wounds of inequality, the bruises of mismanagement, and the open fractures of a broken social contract.
And no amount of silence will make this scandal disappear.
What would have PF done? PF gassed us in one own houses. So ba Dr fimo fimo don’t blame us with your fake emotions, the Government is doing its best to clear of the illegality. Come up with strategy on how you can come back. Don’t give us fake emotions as if care kansi ufuna ma votes.