By Shalala Oliver Sepiso
Yesterday, I argued that Zambians demonstrated that they don’t appreciate when they voted against Russia at the UN despite all the wrongs Russia has done. I posited that the USSR and Russia have done a lot for us and continue to do so especially that no country educates Zambians at the levels Russia does and since Russia educates more Zambians than any other nationals in the world. I concluded that we only voted against Russia in order for us to look ‘pretty’. Shame! I exclaimed and concluded that we should have abstained since Kaunda left us the perfect stance of non-alignment.
If I was pro-Russian I would have said we vote against the motion but the best was to abstain, which was an option taken by India and South Africa.
Some of those supporting the voting by Zambia at the UN yesterday, surmise that “it is better to be under the capitalist democracies than being under totalitarian ruthless dictators who have no economic sense to Africa”.
However, I say, why do you think that being “under” is any good?
I tell you that non-alignment means refusing to be under anyone. This is why we had our very own humanism, which was not socialism and not capitalism but a blend and it worked well for a long time with serious development of Zambia sponsored by our ability to work with anyone. For example the Yugoslavians – under a dictator build us so many things for us.
When in 1970 Kenneth D. Kaunda called a conference of non-aligned nations in Lusaka, he needed to build – in four months a place for the delegates to meet and stay. President Kaunda engaged Former Yugoslav engineers from Energoprojekt: Yugoslavia’s biggest construction concern. On a small bush along the Great East Road, excavations and pilings started, based on plans drafted in Belgrade and 115 days later, the Yugoslavians delivered a 4,000-seat convention hall and 66 presidential villas, two weeks ahead of the deadline. The Mulungushi International Conference Centre and the Mulungushi Village were ready to host the Non-Aligned Movement Conference which was commemorated by the monument which took centre-stage at the High Court Round about.
Just in case this link with Yugoslavian is to be taken lightly, let me make mention that these Eastern Europeans, who then lived under a dictator of sorts, also did security upgrades to our State House. While we slept, they tunneled and took soil out of State House under covert ops. The engineers secretly built two huge underground bunkers as a secret command center for Zambia. The underground bunkers were a bomb-proofed labyrinth equipped with living quarters, a broadcasting station, meeting rooms and a cache of weapons. According to records now in public domain following the documentaries by one Luckson Nthani in an ill-advised move by Chiluba to embarrass Kaunda, one bunker lies five levels by elevator beneath the State House. The other was a seven-level basement tucked under a hill in State Lodge area near ZAF twin Palm and Bauleni. To complete the maze, they built houses along Ngumbo Road including the former Celtel headquarters – which was Joshua Nkhomo’s house and whose tunnel to State House saved his life during “Operation Gatling” on 19 October 1978, when a joint-force operation into Zambia launched by the Air Force and Army of Southern Rhodesia attacked the house – and other locations along Presidents Lane.
Let us also appreciate that the Yugoslav engineers also built Findeco House, which at 106 metres is still the tallest building in Zambia; the Kafue Gorge Hydroelectric Power Station, the 300-room five-star Pamodzi Hotel; the ZANACO Head Office with its 15 floors; Zambia National Building Society (ZNBS) building and its 18 floors; the University Teaching Hospital (UTH); military and police facilities; and the Zambia National Credit and Savings Bank head office.
It’s the capitalists who didn’t do much. Britain and USA refused to loan us money to build the Dar-es-Salaam to Kapiri Rail-line. While the Chinese built TAZARA – done with Zambia financing the improvements of the harbor and airport at the southern Tanzanian port of Mtwara for additional exporting potential – the Italians delivered the TAZAMA fuel pipeline in half the cost and half the time the other companies from the West had proposed. China did it for us at great cost of Chinese money and lives as thousands of Chinese died building the more than 1000 bridges and tunnels especially on the Tanzanian side. Italians gave us Indeni, the TAZAMA pipeline, FIAT buses for UBZ, hundreds of Zambia-Tanzania Road Services (ZAM-TAN) FIAT trucks and set up Zambian Airways for us. All this wouldn’t have worked without non-alignment. The Americans only did the 2,400-kilometre Kapiri to Dar-es-Salaam highway after the Chinese had began the railway and the levels of investment are not comparable.
In fact, when we nationalised the mines, at the time when the Copperbelt mines benefitted our Zambians the most, the West squeezed us by raising the price of fuel and reducing the price of Copper – remember that at this time Zambia was only third in Copper production behind USA and Russia – and the rest is history.
Lastly, ingratiating yourself to someone doesn’t mean they won’t cheat on you. These “White governments” only Love us as far as they can use us. So no foreign government loves us more than the other beyond what they have demonstrated to us. Remember how Sierra Leone and Liberia were driven by Blacks who came back from the USA but remember the poorest nations on the continent despite their American connections. Let’s see how the Western Democracies will “help” all the 141 countries that voted against Russia. It won’t happen. Are we forgetting the likes of NORAD and others left Zambia and others closed their embassies here? Didn’t we see how on TV – during the Ukraine evacuations – we are still not treated as humans in The West? Or is it “The Worst”?
Anyway its 8am and its time to work now and worry less even though we made a mistake as a nation yesterday. We shall chat after knocking off time.
PICTURE: The Non-Aligned Movement Monument at The High Court Round About on Independence Avenue.