REMEMBERING 2nd PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ZAMBIA DR FREDERICK JACOB TITUS CHILUBA IN BAROTSELAND
(April 30, 1943 – June 18, 2011)
…. A diminutive man barely five feet tall, was Zambia’s president from 1991 to 2002. Frederick Chiluba was elected president of Zambia in the country’s first multiparty elections.
A self-made man and active trade unionist who grew up in a mining town in the Copperbelt region.
In the rest of Zambia they remember him as the corruption genius ever to have looted country resources – through the so called: presidential slash fund and the election rigger.
In Barotseland we remember him for promoting tribal fights and who wanted to divide the region.
He is the one who created and brought problems and the confusion of chief mutondo of the the Nkoya speaking people to rebel against the Litunga and BRE Kuta.
During the period of 1993 – 1996 during the reign of Yeta IV as King over Barotseland and FTJ Chiluba as president of Zambia, a bitter disagreement arose between them that resulted in Chiluba’s order to have the king of Barotseland arrested and charged with treason. The ploy nearly succeeded except for several hundreds of Barotse who rushed to the King’s palace to offer themselves as possible human shields. Reportedly, the royal Ngongi and Maoma war drums were sounded to alert the Barotse that their kingdom was now in a state of war and in no time the hundreds of young and old Barotse surrounded the palace in defense of their King.
Sensing unprecedented Barotse determination, resistance, and looming human catastrophe, Chiluba is reported to have withdrawn his advancing troops assigned to capture the King of Barotseland.
Although what transpired between the two authorities was never made public, the cause of their strained relationship may have been due to Chiluba’s maneuvers to undermine the authority of the king of Barotseland using two Kaoma based chiefs, Mutondo and Kahare, whom the Lusaka government had decided to officially recognize as such without due regard of the customs of Barotseland and the Litunga’s authority as granted by the Chiefs’ ACT CAP 479 of the LAWS of Zambia which recognized the customary law & jurisdiction of the Litunga (King) throughout Barotseland.
The grand plan, we are told, was to diminish the influence of the Litunga over Barotseland by further dismembering it to create what would be the tenth Zambian province, Kafue by then.
Thus, Lukulu, Mumbwa, Itezhitezhi, and Kalomo would have seceded from Barotseland to the new province. With the apparent backing of Lusaka, not only did the irregularly recognized Mutondo refuse to go to Lealui to complete their installation rights as prescribed by the customs of Barotseland, but they also threatened to remove Senior Chief late Litia Mbikusita-Lewanika from Kaoma by force, threatening violence on all ‘Lozi’ people in the district and further threatening to cause bloodshed throughout Kaoma if Litia was not removed. Notwithstanding the knowledge of these threats, President Chiluba’s government failed to arrest the agitators or even to investigate the threats after complaints had been made to the police by the people.
Instead, Chiluba’s government made some threats on the Litunga of Barotseland. It was in response to these threats and innuendo that His Majesty, Ilute Yeta IV, wrote a lengthy and frank letter to the president of Zambia to spell out and defend the inalienable rights of the people of Barotseland even within the context of Zambia.
The letter, written by the King of Barotseland actually expounds the LINYUNGANDAMBO philosophy. The letter is understood to have infuriated Chiluba, who then wished to use it as a basis for charging the King with treason.
It should also be noted that, although no proof is available and given the nature of his strained relationship with Lusaka, it is not uncommon for some Barotse to blame Litunga Ilute Yeta IV’s mysterious death on Chiluba’s regime.
What is factual, however, is that in 1996, Chiluba’s government plan to have Ilute Yeta IV arrested and cited for treason was only aborted by the sounding of the Barotse Royal War drums ( the Maoma) in Limulunga Royal village which symbolized a declaration of war by Barotse loyalists as they were willing to protect their beloved Litunga even by their own death!
we will reproduce King Yeta IV’s entire letter to the president of Zambia, Fredrick Titus Jacob Chiluba, in which he said among others the following:
1. “The objectives and effect of the Barotseland agreement 1964 was not that we were surrendering our sovereignty to the new state, on the contrary, our understanding of the agreement was that it was merely an agreement to transfer the obligations which hitherto were obligations of Her Majesty’s government of Northern Rhodesia to the state of Zambia, and these obligations related to area of development, finance, and the external relations; otherwise we were, within Barotseland, to rema