Lungu’s recent statement on the Barotseland Agreement 1964 misguided
by BNFA Publicity Wing
Anybody who thinks the people of Barotseland still want to carry the fake identity of being Zambian should have his/her head examined. Neither Edgar Lungu nor his Barotse Royal Establish (BRE) has authority to be spokes people on the Barotseland Agreement 1964. Edgar Lungu voluntarily surrendered his mandate by virtue of inheriting the unilateral abrogation of the Barotseland Agreement 1964, which was cemented by his enactment of Zambia’s new municipal constitution of January 2016 that omitted the Agreement. The embattled BRE voluntarily surrendered their mandate by virtue of turning their back against the will of the people of Barotseland as expressed through the Barotse National Council (BNC) Resolutions of March 27, 2012. The future of Barotseland is already sealed by the BNC resolutions. We call on the people of Barotseland to rally behind the Barotse National Freedom Alliance (BNFA) for political leadership and actualization of Barotseland statehood. President of the Republic of Zambia, Mr. Edgar Lungu’s statement to the effect that, “the Barotseland Agreement 1964 will be looked into but should not divide the nation”, as reported in the 13:15 hrs news on Zambia Broadcast Service on September 19, 2016 can be equated to a battle cry from a soldier caught under cross-fire in a war with nowhere to turn to. We have said several times before that the people of Barotseland are not responsible for the separation of the territories of Barotseland and North Rhodesia when in actual it was the Kaunda regime that unilaterally abrogated the Barotseland Agreement 1964 in 1969. This set in motion the process of separation of the two territories. The process of separation was delayed by the people of Barotseland’s futile efforts to restore the said Agreement for a period of over 43 years. On March 27, 2012, the people of Barotseland said enough-is-enough and accepted the unilaterally abrogation, which is an act of separation of the two territories through the Barotse National Council. The earlier act to abrogate the Agreement was preceded by a Referendum where the people of Zambia rejected the BA'64 in 1968. Who do you blame for the separation or indeed who committed treason? The answer is, the Zambia regimes. The current Zambian municipal constitution assented to by Edgar Lungu himself on January 5, 2016 is clear in black and white that it does not recognize the Barotseland Agreement 1964 and even goes further to rob the people of Barotseland and the Litunga of their rights to Land and natural resources as well as not recognizing the Litungaship itself. It should be clear to all, that the people of Barotseland should not be held hostage in their own land because Kaunda inherited a protectorate in 1964 which he dismembered and turned into a province. The high poverty levels being experienced in Barotseland is a creation of successive Zambian regimes. We know that the nature of an oppressor is to try and maintain that the oppressed people are not ready for independence, citing economic hardships. This assumption is erroneous. Barotseland has no shortage of leadership and resources. It is in actual fact the Zambian government who robbed Barotseland of its treasury in 1969 using armed Zambian police under the direction of Mr. Sikota Wina then Local Government Minister when over £470 million was grabbed in addition to various other assets in an effort to make Barotseland government disfunctional. Today, Zambia is a failed unitary state and bankrupt nation. The Zambian regime continue robbing Barotseland of its resources—albeit illegally.