BNFA message to the people of Barotseland on the occasion of Zambia’s 53<sup>rd</sup> independence celebrations

BNFA message to the people of Barotseland on the occasion of Zambia’s 53^rd independence celebrations

by Clement W. Sinyinda, Chairperson General

Country folks, On behalf of the BNFA and the people of Barotseland, I am sending to you this message with grief in my heart, knowing very well that you are wallowing in abject poverty, created deliberately by successive Zambian regimes for 53 years while our people remain incarcerated for demanding what belongs to us all. We are denied our fundamental Human Rights. We are denied the Freedom of Assemble, we are denied the Freedom of Association, We are denied the Freedom of Speech, we are denied the Freedom of Opinion and we are denied the Freedom of Employment. This independence is not ours.

As BNFA, our mission is to actualize the Barotse National Council resolutions of 2012 by bringing together organizations and individuals to attain full independence for the nation of Barotseland. The BNFA stands with you and will fight with you to regain our lost human dignity. We know that our community is one of those worst affected by human rights violations in the world and we need to do something against it.

Our struggle is right and justified. Our course is the best ever invented by man. We cannot fail, if we remain firm, honest, sincere and true to the cause no matter how hostile the temptations. Several of our people have already paid the ultimate prize for the cause—killed by the oppressive regimes of Zambia with the assistance of their agents in Barotseland (traitors). But ours is not a spirit of revenge although I hasten to say that we are carefully monitoring the unfolding events. We cannot forget, just like the elephant. In these trying times, we remain calm and dignified. We remain non-violent in thought, word and deed. The battle may be long but the time we shall reap the fruits of our struggle, it will be so sweet that we shall not remember our political enemies. But that has to wait for its time.

The people of Barotseland, through the BNC resolutions of 2012, want power, not for the sake of power but because it is our human right. We want our power back because Zambian regimes stole it from us, because only then can we carry out our programs of equipping our people to fight poverty, ignorance, disease and all the other evils that Zambian regimes inflected on us. Most of our people can hardly afford a meal a day because the oppressive Zambian regimes reversed our development 53 years backwards. We must fight against this evil. As BNFA, we have no intention of removing one form of oppressive regime for another. Oppression is always bad, irrespective of its source whether Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga or any other tribe.

My country folk, the so called independence coming on October 24, 2017 is not for Barotseland. Zambia has a reason to celebrate because it is on that day that they colonized Barotseland, yet again with the help of Barotse traitors. Why are you always being used against your own territory by others who have their own territory and want to take away what belongs to you for cheap change? Look around you, all jobs have been given to their children, they are busy robbing us of our natural resources and they have even gone to the extent of hiring Chinese to help them turn Barotseland into a desert before they leave. Your children cannot go to school.

It is now time to address ourselves to the emancipation of our Barotseland. Several steps have been made in that direction, inclusive of the recent submission of the BNFA on the occasion of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Republic of Zambia at the 28th Stakeholder Submission to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The submission draws attention to human rights violations against Barotseland people to the recommending states, which left the international community stunned. I ask you to standby for the report, thank you all for your efforts and keep-up the momentum. BNFA is committed to raising the touch high and invite you all to play your respective roles in this struggle for success is certain.

As for the treacherous Barotse Royal Establish and other agents of the oppressive Zambian regime, shame on you for turning against your people, for inflicting so much pain against your own kinsmen. For how long are you going to fight against your own in support of a regime, which have stripped you of your authority and power? You disregard your own democracy and turn against the resolutions of the people of Barotseland that you yourselves organized in March 2012. Thereafter, you even joined in a political campaign of Zambia, which is illegal in Barotseland and lost. I urge you to come back to your people and apologize.

I urge all the Lilalo Indunas in Barotseland not to listen to traitors, for they love money not the people of Barotseland. Don’t join a team that has turned its back against the wishes and aspirations of its people for cheap change. Work with the BNFA to actualize the independence of Barotseland for our common good.

GOD BLESS BAROTSELAND, GOD BLESS YOU