Statement on voting patterns and election violence in Zambia

by the BNFA

We comment on the people of Barotseland’s submissions to the Commission of Inquiry constituted by the occupying Zambia regime to investigate voting pattern and election violence from February 31 to February 6, 2018 in Barotseland. We thank our various stakeholders who spared time to respond to yet again another exercise of deception by Zambia. We used the opportunity to tell Zambia yet again that Barotseland is separate from Zambia and that the successive Zambian regimes have been administering and conducting elections illegally in Barotseland since 1969. The reports received by BNFA from all our 11 regions show that those who submitted in the limited places visited by the commission submitted in favor of an independent state of Barotseland.

Since independence in 1964, the Zambian government has been hiding the fact that Zambia came into being as a result of the Barotseland Agreement 1964, which paved the way for the two territories of Barotseland-North Western Rhodesia and North Eastern Rhodesia to proceed to independence as one country. This union was unilaterally terminated by Kaunda by the Kaunda regime in 1969. Zambia has since been constituted illegally and the voting pattern is a clear reflection of this fact. The people of North Eastern Rhodesia never accepted this union as was clearly reflected in the national referendum of 1968. On March 27, 2012 the people of Barotseland finally accepted this fact after 47 years of futile attempts to restore the BA’64. Not only are there clear cultural differences between the two territories, we also have clear political differences.

The voting pattern is a clear line at the pendico and it is no coincidence that it marks the 1911 Amalgamation divide between Barotseland-North Western Rhodesia and North Eastern Rhodesia. Whether you like it or not, the two territories are legally separate and forcing them together is nothing but a recipe for continued violence and genocide. The people of Barotseland have been killed in cold blood by successive Zambia regimes since 1969. Today our people are denied the right of assembly, the right of speech, the right of association, the right of employment and the right of self-determination. How can a civilized government deny these facts, waste time and resources to investigate something that is its own creation?

As for the people of Barotseland, they have spoken. The abrogation of any international agreement has been lesson enough. We have learnt that North Eastern Rhodesians cannot be trusted with anything. If they can unilaterally abrogate an international treaty signed by three parties, a treaty which brought together two territories to form one country, what else can you trust them with? It is time for the occupying Zambia regime to vacate Barotseland and their people should seek employment elsewhere. Barotseland freedom has come, it is here.