BNFA POLICY STATEMENT ON THE WAY FORWARD

by Maybine Mubita Sikwa, Deputy Chairman General

The 2012 BNC Resolutions shall remain the bedrock of the Barotse National Freedom Alliance (BNFA)’s struggle for the independence of Barotseland. The 2012 BNC engrossed the width and breadth of the Barotse society. In Barotseland the people are supreme and BNC is the supreme governance organ. Whatever the BNC has bound, no individual, nor any group of personages, not even the Privy Council, can undo.

We known that the 2012 BNC Resolutions have been a nightmare to the Barotse Royal Establishment (BRE). BRE have spent all these seven years from 2012 seeking ways to get round the resolutions and engage the Zambian government. In spite of being repeatedly deceived, humiliated and even insulted by GRZ, Namuso still insist on dialogue and the restoration of the defunct Barotseland Agreement 1964. This is diabolically shameful. Namuso should search their conscience and consider the shame they bring not only on themselves but also on the people of Barotseland.

The assemblage - definitely not a Privy Council - of 25 – 28 November, 2019, was meant to circumvent the 2012 BNC Resolutions, but divine intervention again saved the day. We know the Privy Council is an exclusive group composed of five Prince Regents and two Princess Regents as well as all the gazetted Silalo Indunas. We wonder why the recent meeting included a mole. We ask; what was his role, who invited him? Please do not dare us, we are angry enough already.

As BNFA, we have made it clear that the people of Barotseland, Namuso included, should join forces and implement the 2012 BNC Resolutions. Namuso, not the disgraced BRE, must stop reacting to the enactments of Zambia’s ill-fated laws. The Zambian Constitution and its applications are designed to exterminate Barotseland and all its governance institutions, the Litungaship included. More and more the national assembly of Zambia is premeditated to make laws which decimate Barotseland; that is why we are calling on all genuine Barotse nationals to stay away from the Zambian elections. Any Barots-e who participates in any Zambian election betrays the Barotse independence cause.

We call on Namuso and all the Barotse people to come together and establish the BNC Secretariat so that we move the independence agenda forward. The Litunga should remain neutral and above politics and stay away from the 2012 BNC Resolutions implementation process. The BNC Secretariat should comprise representatives from the traditional authority, the church, the activist movements and all other interest groupings. As BNFA we are ready to work with all well-meaning Barotseland nationals to advance this process.

BNFA strives to actualize the independence of Barotseland; that is, the restoration of Barotseland national sovereignty by restoration of full powers to the Government of Barotseland, so that its authority is limited only by the sovereign power of the Barotse people. The Barotse people shall, through their elected representatives, remain the ultimate authority in Barotseland. The Litunga shall remain a neutral titular Head of State with assured life tenure.