18^th of May is non commemorated founding day of the unitary state of Zambia, the Day Barotseland signed to secure Sovereignty

by concerned Barotse

The 18^th of May is not officially recognized or commemorated as the birthday (the founding day) of Zambia, it is the day that the Barotse Native Government signed to secure the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Barotseland while allowing for creation a unitary state of Zambia. This information is obfuscated by the Zambian Government to hide the truth about the central role the Barotseland Agreement was to the creation of the unitary state of Zambia as a way of lowering the stature of Barotseland due to tribal and political expediency. The recognition of the 18^th of May would have required the political acknowledgement of the importance of the Barotseland Agreement in the union of the two countries of Northern Rhodesia and Barotseland after the appointed date of independence. The selection of the 24^th of October as Independence Day was to obfuscate the significance of the Founding Day of 18^th May 1964.

This day is significant to the Barotseland nationals as it marks the day that the Barotse Native Government secured sovereignty by astutely agreeing to a union with Northern Rhodesia through the signing of the Barotseland Agreement, which the Government of Zambia deceptively abrogated but still wants to illegally keep Barotseland as part of Zambia without adhering to the terms and conditions of the instrument (the Barotseland Agreement) that made the union legal.

Brief History of the Founding of Zambia as a Unitary State

As the agitation to secure independence from the British Colonialists heated up in the early 1960s the British, wanting to ensure that the, would-be, independent countries were politically and economically viable entities, perceived threat granting independence to Northern Rhodesia and merging it with the Barotseland Protectorate that had concessionary rights over the Copperbelt mineral resources would make North Eastern Rhodesia a viable economic entity. The copper mines on the Copperbelt (Western Province then) which was at the time concessioned by the Barotse Native Government for mineral exploitation by the British South Company (BSA), was the only source of revenue for North Eastern Rhodesia.

Through this concessionary arrangement, the BSA was paying mining royalties to the Barotse Monarchy. The Barotseland Kingdom had an important controlling stake in the exploitation of copper resources and the British felt the copper mining industry would be a viable shared economic base if the two territories were to merge into a unitary state. The British, therefore, urged the Government of Northern Rhodesia to negotiate a merger with the Kingdom of Barotseland. Representatives in the merger negotiations between the countries were the then Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia, Mr. Kenneth David Kaunda, and the Litunga Sir Mwanawina III Lewanika and his Ngambela Imenda Sibandi. The negotiations were concluded and the Barotse Agreement was signed on 18^th May 1964 in London, agreed to and witnessed by the British.

The Barotse Agreement was a successor to the treaties and agreements that the Barotse Monarch and the British Monarch had and paved the way for the union of Northern Rhodesia and the Protectorate of Barotseland Kingdom into a unitary sovereign state called Zambia on the appointed day of 24^th. October 1864.  The agreement legitimized the authority of the Zambia Government over Barotseland based on specific terms and conditions, which were spelt out in the Treaty and included in the Northern Rhodesia Independence Order of 1964 as well as the Independence Act of 1964.

Barotseland, therefore, became part of Zambia and would only remain so as consequence of the existence of the Barotseland Agreement of 1964.

The coming together of the two territorial (national) entities was more for economic rather than political reasons even though there were some close political interactions with the young educated political activists from Barotseland in the independence movement. The political activism that was fueled by the Pan-African movement on the continent did not, however, fully embrace the traditional leadership that was not party to the ideas of Pan-Africanism. The traditional leadership largely ignored the political struggle to free the continent from colonialism and saw the emerging politics as competing phenomena to their authority to rule. The nationalists in Northern Rhodesia had to overcome the reluctance of the Barotse Native Government to cede its authority and merge with Northern Rhodesia. The structuring of the Barotse Agreement had, therefore, to include provisions to address the concerns of the Barotse Monarchy not to lose the authority to rule over their land and subjects. After independence, Kaunda was faced with the dilemma of having the competing authority of the Litunga in Barotseland, where there was a Parliament and other arms of government, which could not be relegated to powerless traditional institutions as was the case in the other regions of Zambia.  Kaunda’s government embarked on measures to minimize the importance of the Barotse Agreement in the creation of Zambia as a unitary state. Mr. Kaunda and his lieutenants used the slogan of One Zambia One Nation to obfuscate the fact that Zambia was a union of two countries and thus created a notion of unity of the 73 tribal groupings as a single sovereign state. The truth behind the One Zambia One Nation slogan is that it originated from a comment made by Lord Moffat who was facilitating the negotiations between Kaunda and the Litunga on the Barotse Agreement. At the signing of the Barotse Agreement he said that, as of now, the TWO countries (North Eastern Rhodesia and Barotseland) are one country, one nation.

The abrogation of the Barotseland Agreement therefore nullifies the legitimacy of the union allowing Barotseland to get out of the union and revert to a separate independent Kingdom. 

The impact of the abrogation of the Barotse Agreement have had a devastating negative socio economic and political impacts on the status and stature of the Barotse nationals in Zambia. These measures were subtly implemented by Kaunda’s Government from the time of independence and through subsequent Zambia Governments.

Multiple strategies were employed to minimize the apparent prominence of the Barotse Kingdom in the new country. The Kaunda Government embarked on deliberate measures to limit the advantage Barotseland enjoyed before the merger, such as its status as a kingdom(a nation within the nation of Zambia), with its own parliament and constitutional administrative institutions, high literacy rate that gave it advantage in employment in professional jobs, in the civil and uniformed services, high per capita income due to the mass employment in the gold mines of South Africa, and the rights over the large expanse of concessional territories of the Copperbelt, the Kafue National Park and Batoka (Kazungula, Livingston and Victoria Falls); and the earnings from the mining royalties of copper mines undertaken included the following(not in chronological order):

•  Changing the name of Barotseland to Western Province.
•  Dismantling of the Barotse Kingdom Treasury by a government-sanctioned armed robbery of the Treasury and illegal confiscation of more than 78 million British Pounds Sterling.
•  Suspension of the mining royalty payments due to the kingdom.
•  Impending the operations of Barotse parliament (the Katengo), suspension of elected representatives and detention of the Prime Minister (the Ngambela) as well as some of his senior officials.
•  The reduction of financial grants to the Barotse establishment and limitations of the size of the Barotse Native Government support grant.
•  The down grading of the stature and power of the Litunga to Paramount Chief Status to be at par with other major tribal chiefs.
•  Acquisition of educational facilities that were managed by the Local Educational Authorities in conjunction with missionaries and abolition of boarding facilities in primary schools.
•  Illegal alteration of the Kingdom’s borders with ceding of territories to Southern Province, Central and North-Western provinces.
•  Illegal cancellation of the concessional land rights over the Copperbelt.
•  Criminalization of possession of the Barotse Agreement document and its removal from public access.
•  Obfuscation and falsification of the founding of Zambia and the role of the Barotse Agreement in the creation of Zambia.
•  Saturation of government positions in Western province by workers from the northern and eastern tribal groups and forced retirement of civil servants from Western Province ‘in national interest’.
•  Discrimination in awarding of education bursaries and scholarships and in job promotions against people from Western Province.
• Deliberate suppression of books and literature on Lozi history and culture.
•  Banning of debate on Barotse Agreement in Zambia Parliament and denial of the existence of Barotseland as a national entity.
•  Deliberate marginalization of Western Province to socio-economic opportunities and infrastructural development accorded to Northern, Luapula, Muchinga and Eastern Provinces.

Brief History of the Barotse Kingdom

Many young Zambians are not aware that the Kingdom of Barotseland existed as a British Protectorate and not a colony before Zambia was created. It had similar status as the now independent countries of Botswana (Bechuanaland), eSwatini (Swaziland) and Lesotho (Basutoland). Barotseland would have gone it alone as an independent country if the Barotse leadership had not agreed to a merger with North Eastern Rhodesia as represented by Northern Rhodesia Government at Independence in 1964. The Barotse Kingdom had its  Government—own elective Parliament (the Katengo), a Treasury, a local police force, local courts and a robust traditional local governance structure through the Village, Silalo, Silalanda and Sikiliti systems that managed the socio-cultural well-being of Barotseland’s citizenry. The Protectorate status meant that the Barotse Kingdom had had greater autonomy in managing their affairs under the British than the colonial state of North-Eastern Rhodesia, where a Governor ruled on behalf of the British Colonial Office, whereas in Barotseland Protectorate the British were represented by a Resident Commissioner who was more-or-less an envoy/adviser who liaised with the Litunga on behalf of the British Government. It should be noted that the Barotse Kingdom was given an opportunity to be independent in 1947 but the Litunga then (King Imwiko) felt the Kingdom was not yet ready to go it alone.

The Barotseland Agreement

The Barotse Agreement was premised on the Barotse Kingdom’s integrity and the desire to preserve and safeguard its traditional governance structures, cultural heritage, and authority over the management of land and natural resources as well as its language.

The Agreement provided autonomy of the Barotse Native Government over local government of the Kingdom. This special status did not correlate with the true intentions of Kaunda regime. Kaunda and his pundits were not comfortable with the special status of Barotseland and agitated for change of the arrangement and demanded for equal treatment for all regions.. However, the Barotseland Agreement could not be changed. It was a legal document that bound the signatories to the terms and conditions of the Agreement. The Kaunda Government, with support from his Lozi political acolytes, developed a scheme to weaken the stature of the Kingdom using a plethora of strategies as mentioned above and eventually abrogated the agreement after the enactment of the local government Act of 1969.

The abrogation of the Barotse Agreement was unilateral and did not give due regard to the legal implication that it would nullify the merger of the two countries and allow for the separation of Barotseland from former Northern Rhodesia and, therefore, lead to the breaking up of Zambia into two separate countries. To forestall any reaction and suppress agitation against the abrogation, the government criminalized possession of the Barotse Agreement document, classified and restricted access to the document and banned any reference to it in government and parliamentary communications.

Refusal to recognize and commemorate 18^th May as the founding day of the unitary state of Zambia is one of the measures Zambia government took to erase the role Barotseland played in the creation of Zambia.

The Genesis of the Call for Separation of Barotseland from Zambia

Barotseland nationals feel that the actions taken by successive Zambia Governments warrant the legitimate and peaceful separation of the Barotseland Kingdom from “Zambia” as the government has callously terminated the legal agreement that bound the two countries together. Current political developments where the Lozi feel that there are active efforts to erase the proud history of the Lozi, negate their contribution to the creation and development of Zambia, suppress their language and culture through hegemonic domination of the media, and economic marginalization have all legitimised the call for the separation of the Barotseland Kingdom from Zambia.

The call for separation is supported by the fact that the Zambian Government has intentionally broken a Legal Agreement that legitimized the authority of the Zambian Government over Barotseland and have hence legitimized the separation of the Kingdom from the union, This coupled with the wanton socio economic marginalization of its people and forced language hegemonization and other acts are forcing the Barotse to separate from the union and stand on their own as a separate country.