Zambia: OPPOSITION TO KAUNDA RISES by JOHN BLAIR sion group that has served as a focus for the regroupment of radicals on the campus. This group is the only overtly political organization at UNZA, where attempts to establish a branch of the UNIP have been frustrated for many years by opposition from the students. Agitation met with an immediate response from the mass of students, culminating in a one-day strike on January 15, the object of which was to demand that the government immediately reverse its stand on the Angolan civil war and give full support to the MPLA. During the strike the campus was occupied by the students and mass meetings were held throughout the day to discuss the reasons behind the action. The authorities made every effort to suppress any news of this event, While the strike was headlined on Luanda radio, it was ignored by the rest of the Zambian newspapers, radio, and television. Throughout the day the campus was surrounded by armed police, but no attempt was made to enter the premises. All traffic was diverted off the Great East Road, which passes the front entrance of the university, in order to prevent passing fravelers from seeing the big posters that had been hung up proclaiming solidarity with the MPLA. The first public manifestation of the government's concern about the situation at UNZA came on Sunday, January 25, when demonstrations in support of official policy on Angola were staged in Lusaka and Ndola, the copperbelt center. At the Ndola rally, featured speaker Frank Chitambala, UNIP central committee member, indirectly revealed the real reasons behind the demonstrations when he mentioned "misguided foreign lecturers" at UNZA who had supposedly been "fomenting trouble among students" by whipping up support for a line opposed to the government's foreign policy. News of the plans for pro-government demonstrations came late to UNZA activists. They were therefore able to distribute leaflets aimed at dissuading potential participants only at Evelyn Hone College, an institution of higher education. The result was that not a single student from that institution participated in the demonstration. But militants were still able to disrupt the
plans of the UNIP somewhat. Arriving at the assembly point before the organizers of the demonstration, they distributed large numbers of leaflets explaining the reasons for giving support to the MPLA. They were read and digested by the approximately 800 Lusaka secondary school students who had been cajoled into attending the march to State House (the presidential residence). The effects of these efforts became clear during the course of President Kenneth Kaunda's speech. Utilizing his well-known gimmick of crowd involvement, on several occasions he bellowed the question, "Who do we support?" In response to this came a clear chant of "MPLA" instead of the hoped for answer of "a government of national unity." Events moved rapidly toward confrontation after these opening salvos. On the evening of January 28 Kaunda went on radio and television and announced the institution of a full "state of emergency" throughout the country. Since Zambia has been under a "partial" state of emergency since the unilateral declaration of independence by Rhodesia in November 1965, it is difficult to immediately assess what the precise legal changes are that have been introduced now. But strong emphasis was laid on the suspension of all guarantees under Article Three of the constitution, which is concerned with elementary democratic and civil rights. Its revocation amounts to a total removal of the basic freedoms of speech, assembly, etc., and to allowing the police force to enter any premises without a warrant. The first arrest under the new powers came on Saturday, January 31, when Lionel Cliffe, a British lecturer at UNZA, was seized and detained for 28 days. No reasons for his arrest were given, but his wife stated that police had removed literature on Angola from their house on the campus. Cliffe was well known as an activist in the British Committee for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau between 1971 and 1974. Prior to this he had worked for ten years of the Tanzanian university of Dares Salaam where he had acted for a long period in an advisory capacity to the government. Zambia's position on Angola was demonstrated very starkly by the detention of a person whose record showed him to be a consistent fighter against imperialism. Cliffe's detention threw the university into a state of ferment that culminated in a general strike on February 5. This time the anger of the students was particularly directed at two members of the staff accused of collaborating with government attempts at repression. Dean of the arts and social science faculty, Ndem, a Nigerian, had refused to call a meeting of the staff to discuss the jailing of Cliffe. Mutukwa, a Zambian colleague of Cliffe's in the political science depariment, was accused of having played a part in the government's attempts to implicate Cliffe in the organization of proMPLA actions on the campus. The strike demanded the immediate dismissal of these two men. The government responded rapidly. On February 7 armed police surrounded the campus. The pretext for this action was an incident in which a student who was well known to be one of numerous police agents working in the area pulled a gun on a group of students who had begun to taunt him in the refectory. A near riot situation developed and the police stooge appears to have been lucky to have escaped without injury. A full blockade of the campus went into effect, those inside could not receive food and the half of the campus population that had gone into the center of Lusaka for the day was prevented from returning and was forced to sleep outside. On the same day, three more members of the staff were arrested:
1. Siemensma, a Dutchman, who was reported to have been sending reports (presumably accurate and therefore embarrassing to the government) to the media in Holland on the situation at UNZA.
2. D. Longhi, an Italian lecturer in the department of sociology, who was said to have been "instrumental in attempting to secure the release of Cliffe."
3. Perhaps the most embarrassing for the government, Robert Molteno, a stateless South African refugee, who had been on the staff for eight years. During that time he is known to have acted as a government adviser for several periods. He is also known to the entire first year secondary school population as the author of a textbook entitled "The Zambian Community and Its Government, " which is compulsory reading in the newly introduced civics course. The purpose of this new civics course is to inculcate an admiration for the one-party state and its institutions in the minds of young Zambians. It must be said that Moltena's book does as good a job as possible in fulfilling the difficult task of making this system appear "humanist" and democratic. Molteno's crime appears to have been that he took the government at its word and was centrally involved in organizing the production of a letter signed by 75 members of the staff protesting Cliffe's detention os a blow against the principles of academic freedom and calling for his immediate reinstatement "with honor." It is clear that the decision to close the university was heavily influenced by the fact that a solid bloc of
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ZAMBIA staff and students opposed to the government's repressive policies appeared to be assembling. On the night of February 7 the police moved onto the campus and escalated their brutality in a clear attempt to provoke a confrontation that would enable the closing of the university to be blamed on the students. These tactics largely failed. But on Monday, February 9, Education Minister Mulikita went on the radio and announced the closing of UNZA for an indefinite period, which he said was being done in order to avoid the "inevitable bloodshed and damage to property" that would ensue if the university remained open. Students were given 10 Kwacha (1 Kwacho =USS1.40) for travel expenses, bundled into buses under police and army supervision, and dumped at Lusaka's main bus station to await transportation home. Twenty-one students were added to the four lecturers in detention, They included the entire executive committee of the students union as well as a number of known activists involved in organizing the events of the previous week. These new arrests made it impossible for the government to consider keeping the unversity open for fear of the protests that would follow. Four weeks of intense political ferment at the university then came to an end. In the course of these weeks, hundreds of students had been radicalized and had come to understand the real nature of their "humanist" govemment's policies in at least one crucial area. Government spokespeople prided themselves on having given a lesson to upstart students and, above all, to those lecturers who hao "infiltrated" the institution as agents of superpowers. " But the Zambian public was clearly Tess impressed, On the following Sunday, February 15, the Sunday Times, the government-controlled newspaper, printed one of its supplements called "the people talking." This column carries comments on a current event by 20 or 30 "members of the public." Not one person could be found who would express outright support for the closing of UNZA in the special supplement devoted to this question. The general level of comment was best summarized by the individual who decried the fact that the government could spend so much energy on dealing with a couple thousand students while it displayed little Fervor in tackling the economic problems affecting the general public. Far from having achieved its objective of isolating student activists from the mass of the population, it would appear that the government may have acted in such a way as to contribute to cutting down barriers between the students and the general public. It is not yet known when the university will reopen and no word has yet appeared on the fate of the detainees. But it seems likely that when the students do return to the campus they will not have undergone any significant demoralization or reduction in their capacity for anti-government mobilization. Central to continuing high morale will be the fact that the MPLA has been victorious and that, despite attempts to cover this up with various complex formulas, Zambia will be forced to grant de facto if not de jure recognition to the new government - a move dictated above all by the desire to ensure the rapid re-opening of the 30
Benguela railway. In this new situation, it is going to be acutely embarrassing for the government to continue to hold 25 people in detention for any length of time because they advocated a course of action now forced on a reluctant administration by actual events. Thus, when students return to UNZA it is certain that they will be collectively conscious that their struggle has been victorious. Such a situation will place agifation for a further development of political consciousness on extremely favorable terrain. But opposition at the university to the government's stand on Angola was not the only threat facing the government in this period. In the copperbelt a massive response was evoked by the government's plans to intagrate mine housing with that of the local authorities. In the past, mine workers have lived in mine houses Frequently located in compounds entirely separate from those of the rest of the population. In these they have enjoyed rents on the average well below those of local authority tenants. Some services such as water have been supplied free and, due to the more efficient nature of the management, essential matters such as the maintenance of property have been dealt with more promptly. Thus, the announcement that local authorities would now take over management of all mine housing was greeted with dismay. In Chingola, Kitwe, and Luanshya the official commission of inquiry designated to investigate the issue was greeted by rowdy meetings organized by local branches of the MUZ (Mine Workers Union of Zambia). Ar Rokana mine in Kitwe on January 21, the commission was prevented from carrying out any public hearings when thousands of miners laid siege to the meeting place. Among those quick to capitalize on the situation were the remnants of the United Progressive party (UPP), which originated in a split from the UNIP in 1971 led by former vice-president Simon Kapwepwe. The UPP was banned in 1972, immediately prior to the introduction of the one-party state. Trading on their historic base in the copperbelt (Mufulira was the only place in which the UPP managed to win a parliamentary election during its brief existence), former UPP activists who have always maintained informal links began to organize to rebuild their support. They undoubtedly played an Important role in some of the mobilizations against the commission. The UPP is in no sense a progressive opposition to the UNIP. In fact, one of its main planks in the early 1970s was for the reopening of full economic relations with white-ruled southern Africa, Furthermore, the leadership was always composed overwhelmingly of Bemba, the tribal grouping dominant in the copperbelt, who had seen themselves excluded from political office by Kaunda's constant emphasis on maintaining a balance in leading positions. Thus support for the UPP has often tended to be based on a crude tribalism. The active re-emergence of this tendency was accompanied by a renewed polarization inside Zambia's one-party parliament. Here the leading spokesman for the right is undoubtedly Arthur Wing, former minister of finance and now a member of parliament from Living-
stone, who is a leading businessman and chairman of the Zambia National Council for Commerce and Industry. On January 21, Wina launched a full-scale attack in parliament on the fact that the Rhodesian border continues to be closed to Zambian rail or road fraffic, charging that the reopening of this border was an economic necessity for the country despite any political considerations. He was supported by many MPs, some of whom used the opportunity to launch attacks on Zimbabwean freedom fighters, accusing them of having failed to use the correct toctics in unifying and thus failing to win liberation. It was said that Zambia was being drained by its support to these ungrateful traitors to Africa. Even though the speaker of parliament attempted to close this debate by declaring that the matter had been conclusively dealt with in Kaunda's January 24 refusal to consider the question, Wina popped up again on February 4, His new speech broadened out into what could be characterized as the beginning of a manifesto for the right. Once again he demanded that the border be re-opened "to save a collapsing economy." He went on to attack an easy target: the government's totally ineffective attempts to promote cooperative farming in Zambia. He said: "We should give support to commercial farmers before we use our money on experiments in collectivized farming, etc. It is not groups of people who are going to feed the nation, but individuals. He went on to draw unfavorable comparisons with the situation in Malawi, a country which, he claimed, was able to feed itself and even to increase agricultural exports because of its unabashed faith in private enterprise farming. On February 5, Whiteson Banda, Malambo MP, spoke on the same theme, declaring: "Development programs will never succeed without the help of foreign investment. The party and goverment's shift toward socialism is scaring away would be investors and, if not relaxed, will lead to the collapse of the economy." Thus, the past few weeks have seen the clear re-emergence of a right-wing tendency that is impatient to dispense with the clap-trap of Kaunda's "humanism" and his verbal commitments to socialism (however far afield the actions of the government are from this goal) in favor of an explicit orientation toward the development of a private enterprise economy. The economic measures taken at the end of January might further embarrass the government. On January 30, Minister of Finance Mwanashiku presented his budget, which increased prices of petrol, beer, tobacco, and other "luxuries." On Sunday, February 1, came an announcement of criminal increases in the price of corn meal, the staple food of Zambia's population. A 110-pound bag of breakfast meal was increased from K4.10 to K9. Roller meal was upped from K3.20 to K3.96. In an attempt to justify this, Kaunda was actually quated as saying that breakfast meal was a luxury food, eaten only by the gpamwambas (top people). In fact, as was pointed out by numerous people asked for comment by the press, roller meal is so crudely manufactured that it is virtually inedible and involves a large amount of waste. Thus, breakfast meal has generally been used by larger and larger sections of the population; doubling its price was a body blow to their living standards. Statistics are not yet available on the rate of inflation over the immediate past period. But in the first six months of 1975 the low-income index increased at an annual rate of 14%, while wage increases are limited by law to 5% annually. The latest increase in price of Zambia's staple food will undoubtedly accelerate the rate of inflation considerably and will serve to fuel the already apparent flames of discontent. Thus, the immediate perspective for the Zambian government is one of difficulties on every front. In spite of its disclaimers, it remains extremely likely that the government will try to gain a temporary respite through the further development of trade and financial links with the white racist regimes of southern Africa as well as through a re-opening of the Rhodesian border in order to provide itself with the fastest route to the sea and a recognition of the MPLA in Angola (after a decent interval) to ensure its access to the Benguela railway. But these measures will not resolve the problems arising from the gross imbalance of Zambia's "monomineral" economy and the conjunctural effects of the worldwide recession of the imperialist economies. The crucial task in the immediate future is to convince the radicalized student population of the need to begin work directed toward the working class, whose living standards are under attack. It is certain that af least one of the considerations Involved in the government's decision to close the university was the fact that radical elements involved in the struggle to win support for the MPLA were already beginning to pose the need to take a clear public stand on the price increases and were even attempting to initiate actions on this question. The leap in consciousness that has taken place on the question of Angola must now be utilized to develop a more rounded understanding of the precise nature of Zambia's neocolonial regime. Such a task is all the more urgent because the thoroughly bourgeois politics of individuals like Wina and Kapwepwe can win a big influence among workers in the immediate period. While in the long run their projects are even less likely to secure economic development and a rise in prosperity than those of the UNIP government, they possess a superficial attraction because of their promise to half the decline in living standards. It seems likely that a period is opening in which the credibility of the UNIP leadership will dwindle still further in the face of a growing threat from both left and right. It is of decisive importance that the left, whose potential has been shown by the events at UNZA over the past month, now begin to develop the capaBility to intervene on much broader fronts. February 20, 1976
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