ZAMBIA LETTERS, 17

1

”He embellished quite a lot of money, really. And there are problems concerning his death, questions, but his family are exaggerating. I don’t… why are they being so divisive, that’s the question, at this time, his supporters criticize the divisiveness but their rhetorics is very hateful and, yeah… They blow tribalism out of proportions. Because they are mainly Chewas and the sitting president is Tonga and they play on this, and we don’t need that, not at this time. Whilst the current government are not like that, they are very low key, in my opinion, theirs is not a confrontational culture, so they are not using those rhetorics, but his followers are blowing this up and it is to delay the corruption charges against the family.”

2

”He was ill and collapsed many times. Here, when you are ill, you go to a South African hospital. But he wasn’t allowed the permits to travel. So his family brought a South African doctor to his house and he said you need medical care now. Still, they wouldn’t let him leave the country. So he was smuggled aboard a plane, half an hour before it took off they came at the gate and he was recognized, he was the ex-president, and they let him pass. Later, everyone who worked and took part of letting him pass, they were fired. That’s what they are like. Then he died in South Africa. Now the government wants his body and say he should have an official funeral but the family is saying; why didn’t you follow protocols before? And they said we will not leave the corps for lit de parade in a governmental institution, but at our house, his family home. As respons, they set up total security at the airport and along all roads so people can not dance and celebrate his life when the cortege passes by. And out of the blue, suddenly, it was decided, byt the road… the road… that on that day there would be road maintenance on that street, so all access to the house would be restricted. That was not decided before, but now all of a sudden it is necessary.

PAUS

Problem here is that the presidency is a very powerful institution. Too powerful. He appoints judges and controls all the administration. It was setup that way by the colonial government during the transition period and it hasn´t adapted. It breeds corruption and makes change very difficult. Political promises are not sincere. There is no serious debate, because politicians on both sides use the bibel as argument. As a guideline for their policies. How can you have a functional government when politicians believe in the Old Testament? It is happening all over the world right now, and look at the state it is in. That is the real problem. You can’t discuss politics with someone who argues from the Bible.”

3

”Yesterday the family decided he will be buried in South Africa. Ok, there were corruption charges but honestly all politicians are more or less corrupt. In order to even become a politician in this country you need to be corrupt in the first place. Take this busstop. This is not safe, they are not allowed to use this as a busstop, but there should of course be a busstop here. A proper one, it has been decided. But nothing happens. Now, if you speak to the drivers and tell them that this is very risky, for accidents, if a car comes this direction..  but they will say: oh we have permission from this authority, this.. it’s no use.”  

2

”There is a left and right divide in politics but when the left gains power they will say Oh we cannot enforce these measures, now the time is not right and then they just accumulate profits and capitalize like everyone else so it is not for real. Only Christian messages that don’t mean nothing from both sides.”

3

”Not as long as we don’t have any innovation of our own. If you go up the road to Chingola all you see is trucks stopping the traffic going out of Zambia with minerals. And all the minerals are being exported. We don’t have any innovation. So there is no industry and no jobs. Cause we don’t have the skills or the expertise, all that is abroad, we have no higher educations. If we could innovate ourselves there would be industry, with jobs. Look at those huge power lines, really massive, going from the Kariba dam, there, look at those, towering over the landscape. Where do you think they are going? To Safrica. To Zim. All our infrastructure is set up to export. And we only have electricity ourselves between eleven in the night and seven in the morning. Or between five PM and midnight. On a normal weekday, if you want to use the vacuum or do your laundry or even use the electric stove, usually you have to do it at midnight. And truck after truck transporting our raw copper material to ports in Zim, in Safrica, Malawi.”

”We should never have left the one party system, Zambia was not ready. The politicians who came after were only new public management we got all this parties and policies and free elections but it only gave us poverty because they are only interested in furthering themselves. We have no goal in common there is no common goal, everyone are thinking about themselves and putting things in their pockets if I have for my family if I have a car my kids go to school so we have no common goal and the politicians are dividing us. It is getting worse and worse. Kaunda was uniting the nation. He had a plan and he managed to overcome the tribalism. We were one nation. Now there are many problems with people being surveilled and arrested and lots of conflict between the tribes and it is being blown out of proportions. Then, people could not speak their minds but we had a common goal. Nowadays there is more and more control even though we have all these parties there is less and less room to speak freely whats on your mind as we do you can get arrested, people get arrested for speaking their minds. Now the situation is very bad. Very bad.”

”It’s very similar to Congo, in that we have the minerals, so in that sense it is the same. Only, they have a war. Here, everyone says, oh it’s so peaceful. There it is war but they are pushing, even so, they push. Zim, them too, they are being sanctioned by the western but they too, they are pushing. Here everyone say oh it’s so peaceful. There is no reason really things should be this way, no reason, but there is no commitment, nothing uniting us, nobody wants to do anything about it.””The Americans and the europeans were here and it was they set up the industry but then they pulled out and the government became desperate because what about all the jobs so who can fill this hole? And the Chinese had the money, its very difficult for a Zambian to get permits but it is easy for foreigners because they have companies with long records and they have money and the security and what do we have? We have the land so it should be a win win right, but they take whatever and move on. And the politicians are just interested in what they may… you know. And the Chinese, they don´t care about pollution or consequences, they make promises and they take everything and leaves nothing for us. Still, we can’t open mines on our own, we just can’t.”

”Now everything is moving to the Western province, that is where they found gold. Yeah. The Copperfiled is over. The mines in the Copper field are old. Nobody digs mining holes any more. They go straight down into the ground and then you build tunnels to the left, to the right. Nobody does that today. It is to expensive and you need to get rid of the water so is all crater mining today that is what is being done. I think it is very good. It is so much safer, there are no accidents, and a lot cheaper. Only you leave a bigger hole in the landscape. The first layer is copper and then you move on and there are even other minerals on lower levels. A crater.”

”And I used to fish there when I grew up, I used to go fishing. My mother she said where you got that fish you have to throw it away you cannot eat it, is it from that river, you cannot fish that river. Everyone had heard. And I said no it is from that river but not the main, the main… but a small tributary. A tributary. She cannot see. To her, it is not… you cannot eat it. (Ha ha ha)”

”When you mine you build a tailing dam first for separation. Storing and managing the waste. It all goes in there. But it is very high level of expertise, it is very meticulous work, it is engineering. You need to plant trees around the dam so that the roots stabilizes the structure. And I think that is what the Chinese didn’t do, the Chinese never bothered with this and so it burst and so everything went straight out. (Paus) They don’t care. They buy land in a residential area and start a small mine right there, disposing their waste in the middle of where people are staying, right next to your garden.”