Zambia in Transition

...their primary concern was to outflank the aggressive Boers in the Transvaal, and to prevent the Portuguese from moving into Central Africa...

...Farming cooperatives are being set up in the provinces with heavy government assistance...

...In October 1964, following 70 years of British rule, it became the Republic of Zambia...

...For a year, British, American and Canadian aircraft and personnel ferried petroleum products to Zambia from refineries in Dar es Salaam, Mombasa and the Congo—enough to keep the wheels of industry turning while alternative land routes were being developed...

...Consequently, Zambia will have to be realistic about its ties with whites to the south, no matter how much it would like to see the Rhodesian and South African minority regimes replaced by African governments...

...The battle to oust it took four years...

...The shock of breaking with land and tribe, plus the humiliation of segregation and exploitation, produced a strong political consciousness that ultimately gave rise to the African trade unions...

...Under colonial policy, nearly all skilled occupations in the economy were filled by whites...

...he replied...

...President since independence, Kaunda is a tall, impressive man with enormous organizational drive and political acumen...

...The Bembas of the Northern and Luapula Provinces are the largest tribes, totaling over a million, and also dominate the copperbelt?where the lingua franca is a modified version of their language, "town Bemba...

...The voting went so blatantly along tribal lines that the shocked Kaunda declared afterward, "we are a federation of tribes rather than a nation...

...Overnight, vacant lands near the urban areas turn into shantytowns...

...Zambian miners and workers in urban areas have also benefitted from substantial pay increases, so that the country now possesses a new urban elite which is not averse to emulating the standards of the expatriates...

...The Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa owns over half the copper mines, and in the private sector much industry, such as brewing and cigarette manufacturing, is South African-owned as well...

...The most important of these, in the long run, is the education program: In 1964 there were only 1,-200 persons in Zambia who had completed secondary education and about 100 university graduates?the stage Ghana had reached in 1937...

...Even today, Rhodesia is slowing the flow of goods to discourage Zambians from helping African resistance fighters who infiltrate Rhodesia from across the border...

...The line will carry refined oil products until Zambia's own refinery, at present in the planning stage, is built...

...There are six mines along the "copperbelt," owned by either the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa, or Roan Selection Trust, a branch of American Metal Climax...

...This was soon given an enormous boost by the sudden rise in world copper prices to over $1,500 a ton, and high prices have continued ever since because of shortages resulting from the Vietnam war...

...Zambia's white population now numbers about 70,000 and is concentrated along the copperbelt and in the capital...

...The Rhodesian udi and the subsequent sanctions against the rebel colony posed an immediate threat to Zambia...

...Ironically, Rhodesia's 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence (udi) has been the most important external factor in forcing the acceleration of this development...

...Their combined output, earning $600 million annually, makes Zambia the world's third largest producer of copper, after the United States and Chile...

...In spite of Kaunda's political "humanism, with its emphasis on preventing the split of Zambian society along class lines, much more will have to be done to redistribute the country's wealth...

...A devout Christian, he is known for his high principles, marked by a hatred of racialism and exploitation...

...In order to reduce economic dependence on copper, secondary industry is being developed, partly through private investment and partly through the state's aggressive Industrial Development Corporation...

...THE PERILS OF URBANIZATION Zambia in Transition By Stuart Graham Lusaka Iwas flying from Lusaka to Kitwe with a mining company executive, a journey of 200 miles over the undulating, heavily wooded plain that is typical of nine-tenths of Zambia...

...The "hotting-up" of the "racial and ideological war" (to quote Kaunda), which began last August with the first major clashes between Rhodesian troops and the African resistance fighters moving across the Zambezi, could strangle Zambia's economic development...

...Typical of the countries in tropical Africa, Zambia was created at the conference tables of Europe during the great imperial partition of the continent in the 19th century...

...The success of the secondary education program under the Four-Year Plan depends ultimately on the 1,700 graduate teachers who must be recruited from overseas...

...Kaunda cannot so much as threaten action across the Zambezi River in Rhodesia, for the reprisals would be swift, cutting off Zambia's main import and export routes...

...Political leaders drive around in ostentatious American or German automobiles and live in luxurious accommodations, all at public expense...

...Only in the 1920s did a trickle of immigrants—European miners and farmers, Indian traders—begin working the copper deposits, and not until the 1950s did the industry really boom, bringing in thousands of additional settlers, mainly from South Africa...

...The country is faced with two grave problems that will take all the skill of its present leadership to overcome: 1) the repercussions of the Southern Africa race conflict, epitomized at present by the struggle for Rhodesia...

...Containing half a million of the country's nearly 4 million people, the belt is the political and social mainspring of Zambia, the key to political power...

...the population, tied to the poor lateritic tropical soil for a subsistence living, remained small and scattered...

...A sharp drop in the price of copper would have a similar effect...

...The contours of the country are also changing rapidly with the construction of new roads and the improvement of existing ones in all regions...

...Pretty boring country," I remarked...

...When petroleum supplies were cut off in December 1965, it had less than a week's reserves of gasoline in storage depots, and stringent rationing had to be applied (8 gallons a month for motorists...

...Along with the capital, Lusaka, the copperbelt towns are typical modern, prosperous, consumer-oriented urban centers...

...KENNETH KAUNDA Africa called Northern Rhodesia was popularly known as the Siberia of the British Empire: huge, forested, remote, and landlocked...

...If the rural areas are not developed soon to stop the migration to the towns and give the peasant farmers a decent living, the number of poor will be proportionately greater in 10 years than it is now, according to figures published in the authoritative Zambian journal Business and Economy and borne out by Ministry of Agriculture statistics published two years ago...

...At the time of its independence, a good two-thirds of Zambian consumer and capital imports were coming from Rhodesia, including such vital goods as petroleum fuels, coal, and construction materials...

...Two Lozi Cabinet ministers threatened to resign after the 1967 unip conference when they were defeated for party office by Bemba candidates or their proteges...

...Here, too, the Rhodesian udi has spurred the development of domestic resources: Two coal deposits, neglected for decades in favor of the Rhodesian mine at Wankie, have since been opened...

...the stability of the copper market can only be guaranteed by international agreements fully subscribed to by the United States...

...But if Zambia has taken steps to escape the southern stranglehold over its supply routes, the possibility of its gaining ownership of the mining industry still remains remote—although some prominent Zambians have been heard to whisper very softly of nationalization "one day...

...But the opening of the mines drew large numbers of them to the development areas for work and money, and within two generations a new society emerged...

...Since independence, the number of pupils receiving a secondary education has jumped to 34,000, while the new University of Zambia will confer its first degrees next year...

...The belt has served as the nation's melting pot, attracting masses of native laborers as well as the foreign entrepreneurs...

...Lusaka's main street to this day is Cairo Road...

...The country's single railroad is little more than a branch line of the southern African systems...

...Within 12 months, this motley but effective petrol caravan was joined by a new fleet of 3 5-ton Fiat trucks, the property of the Zambia-Tanzania Road Services, a joint undertaking by the two African governments and certain Italian interests...

...Kaunda is well aware of the dangers inherent in these incipient class divisions...

...In effect, the tribes are powerful political pressure groups, and the President's willingness to accommodate them has been instrumental in preserving the tenuous national unity...

...For economically, Zambia has always been closely tied to the south, to Rhodesia and South Africa...

...While thousands of families escape to the towns every year, even the current boom cannot provide jobs for everyone, and the number of unemployed or under-employed is increasing rapidly...

...With independence in 1964, Zambia gained full control of the revenues from its copper industry...

...So far Kaunda has dealt with this tribal rivalry by apportioning Cabinet posts and senior civil service positions to members of each major tribe...

...These people, whether they are auto mechanics, miners, engineers, industrialists or civil servants, are vital to the country...

...By thus uniting their colonies on the east and west coasts, they hoped to keep the way open for their dream of a British Africa stretching from the Cape to Cairo...

...The gap between rich and poor is no longer between white and black, but between rich blacks and whites and poor blacks, between suburb and slum, town and country...

...and 2) the tribal and class threats to the unity of the state...

...Zambia's independence from the south for petroleum products will be complete next year when the new pipe-line from Dar es Salaam to the copperbelt is completed...

...Only a fraction of Zambia's import requirements are currently reaching it from the south, causing delays in the implementation of development projects...

...Once in the towns, the Africans found themselves in a rigid racist society patterned by the immigrant white miners after the South African model...

...Already holding 60 out of 80 seats in Parliament, the unip can expect an even greater majority following this year's elections...

...As a result, the Lusaka government has been able to launch the extensive reforms unip had pledged...

...Speaking at the 1967 unip conference, and addressing himself in particular to "Members of Parliament, to Civil Servants, Army and Police officers and their men," he declared: "Today it is you in the place of command?but just yesterday it was not you, tomorrow it might not be you...

...Kaunda has, for example, refused to institutionalize a one-party state under the unip, though many party leaders would like him to do so...

...Copper played little role in the initial British decision to take over the territory, however...

...His remarks could easily have embraced miners and Zambians in any skilled job, or those in any administrative capacity in the private sector of the economy...

...In addition, Zambia still gets its coal—essential in the smelting of copper—and its electricity from across the Zambezi...

...The construction of the railroad, the second biggest aid project in Africa after the Russian-financed Aswan High Dam, will take at least seven years...

...The Bemba predominance has therefore aroused fear among tribal traditionalists in other areas, leading to talk of non-cooperation and even secession, especially among the Lozi...

...in fact, the rapid post-independence growth of the economy has meant importing ever more skilled men from abroad...

...Lusaka used to be a quiet colonial town, very British: Today it is a cosmopolitan center where you are as likely to hear Italian, Swedish, Dutch or German as you are English, and even that language is likely to come from the mouths of Americans, Canadians or Australians...

...Until the projected Zam-Tan railroad is built to link Zambia Railways to Dar es Salaam, though, the country will remain dependent on the southern rail links to ports in Mozambique and South Africa for transporting 80 per cent of its imports and a similar percentage of its copper exports...

...Moreover, he is identified with the nation rather than with his party...

...The opposition groups—the African National Congress and United Front Parties—lack both coherent leadership and programs...

...But in a country as large as Zambia, with poor communications and no common language apart from English (spoken by only a small fraction of the population), such strong regional and tribal feelings appear inevitable...

...Today's driver on the road could be tomorrow's pedestrian...

...Unable to raise Western finance for their $450 million rail project, the Zambians turned to China for assistance and have reportedly been promised a $280 million interest-free deferred-payment loan from Peking...

...Tribal strife however, came close to destroying the unip from within last August during elections for party office...

...The Africans came mainly from four tribes—the Bemba in the north, the Tonga in the south, the Lozi in the west, and the Nyanja in the east...

...Both the Road Services and the pipe line are projects of the Industrial Development Corporation and tie in with long-term national plans to re-route trade through East rather than Southern Africa...

...For the country continues to be heavily dependent upon the "expatriates" in its mines, in government service, in business and industry...

...Zambia is currently the most urbanized country in tropical Africa, and its urban population is still increasing at the rate of 9 percent a year...

...Crash" training programs in mining and industry have not yet changed the complexion of the skilled labor force in those sectors...

...With 450 trucks now on the road, rationing in Zambia has all but ended, and one of unip's early dreams, an effective land route through friendly territory to the east coast, has been achieved...

...The unions, in turn, fostered the nationalist movement which three years ago won control of the country...

...Declaring war on the Central African Federation, to which Northern Rhodesia had been joined despite African opposition in 1953, the nationalists directly challenged the British Colonial administration...

...Government policy seeks to counteract this trend, but results so far have not been encouraging...

...and construction of a hydro-electric complex on the Kafue River has been started to supplant the Rhodes-ian-controlled power station on the south bank of the Zambezi that controls electric power from the Kariba Dam...

...Economic stagnation would bring the country's internal social problems to the fore, with an increase in class and tribal conflict and the destruction of the present easy relations between blacks and whites...

...The present Four-Year National Development Plan calls for overall investments of $1.2 billion, half from the private sector and half from the state...

...Yes, it's pretty boring to look at, but it's all copper...

...Meanwhile, hundreds of 5- and 10-ton trucks were mobilized to carry in supplies from Dar es Salaam over the 1,200-mile strip of dust or mud known as the Great North Road...

...Bustling places like Kitwe and Mufulira grow taller and larger each day, while secondary industries spread factories and workshops across land that five years ago was covered by trees...

...In contrast, the 75 per cent of the population living in the rural areas still exists at a subsistence level...

...And the government has directly invested large sums in housing, health services and communications...

...Zambia thus faces the future with the added problem of being at the mercy of events beyond her control: The solution of the Rhodesian problem lies ultimately with Britain and the United Nations...

...The corporation has already financed steel and textile complexes, a fertilizer factory, cement plants, hotels, and other enterprises ranging from a state wholesaling company to small Zambian-owned retail businesses...

...At the head of the movement was the United National Independence Party (unip), under the leadership of Kenneth Kaunda, a former school headmaster who visited India in his 20s, absorbing there the lessons of the Indian struggle against the British...

...Growing out of the earlier, fragmented nationalist groups, the party coalesced into a real political force in 1960 at its first national conference...

...Once it is no longer necessary to haul fuel, the Road Services will bring in solid freight and carry out copper (as some trucks are already doing), since the vehicles are ingeniously designed to carry both liquid and solid cargoes...

...Only a generation ago, this 290,-000 square mile tract of Central Stuart Graham, a free-lance writer, is currently living in Lusaka...

...The government in Lusaka is wealthy, and a good deal of this wealth has gone into the pockets of the new Zambian civil servants, who are provided with cheap housing, car loans, and free medical treatment...

...The whole developing economy threatened to freeze up until the situation was saved by a cooperative undertaking remarkable in African history—the fuel airlift...

...During the 10 years of Federation, Rhodesia was industrialized, largely at Zambian expense, while Zambia remained a primary producer and a market for Rhodesian manufactures...

...During the 19th century, there was constant friction among them, exacerbated by the demoralizing effects of the slave trade...

...Rapid "Zambianization" has remedied the situation slightly in the civil service, but even here the shortage of qualified Zambians has left some key posts to be filled by staff recruited from abroad...