History drowns Dr Kaunda’s voice of peace

He is now known as the weeping president and the last time he addressed the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) in Windhoek last year, Dr Kenneth Kaunda, former Zambian president wept as he sang his signature tune, Tiyende Pamodzi Ndi Mutima Umo (Let us Walk Together with One Heart).

Seeing Dr Kaunda shed tears, it’s unimaginable that this is the man who liberated southern Africa and was instrumental in pushing for the release of former South African President Nelson Mandela. 

It’s so distant to think that the role Dr Kenneth Kaunda played can be likened to that played by Che Guevara.

But today, he has been relegated to the fringes of history such that he does not make much news as Nelson Mandela does. 

Last month, Dr Kaunda was admitted in a Windhoek hospital for what was termed a ‘routine check’ and that event did not send headlines across the world screaming as did Mandela’s hospitalisation for another ‘routine check’ a few months ago.

There are 99% chances that if one asks the youth who Dr Kenneth Kaunda is, they would not know but just mention the name Nelson Mandela and they will tell you.

This is so because Dr Kaunda fought to liberate the region by accommodating revolutionary movements in his country when Zambia attained independence in 1964. 

While democracy is key word today, Dr Kaunda’s role as a liberator and proponent of democracy has never and will never be recognised because he helped in taking over power from those favoured by the west.

If the Kaunda-Mandela parallel is to be drawn further, one would conclude that the west loves Mandela today not so much because he has done anything for Africa in general or South Africa in particular but because he turned the other cheek and shook the bloodied hands of the people who murdered his own children.

One would also conclude that the west packaged Mandela for the world in exactly the same way they package products such as cigarettes, coke cola, and alcohol as well as clothing brands for consumption.

It is for this reason that no other African statesmen who reached out their hand to help others survive the onslaught of the west will ever be accorded the same respect and marketing Mandela receives.

All what we have seen and got are street names after Dr Kaunda with a municipality in South Africa in the North West Province changing its name form Southern District Municipality to Dr Kenneth Kaunda Municipality for the man’s ‘invaluable contribution to the freedom struggle in Africa; outstanding leadership; peace and progress initiatives in Africa’.

So today Dr Kaunda who sacrificed everything – his political career, his country’s economy, his life as a father and husband – for the betterment of the region lives the life of an ordinary man.

Unlike other African leaders – his successor the late Frederick Chiluba for example – who leave the State House burdened with accusations of corruption and looting of the economy, Dr Kaunda was removed with his hands clean. Most of the ministers who served in his government do not have much to show for the time they spent in government.

He is, most probably, one of very few African leaders who stayed on in their countries when they were removed from power and continue to live like normal citizens without anyone booing them.

Likewise, Dr Kaunda’s contribution to the independence of Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia has been forgotten. Nobody cares that Dr Kaunda’s benevolence towards his neighbours scarred the country’s economy badly and deeply.

Decades of wars in the region meant that the Rhodesians and the apartheid regime in South Africa and the then South West Africa (Namibia) would from time to time bomb Zambian infrastructure causing damage that needed Dr Kaunda’s government to repair. And this cost a lot for a country that survived on copper.

In an interview with Harry Kreisler, Executive Director of UC Berkeley's Institute of International Studies and Executive Producer of Conversations with History, Dr Kaunda admits this fact: “We opened our doors and all liberation movements moved from Tanzania to Zambia. That meant being bombed from time to time by South African war planes. Zimbabwe, Southern Rhodesia in those days, the Portuguese in Angola, the Portuguese in Mozambique, the settlers in Namibia, all these were now attacking Zambia because they wanted us to fear that accommodating liberation movements meant being bombed, bridges being destroyed; you build, they will bomb them again, and so on.

“Oil places, where you hide your oil, they come and bomb and destroy those. This is what life then was, but it was something we had to do. When God says, ‘Love they neighbor as thyself’ and ‘Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you’ there's no choice there, if you understood that. We understood that, we accepted it, we worked together.”

Dr Kaunda further says his desire and that of the people of Zambia was to see other countries free from ‘people who did not believe that people of all races were God’s children’.

“We were not fighting for independence of Zambia; we were also very much concerned with seeing to it that our neighbours in that region were becoming independent. 

Angola, west of us; Mozambique, west of us; Zimbabwe, south of us; South West Africa (Namibia) and of course, South Africa itself . . .” he said.

This was a good fight for Africa but not for the west and Dr Kaunda became target number one.

When Dr Kaunda took in liberation movements, Dr Kamuzu Banda of Malawi declined to have anything to do with the plight of others.

This was noted by the late Julius Nyerere in his introduction to a book titled Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia: The times and the Man written by the Irish missionary Fergus Macpherson:

"If Kenneth Kaunda and the people of Zambia had decided that it was too difficult, like Dr. Banda in Malawi had done, we would not participate in the struggle." President Nyerere wrote, "We all would have understood that this was really the right thing for him and the people of Zambia to do. They went ahead because they believed in what they were doing." 

But to understand Dr Kaunda better – to know the depth and width of heart – has to go back into his childhood where he used music as a weapon to get through to the people.

Born at Lubwa Mission Station in 1924 as one of eight children, his father, Reverend David Kaunda of the Church of Scotland endowed in him the gift of love not only for his close family members but all races.

His parents also taught him to read at an early age such that by the time he started school at Munali in Lusaka, young Kaunda was ahead of his peers. 

After Munali where he got a teaching certificate, young Kaunda took up a teaching post at Chinsali Mission when winds of change driven by the late Dr Banda and another Zambian nationalist leader Harry Nkumbula were rising against the Federation of Southern Africa.

At 25, Kaunda took up the campaign holding solo guitar sessions across Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) singing freedom songs and created branches for the African National Congress.

His efforts earned him the secretary general’s position and a prison booking in Lusaka. 

While in prison, Kaunda formulated humanism, a concept that expresses faith in the common men and women as well as a belief in non-violence.

Looking back today, this concept made him feel the pain others under the yoke of oppression felt.

He then left ANC to form the Zambian African National Congress that was driven underground by the British who arrested and brought him to Salisbury (Harare) Prison.

When he left Salisbury Prison, he founded the United National Independent Party (UNIP) that joined hands with Dr Banda’s Congress Party to fight the federation.

In 1962, he became a legislative Council of Northern Rhodesia as a Minister of Local Government and Social Welfare in a UNIP/ ANC coalition government. He assumed the presidency of the Republic of Zambia in 1964.

Of course, it’s a fact that he lost the 1991 election to Chiluba because the Zambian economy was bartered and the nation was wallowing in poverty. Unlike Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and many other African leaders who drive their economies into the ground because of greed and insensitivity, Kaunda was a victim of many things.

But before looking into the machinisations formulated to effect his downfall, it would help a lot to list down what he did for Zambia.

When he took over, enrolment in schools and colleges rose from 3million to 7million and infrastructure such as roads, clinics and colleges were built. 

He introduced the National Development Plans from 1964 to 1970 under which his reconstruction plans were carried out.

But just like any other African nation, Zambia was a welfare nation. This state of affairs is usually a result of trying to cater for previously marginalised people. So in the early days of independence, Zambians enjoyed state subsidies on maize meal and other products. This, however, backfired when the copper prices fell such that by 1986, the economy could not hold. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had advised Zambia to devalue the kwacha, freeze wages and control public expenditure. The ripple effect of this was price hikes and massive shortages of commodities. By 1987, it was clear that Zambia was drowning and Dr Kaunda cut ties with both IMF and World Bank.

What many people seem to forget is what caused the decline in Zambia’s economy. Most attribute it to Kaunda’s mismanagement yet there were various factors.

To begin with, when Ian Smith declared the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965, he cut off the shortest route for the transportation of copper to South Africa from Zambia because ZAPU and ZANU, organisations fighting Smith were sheltered by Kaunda. This was costly for the country.

With no help from the international community, Kaunda had to team up with Julius Nyerere and the Chinese in constructing the 1860 km Tanzania Zambia Railway (Tazara). A 1710km pipeline, the Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi (Tazama) that stretched from Dar es Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi was built.

More hydro electricity stations were built at the Kafue Gorge and Kariba’s North Bank while industries were established to withstand the liberation struggle with farming systems improved to boost local food production.

In a 2001 report titled Zambia Against Apartheid compiled by and the Justice Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) estimates the cost of southern Africa’s war on Zambia at US$19billion. Of this figure, US$5,34billion was incurred fighting apartheid alone. The report notes that 2010 figures ‘should be higher’.

“Support for liberation of Zimbabwe and others contributed to Zambia going into debt and through harsh IMF and World Bank debt conditions, staying in debt. 

“And some forces that for gain supported racist regimes have come through other windows and are getting facilities and resources built by Zambia during the liberation.

“In April 1994, when apartheid South Africa changed and Nelson Mandela became president, Africa's liberation sights were reached. But for Zambia, there were no organised international or local processes of healing from Southern Africa's war of liberation,” the report further says.

Although the fight against racism was a task for human dignity, the reports says, there has been no international material and economic support to help Zambia's rehabilitation. Thus various imbalances continue in society.
Apart from the economic effects the wars caused on Zambia, the report says Zambia had to increase spending on defence and security because of ‘bombings by racist regimes led to thousands of deaths of Zambians and freedom fighters. Many were maimed’.

Despite all these sacrifices, Dr Kaunda’s legacy is not fully recognised and it’s saddening that when he was admitted in a Namibian hospital, the leaders he helped ascend to power were gathering in Windhoek discussing the future of liberation war movements. 

They also gathered in Luanda, Angola for the Southern African Development Community (Sadc)’s chairmanship handover for an organisation he was the first chairman.

If we go back again to the Mandela/ Kaunda parallel, one would ask: What is the difference between the two? Why has not the west been good to Dr Kaunda for bringing freedom to the region just like they are good to Mandela? Who is a better statesman – one who fights for others’ freedom and one who does not condemn democracy’s undemocratic ways?

If it’s for peace, during his entire rule, Dr Kaunda never called for violence. It was his paramount desire to inculcate peace hence the peace that prevails among tribes in Zambia today.

If it’s fighting for HIV/ Aids, Dr Kaunda has done much for this cause through his Kenneth Kaunda Children of Africa Foundation.

Like Mandela, Dr Kaunda is respected in his country where he lives like an ordinary citizen.

While the west can be justified in dumping Dr Kaunda in the dustbin of history, what about the region he helped free?

It appears as if time and history are drowning Dr Kaunda’s voice calling for togetherness and understanding among all the peoples of the region.

With time, we won’t hear his signature tune:  Tiyende Pamodzi Ndi Mutima Umo!