By ROBERT LITUNGU
 

AS Zambia approaches the 2011 tripartite elections, various players are, once again, championing causes they hope will assist them gain political mileage. The restoration of the Barotseland Agreement of 1964 being championed by some Marotse aristocrats is a case in point.

The agreement basically aims at reintroducing and perpetuating the “dual system” of governance that was practiced by the British colonialists between 1890 and 1964. Barotseland was not a unitary entity but an amalgamation of several tribes that was created as part of Cecil Rhodes’s imperialist strategy to gain access to minerals in the Central African region.

As such, one group cannot continue to rule others on such spurious claims when other chiefs such as Khama and Lobengula, who signed similar concessions, no longer have such powers.
The Zambian Government acted rightly by consigning the Agreement to the dustbin of history. It surely belongs to the archives.

The strategy to use powerful tribal chiefs began in earnest after the Berlin Conference of 1884.
The Central African region became a focus of the scramble by various European powers, namely Great Britain, Portugal and Germany because of the vast mineral and wildlife resources.

After the conference, the Portuguese based their claim on the area on the travels of Portuguese explorer Francisco Jose Maria de Lacerda, who had traversed the area from the east to the west coast passing through Lunda chief Mwata Kazembe’s capital in 1798, Major Serpa Pinto’s travels in the Zambezi valley during the late 1880’s and the increased trade with Portuguese traders.

The British, on the other hand, based their claims for the area on the travels and maps of Scottish explorer one Dr David Livingstone between 1840 and 1870. Rhodes, in order to gain a foothold in Central Africa, obtained a royal charter from the British Monarchy in 1889. He quickly sent emissaries to sign concessions with chiefs in the areas north of the Limpopo. In present-day Zimbabwe, Rhodes’s agents bought out the 1884 agreement between Lobengula and Philips et al, which enabled him have control over Matebeleland and Mashonaland in 1890.
In the Zambezi valley, his emissary Elliot Lochner, through French pioneer missionary Francois Coillard, bought out the Ware Concession and signed a concession with Lewanika in 1890.

His efforts to claim mining rights in the Katanga area failed mainly because his emissary Alfred Sharpe was turned away upon reaching Bunkeya- Msidi’s capital located to the north-west of present day Lubumbashi.
It is alleged that shortly after Sharpe had left, a party under the command of a Canadian, William Stairs, under the pay of the king of the Belgians, turned up at Bunkeya. The party raised the personal flag of the king, with Msidi being shot in a scuffle. This is how what is now known as Katanga pedicle was lost to the Belgians.

The struggle for land was mainly between the European powers, and the chiefs were mere pawns.
Thus, the king of Italy when arbitrating between the British and Portuguese claims, he informed the British that their sphere of influence was what Lewanika could prove to be his dominions or at least under his power.
Any area where he was unable to do so would fall to the Portuguese.
As a result, two British agents, Major Goold-Adams in 1897 and two years later Major Hill Gibbons and Colonel Colin Harding, were dispatched to travel through the country to ascertain Lewanika’s dominions and his relationships with the alleged tributary tribes.

The king of Italy refused to accept evidence based on the payment of tribute as insufficient proof of “authority” of the ruler to whom the tribute was paid or of “dependence or real subjection” on the part of the tribes paying.
Marshall Hole, in his book, The Making of Rhodesia (1926) paraphrases the king of Italy, in reference to the British claims after mentioning the wide extent of country over which Lewanika asserted sovereignty, says:
“But this authority over many of the people on the outskirts of this area was tenuous and intermittent. Occasional presents of ivory and guns on the part of some of the tribes; the presence in their villages of Barotse headmen and their practice on the death of a chief, of consulting Lewanika as to the choice of a successor, were some of the facts cited to show that these tribes were his tributaries.

But compliments and relations of this character were not unusual between chiefs of adjoining districts.
They did not necessarily betoken submission, but arose from the desire to conciliate and live in peace with a powerful neighbour” The words of the king of Italy’s award say, “it often happens that a tribe, although independent, pays tribute to the chief of another stronger tribe, either in order by such means to escape being harassed by him or to avoid war, or in order to gain his goodwill and protection.

It is on the basis of the above, that the other tribes do not want to go back in history and have power centralised in the hands of the Barotse princes. According to Gerald Caplan in his book The elite of Barotseland, similar sentiments arose in the late 1930’s and early 1930’s after the Lozi princes became restless, having obtained Western education and had no positions in the Barotse Establishment. They began to agitate for positions to be created for them within the Barotse governance structures.

Consequently, the Marotse paramount chief then, Litia Yeta III, set up Nawinda (1932) in Balovale for his son Daniel Kufuna and Naliele (1936) at Mankoya for his half brother Mwanawina. As late as 1966, Mwanawina also set up Namayula in Lukulu for his son Siisii after the creation of Lukulu District. This is obviously what they want to continue to do once the Agreement is restored.

It is also known there are plans of transforming the Western Province into a monarchy whereby the current paramount chief would become a King. Under him would be two paramount chiefs to be based at Nalolo and Libonda.
Below them would be Marotse district chiefs. The Nkoya chiefs do not feature in the structures that would be a preserve of the paramount chief’s family. This is a violation of the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals.
As McDonnell (ibid) clearly points out, “A tribe claims land because of descent from persons of real or supposed blood relationship who had the land as far back as tribal memory goes, or who found it unoccupied on first coming to it, also because the tribe lives on that land.

These plans should, therefore, be restricted to Barotseland as defined in the 1890 agreement between Elliot Lochner of the BSAC and Marotse paramount chief, Lubosi, that read, “The British South African Company further agrees to reserve from prospecting and devote to the exclusive use of the King and his people that portion of the Barotse Valley proper stretching from a point on the Zambezi River known as Mbowe Hill about 40 miles above Lealui on the north to Senanga on the South, and bounded by the Mosito (Mushitu) or sand belts”.
The agreement does not fit into contemporary society and presents practical governance difficulties once implemented.
It is premised on feudalistic principles whereby society is ruled by a tribal oligarchy – the BRE, with responsibilities over the succession of chiefs, raising of taxes, whereby the so-called tributary and slave tribes would be required to pay tax to support the Lealui Khotla and its structures. Local villagers with no money would be forced to flee their villages or be forced to pay in kind items such as honey, cassava meal, canoes etc. The local people would have to pay levies for exploiting natural resources as all the wildlife belongs to the paramount chief. The Marotse indunas would collect eland tails, animal skins and hippo meat. There would be loss of security of land tenure as evidenced by the continued harassment and attacks of Nkoya villagers being orchestrated by the so-called chief at Naliele.
The policy of the Barotse is to break down tribal organisation and have the people unorganised in the hands of the Barotse indunas. For instance, when the then Mankoya District commissioner complained about the indiscriminate inflow of immigrants into the district, the reply was, “These immigrants do not come to their tribes but to the paramount chief”.

The Barotseland Agreement could definitely have posed immense challenges to Zambia had it been implemented.
It would have fuelled tribalism as other tribal groupings and regionally-inclined leaders would over time have demanded that similar governance structures be set up in their areas. This would have led to the balkanisation of the country.
The form of governance espoused in the Barotse Agreement that protects and entrenches sectional interests is undemocratic and does not promote key governance principles including accountability, democracy, equality, inclusiveness, transparency and rule of law.

(The author is a Lusaka-based Nkoya historian)