Lungu and Lubosi Imwiko’s assigned ‘traitors’ will not be tolerated in Barotseland, outraged Lozis

By News Editor, Barotseland Post

A team allegedly sponsored by President Edgar Chagwa Lungu and the embattled Litunga of Barotseland Lubosi Imwiko II, in conjunction with a clique in the Barotse Royal Establishment (BRE) to campaign for Edgar Lungu’s continued presidency in the 11th August 2016, will be met with unspecified resistance in Barotseland, some enraged Lozis have warned.

The team is also assigned to try and dissuade the Barotse from the unanimous and popular 2012 Barotse National Council (BNC) Barotseland independence declarations, considered sacred by many Lozis in the contested territory, in preference to some unspecified Lubosi Imwiko II – Edgar Lungu deal whose condition, however, is Lungu’s re-election as president of Zambia.

“Basike balubona bukuba, thinking we do not know what they are really up to. They claim to come in the name of seeking dialogue for a ‘lasting’ solution over the Barotseland Agreement 1964, when we actually know that their message is really for Edgar Lungu’s re-election,” said an angry Mongu resident warning that the people of Barotseland would not be fooled over and over again.

Meanwhile, in an introductory and appointment letter for the team, signed by the Induna Imandi (Chrispin Mowa Zambwe), the BRE has confirmed that the named members of the team have been appointed to serve on the ‘sensitization’ committee regarding the expected ‘dialogue’ to be held between the central government at Lusaka and the people of Barotseland, leading to the ‘peaceful’ and ‘lasting’ solution of the Barotseland Agreement of 1964.

However, incensed Barotse have warned of unspecified action against the named seven member team of Mulasikwanda Chazele, Mushokabanji Wamuwi, Muyunda Makala, Simataa Munalula, Mutemwa Pumulo, Lyamba Mutumba and Pumulo Maimbolwa, who they say will now be treated as ‘top’ traitors of Barotseland.

“We wish to warn that these individuals are now top traitors of Barotseland who will be treated as such wherever they will go,” Mukela warned sternly.

“How can the treacherous Lubosi and his BRE talk of dialogue with a rogue government that has kept our leaders (Afumba and others) in deplorable imprisonment like common criminals, while they gallivant around with bloody money from Lusaka and they think we will stand by and watch,” Lubasi chipped in as he threatened that maybe it was time Barotseland employed some methods that the then oppressed people of South Africa meted out to those considered traitors of the struggle for the emancipation of the majority black South Africans during the struggle against Apartheid.

And the BRE concluded in their letter appealing for the ‘support and assistance’ to the seven member committee as they had been authorized to act ‘for and on behalf’ of the Barotse Royal Establishment in all matters associated with this proposed dialogue.

This latest action by the BRE and Lubosi Imwiko II is widely seen as a direct disregard of what the people of Barotseland desire, accusing the embattled Litunga and his cronies in the BRE of turning into mere ‘political idiots’ of president Edgar Lungu in exchange for personal enrichment at the expense of the poor majority in the now contested territory of Barotseland.

Although the BRE are yet to candidly tell the people of Barotseland what their proposed solutions are, speculations are that the embattled Litunga has already single-handedly struck a ‘personal’ deal with Edgar Lungu in an ‘agreement’ that will replace the defunct original pre-independence Barotseland Agreement of 1964 that would have given Barotseland political autonomy within Zambia had the same not been unilaterally abrogated by Kenneth Kaunda’s Zambian government in 1969.

Since its abrogation, countless Lozi nationals have suffered imprisonment, state engineered torture and death for calling on the Zambian government to restore the 1964 agreement until the Lozi unanimously declared independence from Zambia at a regularly convened Barotse National Council (BNC) held in March of 2012.

Afumba Mombotwa, leader of the Barotseland independence struggle and two of his colleagues today continue to serve a 10 year Zambian imposed prison sentence which many Barotse believe would have been abated by the Litunga and BRE as it stems from the 2012 BNC which was duly sanctioned by the Litunga and his BRE under the auspices of the Zambian government also in attendance at the council that declared Barotseland a free state.