Mongu commission’s recommendations are not mine alone-Rodger Chongwe
Dr Rodger Chongwe
Rodger Chongwe has fought back to put the record straight in the wake of a Wynter Kabimba dressing down on Monday. The Patriotic Front secretary general, in a television interview with veteran broadcaster Frank Mutubila, did not mince his words when he referred to the chairman of the Mongu riots commission of inquiry as an interested party in the matter.
Dr Chongwe’s commission proposed in its report that the 1964 Barotseland Agreement should be restored to which the PF chief charged that the commission went beyond its terms of reference. Dr Chongwe yesterday said Mr Kabimba should not accuse him of being an interested party in the matter because he was not the only lawyer representing the victims of the Mongu riots.
He said he was merely the lead counsel, voluntarily representing 26 people who were charged with treason after the riots.
Dr Chongwe said Mr Kabimba was in fact one of the lawyers who had equally volunteered to represent the accused.
He punched further: “Mr Kabimba is very much alive to the fact that there was no money attached and therefore, there would be no emotional attachment.”
He added, proudly: “As a Senior or Queen’s Counsel in that matter, I did not receive any money and in fact the matter was never argued in court as the case was withdrawn.”
He even added that his commission was within its terms of reference to recommend the restoration of the Barotseland Agreement.
“There is no evidence that we went beyond the terms of reference which the head of State gave us and besides, we have not yet been told by the appointing authority and Cabinet that we went beyond our mandate,” Dr Chongwe said.
Mr Kabimba, in an interview on Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) had goaded Dr Chongwe, saying he was emotionally involved in the matter as he was one of the lawyers who represented some of the victims of the Mongu riots.
The commission presented its findings to President Sata last Thursday, and the President said he would be reluctant to restore the Barotseland Agreement.
And on Monday Mr Kabimba added a rejoinder: “The issue of the Barotseland Agreement is nowhere in the terms of reference as given to the commission by President Sata.”
To which Dr Chongwe retorted yesterday in an interview: “We have done the work and it’s up to the authority to accept or reject the recommendations,” and that, “there’s no question that one must bear the blame but it’s really best that we wait for Government to state its position.”
He said the role of the commission was only to make recommendations and the decision to accept or reject the report lies with the appointing authority, who in this case is the President. He said the recommendations are not binding and can easily be dismissed if Cabinet and the President felt so.
Dr Chongwe also said the recommendations are not his alone and that it is wrong to attribute the recommendations of the commission to his persona, as there were nine other commissioners.
“Yes, I was and I am still the chairperson of the commission but the decisions and recommendations were not for Rodger Chongwe. All the nine commissioners collectively made the decisions,” he said.
He was speaking from Luangwa.
Its a waste of breath to respond to Wynter Kabimba. He is not the President and neither is he in the Cabinet. Let him produce the ERB COI report. What is he waiting for?
Kabimba is wrong by attacking Chongwe.
If he knew that Chongwe had interest in the matter, why was he scared to tell President Sata not to appoint Chongwe?
Is he seeing Chongwe as a threat to his political career prospects?
Kabimba should have been wise enough to speak to his President prior to issuing a statement that contradicts the appointing authority’s trust and confidence.
Therefore, Kabimba must withdraw his statement, which clearly shows that he is an interested party in this matter.
Chongwe you should have continued to stay with us here in Australia. You are dealing with monkeys and the more you deal with them, the more you will also look like a monkey
Hey if you seem to be very happy in australia, why are you bothered about what is happening in Zambia? answer is that you care and would love to be back in Zambia but you can’t cut it back home. Please you get involve with politics there in australia you some much love and let us who care about mother Zambia be.
you bitch ass nigga with no brains, how racist you are. How do you call humans that name. you think we are monkeys. you and your whole lot are nomadic monkeys
#3 no need to insult the nation. Mr Chongwe congratulation for the mature manner in which you have responded Mr. Kabimba’s needless attacks. We need such kindl of level headedness. To Mr. Kabimba, I would like to say that there was no need for such personal attack on Mr. Chongwe. You did not need to go out of your way nd pay ZNBC just to put accross your personal view. Zambian are intelligent and you do not need to think for them.
@ 3 u guys never amuse me on fast u forget that u are actually zambians,and now bcoz u have tasted Australian waters u have the balls to insult the sons of the soil,I am in the diaspora just like and am probably doing way better than u but I care about what happens back and I will go back just Roger Chongwe did too bad u wont coz I would want to grill chaps like u…
contribute without insults and dont take sides when dealing with issues of national interest.
Good afternoon
If the sole aim of the commission was to make recommendations and nothing more, then why should Dr. Chongwe bring out a proposal to restore the Barotseland Agreement again?
According to my judgement, the Barotseland Agreement remains to be the most complex and explosive issue of our time and therefore requires to be handled with utmost sensitivity and neutrality. 100% Professionalism, 0% Emotionalism! We need people with enough depth and breadth of knowledge to establish truth and bring out profound solutions to the matter. Reconcilitaion should be the way forward and not exciting emotions.
God, whats wrong with you people. Restoration of BA64 is one of the recommendations in the report and it does not mean Dr Chongwe wants it restored. No just one of the issues that the commission has listed as areas the govt should assess following the issues in WP
Nine Chale what do you understand by the term Recommendation? The People of Barotse land have always argued that the problems that stem from that side are becoz of the abrogation of the BA64. So what wld the COI recommend in that regard?
recommendation pls..googl it!
Basopo! The British high commissioner have even joined in , saying BA64 is about uniting then Northern Rhodesia and Barotseland period. But not want Govt says dividing.
Roger, you have made yourself clear, actually more than clear.It’s only stupid Kabimba who is downlooking on everybody including his colleagues in cabinet.A silly bastard that what Kabimba is,an allogant petty thief who wants people to dance to his tune. Does he still remember what the constable promised the Lozis and he repeated it during Bishop Duff’s funeral that Barotseland’64 is real and should be respected Why should this Kabimba thing want to confuse and mislead the Zambian people,thus why he was not appointed in the cabinet, i now can see the confusion.
good advice to # team. we are all zambians at the end of the day whether u ar in diapora or not. i’m austrian people wud be shocked at yo comment # 3. its unbelievable. Chongwez recommendations are nt hiz alone but fr the all team including us.:-\” however the coi needed to draw a balnce betwn regional interests n national interest in their recommendations. it is earsier to put up such recomms but let us also consider th route to achieving the same. it cn create anarchy if handled improperly
Lets not forget that if the restoration happens, the Lozi’s throughout Zambia will become the enemy! I am against it…but I know they would be killed. Yes the paper was signed, but why be beauracratic #kaya spelling#. Cant you just forget it and move on as ZAMBIANS? Most of the people that advocate it don’t even live in Zambia. Remember how tense things were during elections? Well this time they would be worse. You shouldn’t think a war cant break out in Zambia coz it can! It was looming during ma elections. Westerners must be given development, not autonomy! ONE ZAMBIA, ONE NATION!!!!!!!!!!!
Your thinking is warped. Lozis should have been your enemy when they enabled you to form a unitary state by signing that agreement which protected Barotseland from any internal manipulations by the new nation Zambia. Therefore, the agreement as the British High Commissioner has rightly pointed out was about uniting Barotseland and Northern Rhodesia, in a manner that would protect the interests of Barotseland. Son rather than make enemies, you think be thankful that this enabled Zambia to become what it is and therefore there was no need to abrogate it, as doing so reverted Barotseland to its former state.
As a Bemba I feel we are thieves by nature but surely we can not steal a country, even wifes are not stolen unless there are willing………….
Njenje yahao Kabimbia. Ni simu toho sahao!
THIS OLD DIRTY PIECE OF SHIT MUST BE BURNED AND FORGOTTEN FOR REVER.ITS NOT AN ISSUE ANYMORE.1 ZED 1 NATION.PERIOD!
#12 dont b funny!!! Thats a legal document that should not just be thrown like shit or rubbish. Dont annoy us. U are so ignorant. Go back to grade 2. Mayb u can become somebody.
lozi pipo would need visa to come to our Zambia
and you would need visa to go to Barotseland.You would also need to pay them to have your oil pipeline from Angola
‘Dr Chongwe yesterday said Mr Kabimba should not accuse him of being an interested party in the matter because he was not the only lawyer representing the victims of the Mongu riots’. Mr. Chongwe should speak for himself, he was the chairman for the COI and a lawyer for the rioters. If he had any hint of integrity, he should have turned down the appointment and not sneaked his personal wish list into the final recommendations. I agree with Kabimba that RC had emotional attachment to the issues at hand.
The issue is that a good number of us fail to understand that Zambia is a hybrid of Northern Rhodesia and Barotseland. In other words there is no Zambia without 64BE agreement. If you say we forget about this paper then we start from NR and have two states. By the way our BoZ was established mainly using funds from the BE trust funds. A good number of yu are not aware of this. Let us go to the national archieves and read. Then you can talk from an informed view point. PF has started something they have no stamina to handle. Ask Kaunda, he knows what is at stake here.
Now we are going to be lectured by all sorts of paper gun zealots whose only performance so far is to play a broken opinion on something they cannot even pronounce properly, let alone comprehend. If Bwana Kabimba was a man of substance, he should have, at the very least, invited to that interview RC or one of the Commissioners instead of shadow boxing alone in the ring and thinking he came out champ. Infact, the man was disoriented by a simple sms asking whether the Litunga was in attendance when the BA64 was abrogated! What more if there was another panelist. It won’t do to just say the interview was paid for. That’s an old gimmick which is now stale!
Zed Poor People, the problem with a lot of people like you is you want to start history from BA64. You need to go back to the reasons for the BA64, which is the Lockner Concession. We cannot forget the fact that the then Litunga misrepresented the extent of his chiefdom to include Tongaland, Lambaland, etc which ended up first being North Western Rhodesia and later Northern Rhodesia. The fraudulent award of land by the Litunga goes to the heart of the matter of our opposition to the BA64.
we await the details. Well measured and very mature response. My hat off to you counsel!!!
I don’t even know why Ba Kateka made this guy the chairman. I knew the moment that he was put that this was going to be bad! this is the man who wanted to drag Zambia into legalizing what UN guy is saying. This man has no substance.
What a stupid ***** KK is.So he wrote to the then Litunga Yeta around 1991 promising him to restore BA64 if he won electins.Yet he has been quet all this time.Kolwestans you have gone too far with your lies
It is Wynter again, brethren put on suitable clothing or you freeze.
Those in PF, please tell us if the Secretary General of the party can also be reshuffled by the president.
@# 22. King Deceit.
Yes The Wynter can be Re-aligned to Summer.
Dr Chongwe said in fact Kabimba had congratulated him after he was appointed chairman of the commission and wondered why the PF secretary general did not raise an objection with President Sata.
He said in addition, there was a minister justice minister Sebastian Zulu from government who was a member of the commission.
“Now by implication is Mr Kabimba actually attacking me or the Minister of Justice in our government today? Who sat on that commission? I think that will not be fair and I believe Mr Zulu as a minister in the government of the PF, must be a member of the PF. So I think that instead of trying to discredit someone, it is far much better to read and study the report and react to that report,” Dr Chongwe said.
Barotseland existed prior to the Lochner agreement whereas the country of Zambia did not :) The foreign powers aimed to reduce the size of the territory not increase it… When that land was chopped up in Europe and handed to one man (Rhodes) and his company to exploit there was an agenda already in place. No matter. It is down to viewpoint. When the emotion and annoyance ends over this issue there will be greater stories to be told that all Zambians can be proud of. It is BA64/N. Rhodesia that births Zambia. Zambia history can only begin in 1964 as it didn’t exist before then… No disrespect intended.
The Roger chongwe commission is very small to pass such a recomandation for the follwing reasons The following quastions should be answered be before looking at that recormandation
1 How did the litunga aquare the land they claiming. 2 was the litunga the only chief in the area they are claiming. 3 Do they have title deeds for the land.4Do they have the map of the land recognised by all tribes occupying those areas as part of the litunga’s kingdom.If the lozis do not want to be part of zambia what makes them think that the Nkoya’s would like to be part of barotseland if they shall ever be a country like that
zedzed.you will never manage to stir brother againest brothr,us nkoyas are lozis.go and make your noiseelsewhere.headman mutondo is not the chief kaoma,the chief of kaoma is litiya of naliele.nkoya are prominent in BRE.
27# silent drums
So what do you make out of mixed marriage offspring? So called half Lozi half Bemba…where do they stand?
Kabimba doesn’t even know that there’s no such thing as a Lozi tribe for him to say the Lozi tribe constitutes a very small grouping in Barotseland compared to the Mbundas, Chokwe, Nyengo, Nkoya, Mbukushu, Yeyi, Luyi etc. Anyone whose done a bit of Grd7 would know that all these tribes constitute ‘bu-lozi’ for lack of a better term.
it will be nice to see a letter writen by KK in favour of BA64.
# 23 that is very funny .Anyway this is faulty towers i,m enjoying the never ending comedy of leadership crisis in this country
Kabimba has been serioulsy taken to the classroom by RC.Mr choongwe,very very proffessional.we didnt know kabimba really wanted to be one of the barotse detainee lawyer.Bravo also to the british high commissioner saying the BA64 is serious and is what binds zambia.ohhhhhhhhhh,its barotse thing is so nice.
May the lord add manymore years to Mr chongwe and his team for being so professional.
Why did PF appoint RC as chair of the the commission if they believed he had emotional attachment to the issue? Dealing with dull heads is a problem and always frustrating. Patroitic Fools (PF) you are failing even during your honey moon. Shame.
I have had occasion to read Mr Chongwe’s measured and nuanced response and I agree with him fully. Among the Commissioners were distinguished lawyers like Mr Mun’gomba and Justice Minister Sebastian Saizi Zulu ,who as State Counsel are far senior and respectable to Kabimba.
Zambia will remain a comedy of errors with leaders like Kabimba.Kabimba go and hang.
All of this because of campaign lies.
Let the sleeping dogs lie.