Thursday, March 28, 2024

Under a new colonial whip

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By Peter Hitchens

I thought I was going to die. An inflamed mob of about 50 desperate men had crowded round the car, trying to turn it over. They were staring at me and my companions with rage and hatred such as I haven’t seen in a human face before.

Those companions, Barbara Jones and Richard van Ryneveld, were – like me – quite helpless in the back seats. If we got out, we would certainly be beaten to death. But our two African companions had indeed got out to try to reason with the crowd.

Finally one of them leapt back into the car and reversed wildly down the rocky path. By the grace of God we did not slither into the ditch, roll over or burst a tyre. He told us it was us they wanted. We ought to be dead.
Why did they want to kill us? What was the reason for their fury? They thought that if I reported on their way of life they might lose their jobs.

We were in Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and had seen a Chinese supervisor cajoling local workers as they dug a trench.

The workers were grubbing for scraps of cobalt and copper ore in the dust of abandoned copper mines, sinking perilous 25m shafts by hand, washing their finds in cholera-infected streams full of human filth, then pushing enormous loads uphill on ancient bicycles to the nearby town of Likasi, where middlemen waited to sell the metals to Chinese businessmen.

To see the workers as they plodded miserably past was to be reminded of pictures of unemployed miners in Britain in the 1930s, stumbling home in the drizzle with sacks of coal scraps gleaned from spoil heaps. Except that, here, the unsparing heat made the labour five times as hard and the conditions were worse by far than any known in England since the 18th century.

Many of these workers perish as their primitive mines collapse on them, or are horribly injured without hope of medical treatment. Many are little more than children. On a good day they may earn $3.

We had been earlier to this awful pit, which looked like a penal colony in an ancient slave empire. We had been turned away by a fat, corrupt policeman who had pretended our papers weren’t in order, but who was really taking instructions from a dead-eyed, one-eared gang-master who sat next to him.

By the time we returned with more official permits, the gang-masters had readied the ambush. The diggers feared – and their bosses had worked hard on that fear – that if people like me publicised their filthy way of life, then the mine might be closed and the $3 a day might be taken away.

China’s cynical new version of imperialism in Africa is a wicked enterprise.

Much of the continent is selling itself into a new era of corruption and virtual slavery as China seeks to buy up all the metals, minerals and oil it can lay its hands on.

China offers both rulers and the ruled in Africa the simple, squalid advantages of shameless exploitation. For the governments, there are gargantuan loans, promises of new roads, railways, hospitals and schools – in return for giving Beijing a free run at Africa’s rich resources.

For the people, there are these wretched leavings, which, miserable as they are, must be better than the near-starvation they otherwise face.

Persuasive academics advised me before I set off on this journey that China’s scramble for Africa has much to be said for it. They pointed out that China needs African markets for its goods and has an interest in real economic advancement in that broken continent.

For once, they argued, foreign intervention in Africa might work, precisely because it is so cynical and self-interested. They said Western aid, with all its conditions, did little to create real advances in Africa.

Why get so het up about African corruption anyway? Is it really so much worse than corruption in Russia or India? Is it really our business to try to act as missionaries of purity? Isn’t what we call “corruption” another name for what Africans view as looking after their families?

And what about China? Despite the country’s convulsive growth and new wealth, it still suffers from poverty and backwardness. After the murderous disaster of Mao, and the long chaos that went before, China longs above all for prosperity.

And, as one genial and open-minded Chinese businessman said to me in the Congo as we sat over a beer in the decayed colonial majesty of Lubumbashi’s Belgian-built Park Hotel: “Africa is China’s last hope.”

I find this argument quite appealing, in theory. Britain’s own adventures in Africa were not especially benevolent, although many decent men did what they could to enforce fairness and justice amid the bigotry and exploitation.

It is noticeable that in much former British territory we have left behind plenty of good things and habits that are absent in the lands once ruled by rival empires.

Even so, with Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Uganda on our conscience, who are we to lecture others?

I chose to look at China’s intervention in two countries, Zambia and the Congo, because they lie side by side, because one was once British and the other Belgian.

Also, in Zambia’s imperfect but functioning democracy, there is opposition to the Chinese presence, while in the despotic Congo, opposition to President Joseph Kabila is unwise, to put it mildly. The Congo is barely a state at all, and still hosts plenty of fighting.

I have decided not to name most of the people who spoke to me, even though some of them gave me permission to do so, because I am not sure they know just how much of a risk they may be running by criticising the Chinese in Africa.

I know from personal experience with Chinese authority that Beijing regards anything short of deep respect as insulting and it does not forget a slight. I also know that this over-sensitive vigilance is present in Africa.

Our team was reported to the authorities in Zambia’s copper belt by Chinese managers who had seen us taking photographs of a graveyard at Chambishi, where 54 victims of a disaster in a Chinese-owned explosives factory are buried. Within an hour, local “security” officials were buzzing around us trying to find out what we were up to.

Beijing regards Zambia as a great prize, alongside its other favoured nations of Sudan (oil), Angola (oil) and Congo (metals).

It has cancelled Zambia’s debts, established a “special economic zone” in the Copper Belt, offered to build a sports stadium, schools, a hospital and a malaria treatment centre as well as providing scholarships and sending experts to help with agriculture. Trade is growing rapidly.

All this has aroused the suspicions of Michael Sata, a populist Zambian opposition politician famous for his combative manner and his biting attacks on opponents. He was once a porter who swept the platforms at Victoria Station in London. Now he’s the leader of the Patriotic Front, with a respectable chance of winning a presidential election set for the end of this month.

“The Chinese are not here as investors; they are here as invaders,” he says. “They bring Chinese to come and push wheelbarrows, they bring Chinese bricklayers, they bring Chinese carpenters, Chinese plumbers. We have plenty of those in Zambia.”

This is true. In Lusaka and in the Copper Belt, Chinese workers are a common sight at mines and on building sites, as are Chinese supervisors and technicians. There are Chinese restaurants, Chinese clinics and Chinese housing compounds – and a growing number of Chinese flags flapping over factories and smelters.

“We don’t need to import labourers from China,” Sata says. “We need to import people with skills we don’t have in Zambia. The Chinese are not going to train our people how to push wheelbarrows.

“Wherever our Chinese ‘brothers’ are, they don’t care about the local workers. They employ people in slave conditions.”

He accuses Chinese overseers of frequently beating up Zambians. His claim is given force by a story in that morning’s Lusaka newspapers about how a Zambian building worker in Ndola, in the Copper Belt, was allegedly beaten unconscious by four Chinese co-workers angry that he had gone to sleep on the job.

I later checked this account with the victim’s relatives in an Ndola shanty town and found it to be true.

Denis Lukwesa, the deputy general secretary of the Zambian Mineworkers’ Union, backed Sata’s view, saying: “[The Chinese] just don’t understand about safety. They are more interested in profit. They are harsh to Zambians and they don’t get on well with them.”

Sata warns against the enormous loans and offers of help with transport, schools and health care with which Beijing sweetens its attempts to buy up Africa’s mineral reserves.

“China’s deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo is, in my opinion, corruption,” he says, comparing it to Western loans, which require strong measures against corruption.

Everyone in Africa knows that China’s Congo deal – worth almost £5 billion (R77,3 billion) in loans, roads, railways, hospitals and schools – was offered after Western experts demanded tougher anti-corruption measures in return for increased aid.

Sata knows the Chinese are unpopular in his country. Zambians use a mocking word – choncholi – to describe the way the Chinese speak. Zambian businessmen gossip about the way the Chinese live in separate compounds, where – they claim – dogs are kept for food.

Some Africa experts tend to portray Sata as a troublemaker. But his claims were confirmed by a senior worker in Chambishi, the scene of an accident in 2005 at the Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy explosives plant, in which 54 people died.

The worker recalls the aftermath of the blast: “Zambia, a country of 11 million people, went into official mourning for this disaster. A Chinese supervisor said to me in broken English: ‘In China, 5 000 people die, and there is nothing. In Zambia, 50 people die and everyone is weeping.’ To them, 50 people are nothing.”

Many in Africa also accuse the Chinese of unconcealed corruption. A North American businessman who runs a copper-smelting business in Congo’s Katanga province explained that his company is constantly targeted by official safety inspectors because it refuses to bribe them. Meanwhile, Chinese enterprises get away with huge breaches of the law because they pay bribes.

There is a lesson for colonial pride and ambition in the streets of Lubumbashi – 80 years ago an orderly Art Deco city full of French influence and supervised by crisply starched gendarmes, now a genial but volatile chaos of scruffy, bribe-hunting traffic cops where it is not wise to venture out at night.

Outsiders come and go in Africa, some greedy, some idealistic, some halfway between. Time after time, they fail or are defeated, leaving behind scars, slag heaps, ruins and graveyards, disillusion and disappointment.

We have come a long way from Cecil John Rhodes to Bob Geldof, but we still have not brought much happiness with us. Even Nelson Mandela’s vaunted “Rainbow Nation” in South Africa is careering rapidly towards banana republic status.

Now a new great power, China is scrambling for wealth and influence in this sad continent, without a single illusion or pretence.

Perhaps, after two centuries of humbug, this method will work where all other interventions have failed. But after seeing the bitter, violent desperation unleashed in the mines of Likasi, I find it hard to believe any good will come of it.

Source: IOL

91 COMMENTS

  1. SATA and the Chinese are like Tom & Jerry. Jerry doesn’t need to trust Tom, and Vis-versa.
    But Sata also, he shocks me;
    He said he would remove cut-off points, once in power so that every child should go straight into university because the cut-off points are hindering children from attaining university education.
    Now, my wife asked my mother in-law to see what her view was.
    Her question was put in bemba as my wife and my mother in-law are bemba. She said, “Mayo, ba Sata ati ngababa president, baka funyapo ama cut-off points pakweba ati bonse abana baleyafwe mpaka na ku university”
    My mother in-law answered, “Yangu, ba Sata nabo! Nomba tukala ishiba shani ati ichi chikopo, uyu wamano”?

  2. Ba ChoCholi, not different from the Western World,its only that their investment doesn’t come with the so called good governance

  3. All you Zambians outthere that always have bad things to say about you fellow black men, where are your voices now? that is why the black race will never progress beyond where they are because you are all cowards! are you afraid of Mr. Chin? or are you afraid that he may take away the bling? bunch of fools! never do I want to hear you speak hill about you your black brothers again…

  4. The truth is China or anyother country will never ever be there for us.Not for a black man as they call us not at all.Right now we have a disease as a Africans,a disease of self defeatism and those who have seen this have capitalised on it.It is not their fault but the fault will always be with us.We are so easy creatures to convince,so easy to control and surely so easy to even wipe out.We are a people who do not stand on principle because money takes away our valued self.Those who control us do so because they take the valubles that are in our soil,and like monkeys we applaud them when we here that they want to invest in our nation, this because we are so cheap and think better of others.

  5. There is only one issue on which i agree with Mr Sata:His position over the Chinese invasion.
    However,the rest of his attributes tip the scale the other way and make him unsuitable and dangerous for a young democracy like Zambia.

  6. like I said a bunch of cowards! it is just amazing how even though you are out in reach of the chinese government and their agents you are still afraid to voice you opinions agains them… people, slavery and colonialism are of the past speak up my brothers and sisters… speak up.

  7. Guys as educated Zambians how can we honestly advocate for an inconsistent snake like Sata…. have we forgotten Merzaf, Third Term… etc.. Even on issue of the Chinese he continues to change his position.

    Vote for HH or RB and save our beloved country from falling into the hands of Ba Kaponya AGAIN!!!!!!!!

  8. We have the land and we have ourselves,if now we said let us look within ourselves,are we going to perish?What of animals that knows not how to forge a hoe have they perished?Where does that which makes people eat and live comes from?Is it provided by other people or is everything within the soil?What is wrong with us?What is our existance for when we know that we have to dig the soil to live?Why do we allow this?Why do we stand in awe to those not of our skin?Why,why,why, why are we like this?

  9. GUYS the cops have arrested RB with voters cards in the Northern province check todays papers.Please more corruption in MMD we cant afford to giving corruption a chance vote MMD out time for change is NOW.

  10. Atleast someone sees what we been seeing from the so called infesters.Dont compare this to catoons these are serious issues. we are very very few here as compared to where these chinese come . Are we going to allow these ‘investers’to kill our pipo. Dont just support any investment look at how these investers treat there workers then u will understand. we have chinese running barbershop and internet cafes in one room. Labour laws are there we need some one who is going to enforce these laws so that they respected and followed …May God deliver our people

  11. chinese inevstors have just come here for our natural resources wherever they maybe in the soil,water and in human beings they will get it and go back to china…………,zambia for zambians!!!!!!!!!

  12. we have two industries here in Kabwe run by our beloved chinese friends.please don’t wait for a muzungu pressman to uncover horrible and terrible actions perpecuated by the not so honourable friends of ours ofcourse with the support of MMD through the late.let’s call a spade a spade.these two industries are located just next to our beatiful Rail workshop left to us by the old man KK.please please LT i invite you to Kabwe.

  13. watch out for the chinese! you will remember sata 10yrs from now. more than evr before zambia needs a strong leader but none among the crowns standing for elections now. sata is not presidential matreial but a tool to use to push for change

  14. Any investor be it chinese or western, local or foreign must abide by our laws. If we do not enforce laws, we are simply defeating ourselves.

    The onus is on the GRZ to make sure that laws are obeyed. All this rubbish about exploitatation of Africans by foreigners is crap. Why be exploited in your own country if you have laws in place?

    At the same time, the demand for copper by chinese is good for us. Let them come. Check them and let let them comply by our standards.

    This is the general approach world wide. Nothing about exploitation.

  15. #13 SEEN IT BEFORE,i have no reason to fear Mr Sata bcoz to tell u the truth if there is one who is lazy btween yo old presdo n me,it is likely to be yo outdated prezdo bcoz at his age he is supposed to own a farm,breathing nice clean air in the countryside instead of living in the concrete jungle of Lusaka.
    Lastly the probability that u r a kaponya is 1 bcoz u dont want to debate issues but just want to thrust yo candidate at us!Convince me why i should vote 4 Sata!To remove cutoff points and fill UNZA with kaponyas who can barely do addition?

  16. The whole essence of having professionals in GRZ is to be able to have well informed advise.

    Our Professionals are just as competent as any in the world. There is no need to hide behind unfounded fears if what is on the table is clear for all parties.

    We hugely lost out during the 1st scramble for Africa largely because of greediness and fragmentation of tribes. Some tribal chiefs, for their own gain, were ready to trade off ‘subjects’ and huge chunks of land for a token.

  17. I dont see the Chinese as the problem, NO!
    We should not beware of the Chinese, but rather we should beware of ourselves.
    You can’t put up a loose law, which you dont even follow either, then you want to blame the one who sees an opportunity in it? No.
    You must understand that Investors are investors – chinese of not. They are not coming to improve your leaving standards, and they will not make that as part os their vision. They to exploit opportunity. So if you want them to define good things for you then welcome them, you will welcome no one. All investors should be welcome but at an agreed deal covered by sufficient non-crippled laws.
    If you make careless laws is that China’s problem?

  18. # 2,cut off points were not introduced to determine who is dull and who is intelligent,they were introduced because we have limited places in our schools,period.
    most students who are perceived to be dull are very capable and do in most instances make it through their struggles to become respectable family persons,with very reasonable living standards

  19. It is no secret that, ‘the British empire’ largely benefited from the slave trade and the ‘unbridled’ and reckless exploitation of African resources. Try to see and read the whole reason of slave trade and you will understand why.

    Not more that 2 centuries back, the situations in Europe and America were not far from our present conditions, if not worse.

  20. Let me clear the air here. Chineses do not care about the welfare of employees, not only here even way back in China. Those of us who have seen will tell you. In China today, workers go without pay. Workers are even given cheap beer after a days work as payment in China. So the problem that Zambia, and other African Countries, have is this thing thats been panel beaten in our brains: “foreign Investor”. You think someone will come from you dont know where and come and make your lives better? No one ever will. You have to do it yourselves. Everyone (Chinese)is here for what they will get out of it, not what they will put in. What did the English leave?

  21. However, what has past is past and no need whining about it. The lessons to be learnt from the past however, are too significant to be ignored.

  22. we as citizens of zambia just need to arise above these things, starting with the government. those of us who’ve worked in the mine environment in last few years have seen worse things, the situation is really bad. even those peruvian chaps at mopani should be checked. were some jobs come with a race qualification. we need to change this scenario. I don’t know who can help us in this, BaSata or HH, definately not RB (Nyama Soya)…

  23. Sata’s foreign policy is very dengerous.In 2006 he promised to deport all chinese and for give Chiluba for his plunder cases! Sata is a danger to our society.Can you imagine if it was Miyanda or HH changing party positions like that! As old as he is telling lies Its a shame…

    Poor finishers indeed.

    VIVA HH win or lose.

  24. “We don’t need to import labourers from China,” Sata says. “We need to import people with skills we don’t have in Zambia. The Chinese are not going to train our people how to push wheelbarrows.

    Now,does anyone still misunderstand what sata has said about this part of his foreign policy…..
    What we need is know how and not people who want to compete with zambians selling nshima at city market….so if china wants to bring know how,they are most welcome;but if they want zambia to provide employment to their population by exporting them here to do labour work and cook nshima….i mean come on guys…what of zambian people from misisi and the village migrants….

  25. Doesnt matter what we say on this blog, this is a very serious issue… Talk is cheap, act now, and tell our politicians to stop selling us to these chinks

  26. to choncholi investors – malabishi! farming in Zambia, selling farm produce and chickens at Soweto Market as early as 05.00 hrs, mwe bantu, Atase!
    i tried to open up a hair saloon in Bostwana, pa neighbour fye apa, i was told that the kind of business i was trying to get into was only for the locals. i was advised to partner with a mu local whom i would use his/her name yet i do the sweating while he/she enjoyed my profits,

  27. This article was written by XAVIER CHUNGU. Now we know who the owners of LT are. Anyway, lets get hold of the Chinese by adjusting our policies on investors.

  28. In order to curtail abuse of whatver sort in mines, the GRZ needs to ensure quality and safety systems are adhered and followed. This in turn means that deliberate policies must be put in place to ensure that these systems are installed.

    Everyone knows the human records of china and to think that this can be extended to Zambia is ludicrous.

  29. PABWATOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

  30. That story gives a true picture of most of the investors not only chines. Its good that Sata has seen this danger that time but, unfortunatly he is changing is vision recently by seeing chines as good people and he wont chase them. When one reads that story, sata is a hero, but the so called hero has changed his mind cos all that he said has been ‘misunderstood’. His arguments about chines are valid, but can you trust him to implement what he says when just 4 the sake of votes (or has he been bribed the chines way) he has changed his stance. Vote for principled HH for a change he hasnt changed his outlook and policies since 2006!!!!

  31. IS IT TRUE>>>>He was once a porter who swept the platforms at Victoria Station in London. Now he’s the leader of the Patriotic Front, with a respectable chance of winning a presidential election set for the end of this month.
    SWEEPING STREETS OF LONDON

  32. #32. Anonymous,
    Great! it is about the way forward.
    What has happened in the past is for our lessons.
    If we fail to learn we will be doing or desiring to do the same things we have gone through or others have gone through.
    Because of lack of desire to learn, some people want us to go through what Zimbabwe has gone through by choosing a leader who will impliment Mugabe’s policies.
    We have to be careful, because I feel it is enough that Zimbabwe is going through what it is going through. We dont need our own experience to learn what we aught; we have seen and heard.

  33. # 27 you are spot on, these are the same laws that Ba Sata Presided on when he was in power in KK’s & FTJ’s Parties. I would thought Ba Sata would have said that once elected he would revisit our porous Investment laws. It is surely folly for one use such as an election tool because the Chinese are under the laws of Zambia so are other investors. We should not wait for foreigners to come and till the vast land that we boast to have, look at the water resource we have in Zambia but we have now become a dark country and always depend on rains for a bumper harvest.

  34. Sata is a turn coat who changed his stance on China to suit the mood of the moment. He was right to begin with and stronger measures should be put in place to ensure only unavailable skills are imported into the country and only on a skills transfer basis – meaning the expartriate can not hold his job for longer than 5 years unless his skill is so specialised and the country does not resources to enable its transfer.
    Having said that, Sata changed his stance because Taiwan, which he was supporting ‘made up’ with China .

    How easy is it to get a work permit in say, Botswana? Lets develop Zambia through consistent implementation of policies that are already in place!

  35. What was the guy who wrote this article doing in Zambia? Please live us alone to sell Zambia to the Chinese the way we see it fit. Go back to your frozen country, alah….

  36. HEY LUSAKATIMES , WHY HAVE YOU NOT POSTED WHAT CHIEF MUPEZENI SAID, IF IT WAS SAID BY A SOUHERN CHIEF,YOU WERE GOING TO POST IT FAST, NOW ITS THE EASTERNS THATS NOT TRIBAL!!!!!

  37. Did you guys expect a white man to write anything positive about the Choncolilo?

    Other than #23, you all have fallen prey to their machinery. Silly fish! As the saying goes. Most of you have agreed this is a sad story but have one on to find reason to still condemn Sata.

    They are telling this but have set up industries in China paying the Chinese very little and making them work like donkeys!

    Wake up Africa. Ho Ho Ho! If you arenot their side then you are an enemy. Seriously speaking, the Choncolilo in there counry are even less racist than these people. Ho Ho Ho! Been there by boat giving out sweets.

  38. We CANNOT blame anyone but ourselves with our laws that favour the investors. Just how much is the minimum wage in Zed???????? Who gives out work permits?

  39. Our country has been plundered through all these nice agreements and load conditions we get from our ‘friends’ from the west. First, they tell us know to privatise our state industries, then they tell us to cut funding to social programs and then ask us to increase taxes to generate revenue. Essentially we always being asked to participate in the enslavement of our own people. Be it from the Americans or Europeans or the Chinese; it is always the same. Zambia is not a producer country – it only supplies resources used in countries producing real goods. Ours is a consumer country, paying high prices for low quality goods. Stop this ‘investors’ good for country propaganda already.

  40. Just look at the drawing Africa! The man with his feet on it is a white man. Ho Ho Ho!

    Just how they like it.

    LT stop giving us this. Just what is the difference between what we have read here and what they are doing in Irag?

  41. HH is entangling himself in politics by not observing carefulness.
    Anyway he is still learning, but someone should tell to avoid learning from Sata. However he is free to learn from Sata’s mistakes but should not think making the same mistakes gives political mileage.
    HH may be a financial manager but I think he is far from economic focusting. His promise of free education up to university and free medical services is unrealistic. We have less than 20% of the population in gainful employment and this cannot sustain the over 80% of the population’s free services. Even in western countries where more that 80% earn incomes above food basket yet they do not give free services to all the 20%.

  42. Which one of you investors should be the first one to throw the first stone at China?

    How many international institutions or policies that are strategically placed to make sure Africa is always bedridden so that it can be manipulated easily? e.g. the IMF,WTO etc.

    Our African countries are also to blame because we are so corrupt that we often bend our rules to accommodate the exploiters.

    FOOD FOR THOUGHT

    Zambia my beloved country.

  43. You Sata hooligans ,old men are nice. RB is older than me bt he is very energetic in bed more than me and I tell u he is so loaded. I realised that younger men just dnt care abt their partner’s well being. They spend most of their time drinking beer and womanising. They come home late just to sleep. Age is just a number, as long as am satisfied!!

  44. It is interesting to know how importance we attach the issue of industrial and labour practise in Zambia. Check list of l/l

    THE EMPLOYMENT ACT AND THE INDUSTRIAL AND LABOUR RELATIONS ACT
    VOLUME 15
    CONTENTS
    Chapter 268. Employment Act
    Chapter 269. Industrial and Labour Relations Act
    Chapter 270. Employment (Special Provisions) Act
    Chapter 271. Workers’ Compensation Act
    Chapter 272. Public Holidays Act
    Chapter 273. Zambia National Provident Fund Act
    Chapter 274. Employment of Young Persons and Children Act
    Chapter 275. Apprenticeship Act
    Chapter 276. Minimum Wages and Conditions of Employment Act
    Chapter 277. Judges (Conditions of Service) Act

  45. The wealth of nations are in part determined by greed. Africa was exploitated for both human and mineral resources.The accumulated wealth of the British commonwealth and America over the period of the slave trade cant even begin to be accounted for. In terms of how far the effects of that wealth went, even today.

    Rhodes aim was to make up for the British presence wherever, the Monarch could not set its foot in. His support indirectly was still from the British empire.

  46. The Kafubu river in Ndola is highly poluted, who amoung the presidential candidates will crack the whip so that ECZ and the poluters are sorted out.

    Sata – most likely
    RB – won,t see it as an issue and a priority
    HH – most likely

  47. Blacks have an infinite inferiority complex. Why dont you have faith in yourselves? You wait for some foreign reporter to come and point out that you are being exploited and you start feeling bad about it. Have your eyes been opened by this revelation? All this time you mean to say the so called donors are here on charity to improve your lives?

    The westerners and the orientals are here for one thing, they are here for a f~ck. Once they have gotten what they want the wont think $h!t about you. You are all you’ve got. Always remember that. Dont expect foreigners, investors or infestors to come make heaven for you. They are not Gods. Its time blacks stopped worshiping other races.

  48. #56 cont’d..
    In fact, in Zambia majority of the 20% earning incomes are below food basket, indicating that our economy still very weak to sustain free services. The primary source of govt funds is tax, but how much tax can the govt collect from people who get below food basket in order to meet free services for the 80% of the population and give free education to university.
    Mr HH if you start that programme of free education up to university from January as you put it, how sustainable is it gona be?
    I wish HH’s wish was not a wish.
    There ia no problem making a wish but let us scrutinise all our wishes b4 we make them into promises.

  49. Research is never to be under estimated and Africa has mainly lagged behind because of this ineptitude towards research and besides other handicaps.

    Intelligence gathering of the ‘todays’ technologies and empowering our local brains and scientists is as agent as basic survival. Yet, we are still lackadisical in these areas.

    The thought of coming up with a ‘think tank’ is positive if the real motivations are genuine and clearly understood.

  50. The London Stock Exchange has been a channel of exploitation of Africas resources.

    They determine the prices, amount of tonnage to sale, time of sale. We found our selves in this reel. We must find our right place intelligently, not the Mugabe way of SATA’s way.

    Our educational system if carefully analysed will show you that there is more of brainwashing than anything. Very little to show forth in terms of inventions, which must be the essence besides literacy(communication).

  51. Chinese are not bad investors. They easly comply with da orda of da day . Its up 2 da gvt of day 2 put things da way they want. When u hve a useles pipo in powa anyone can take advantage of that . There is no orda in congo any one start mining where eva and wheneva. Da gvt is dead there. Same thing can happen if u put useles pipo in powa like we had Chiluba and his army of thugs in which Sata was part and parcel. New blood is needed 4 development.

  52. I have already read this article. It was in the MAIL ON SUNDAY dated 28th September 2008. It has been copied and pasted. I wish they had attached the pictures .The story is a sad one, cant believe my beloved zambia has gone this far.We shall over come.

  53. #66,though you decide to be anonymous you make sense.If we had a leader who first thought about the country and its people we definetly can go somewhere.If the best of our minds where brought together in different fields of learning and research and pay attention to there findings,i think we can move mails ahead.Definetly you have to supply them with proper needs were as their main purpose would only be research and seeing through our society what potentials are there and for their good up keep they should be compelled to provide tangible solutions.

  54. Africa just needs to be left alone.The british did not leave any meaningful insfrastructure in Zed at least the chinese have promised a stadium coming to think of it they built tazara and tazama.These imperialists are all the same be they chinese british American.
    The perceived lack of respect for labour laws should be blamed on the government-we have laws that should protect workers no one bothers about enforcement.Workers should also take it upon themslves to ensure that there rights are protected-what happened to the once vocal mine workers union?

  55. i challenge this journalist to visit farms in zed owned by british and south africans and he will find that their tactics and callousness is no different from those of the chinese he exposes in this article.I recall a time when a farm worker visited my office.He hitch hiked from chisamba with a terrible injury on his arm to lusaka seeking help,he injured himself on duty.They were cutting trees at the farm.his boss did not give him even ka pin.

  56. However you look at it, there is no avoiding the economic might of China. What we need is smart people who can enact legislation that will not once again leave Zambia denuded of its vast natural resources with nothing to show for it. Although we need outside investors to come in we should desist from tax inducements at the expense of the Zambian. Sata has good ideas here and I think that that is his strongest point, but where was he when Chiluba was starting this? The first wave was the South Africans and now it is the Chinese. Credit to UNIP, foreigners came into Zambia surreptitiously in the 1980’s for emeralds and precious stones. We are our own enemies. We sold the country for apples!

  57. What we need is an end to all the post-independence generation politicians who believe that salvation will come from abroad.

    Neoliberalism is a failed ideology, and we are seeing the damage done to financial institutions and economies worldwide. This is the price of the interconnectivity created by ‘free markets’ and the criminality that comes from deregulation.

    What we need are a mosaic of selfsustaining indigenous local economies, protected by tariffs and a pro-Zambian ideology by those in power. We should use money from the mines and create works projects for infrastructure and agriculture.

  58. DONT BLAME THE CHINESE BECOZ THAT IS THAIR WAY OF LIFE IN CHINA.WE NEED TO BLAME THE GVT AND PUT PRESSURE ON IT SO THAT THE CHINESE LEARN TO LIVE THE WAY WE LIVE.ITS THE CHINESE WHO SHOULD CONFORM TO OUR WAY OF LIFE RATHER THAN THEM MOVING CHINA TO ZAMBIA.WHILST IN ROME DO WHAT THE ROMANS DO.THE GVT HAS LET US DOWN IN DEALING WITH CHINESE MARGINALISING ZAMBIAN WORKERS.IT ANNOYS AND IT IS A POTENTIAL PROBLEM THAT CAN CAUSE WHAT HAPPENED IN SOUTH AFRICA.WE SHOULD NOT ALLOW FOREIGNERS TO DOMINATE US IN OUR OWN COUNTRY

  59. Neddy and others have a point. investment is only investment if it comes from outside africa. any african who tries something is pulled down in PHD style. zambians can pool resources to exploit resources and employ the so-called expatriates, most of whom are actually trained through the apprentice system back in their countries but when they come as investors, the build their own golf courses, pubs, etc. what makes matters worse for us is that our labour officers are some of the most corrupt public officials around. they always side with the so-called investors after they are given brown envelopes. that is why the investors boast telling workers to go anywhere.

  60. The history of Zambia pre and post colonial is replete with resistance against foreign invasion. The first freedom fighter against colonialism was nSingu the teenaged son of Mupezeni 1. He led a revolt against the British South African company in 1898. These brave young men were defeated and nSingu was executed near present day Chipata. For fear of troubles from the Ng’uni the British built a Fort (Jameson) there. The only other Fort was Fort Rosebury (Mansa) to check the Belgians. On the other hand in the West, F Coillard a missionnary and George Westbeech among others, so softened Litunga Sipopa that by the time BSA came concessions were dished out like confetti.

  61. I remember one case in Mpongwe where the white man insulted late LPM and nothing was done as we write am told he is still working.if kateka can be insulted who am i not to be?

  62. Litunga Sipopa and his successor Lubosi Lewanika had no distrust of ‘makuwa.’ The Czech explorer emil Holub made a greater contribution to the documentation and scientific study of life in western and southern Zambia than David Livingstone, but he is little known. Lewanika gave the BSA the right to mine in Barotseland in perpetuity! In the north, there was some resistance because Chitimukulu VII was opposed to white missionaries. Makasa allowed him in and before long, after Chiti’s death they were some who wanted to enthrone this musungu as Chiti! He acted as one but he had Mwamba installed with the force of the British South Africa Co. troops from Abercon (Mbala)

  63. All we need are good labour and investment laws. Its sad when foreign investors can do evil without breaking the law.

  64. #18 Del bosque V (choma) don’t talk about Labor Laws in zambia. they are outdated and once enforced they will still be used to exploit the Zambians. zambia’s labor laws have never been revised and i am not sure which Govt will do that. Govt is a culprit of those labor laws.

  65. #86

    Already 5000 ngonis died fending off the British man. Read your history. Them shed there blood for you and me. Now time to use your brain man.

  66. “Pulikani pulikani, makani ya nkhondo. Alemaya (Germany) wayo’oya ati timale tonse. Britishi wakana kuti ti male tonse” Those old enough will remember this Zambia military song passed on from 2nd world war veterans. It translates “You should understand the politics of war. Germany wants to exterminate us, but Britain has refused.” Zambians fought the Japanese in Burma (at places like Arakan, Chindwyn, Gondah, Kalewa and Kohima) & died for freedom. Then came the cha cha cha days for independence. In the 1970’s ‘Smith’ (Ian) was substituted for ‘Alemaya’ and ‘Kaunda’ for ‘British.’ These were patriot days. We stood our ground. Don’t give up now Zambians.

  67. The Chinese are the worst race. We will only realise when we are in the grave (for good). The chinese will send us there very fast.
    Keep on trusting the chinese. good luck in the grave. The chinese are just a show. Get ready for chinese imperialism. I pity that day. Zambia shall be lost for ever. Please God, dont let that happen.

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