By Fred M’membe President of the Socialist Party
We have consistently and repeatedly talked about President Hakainde Hichilema as a continuation of the businessmen and politicians who colonised, exploited, brutalised and dehumanised us for decades. His admiration for Cecil Rhodes and the Oppenheimers has inspired him to follow their corrupt path of combining business with political leadership at the highest possible levels. Cecil John Rhodes was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.
Like Mr Hichilema, who is the 7th President of the Republic of Zambia, Rhodes was the 7th Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, and was in office from July 17, 1890, until January 12, 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his British South Africa Company colonised the southern African territory of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), which the company named after him in 1895. The son of a vicar, Rhodes was born at Netteswell House, Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire. As a sickly child, he was sent to South Africa by his family when he was 17 years old in the hope that the climate might improve his health. He entered the diamond trade at Kimberley in 1871 when he was 18, and, thanks to funding from Rothschild & Co, began to systematically buy out and consolidate diamond mines. Over the next two decades, he gained near-complete domination of the world diamond market, forming a massive monopoly. His diamond company, De Beers, formed in 1888, still retains its prominence into the 21st century under Anglo and the Oppenheimers.
Rhodes entered the Cape Parliament at the age of 27 in 1881, and in 1890, he became Prime Minister. During his time as Prime Minister, Rhodes used his political power to expropriate land from black Africans through the Glen Grey Act, while also tripling the wealth requirement for voting under the Franchise and Ballot Act, effectively barring black people from taking part in elections. After overseeing the formation of Rhodesia during the early 1890s, he was forced to resign in 1896 after the disastrous Jameson Raid, an unauthorised attack on Paul Kruger’s South African Republic (or Transvaal). Kruger was Rhodes’s main business competitor.
Rhodes’s career never recovered; his heart was weak, and after years of poor health he died in 1902. He was buried in what is now Zimbabwe – his grave has been a controversial site.
Rhodes’s racial views are a subject of scrutiny and debate. He believed the natives of the Cape to have existed in a state of barbarism.
Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, (born May 22, 1880, Friedberg, Hesse-Nassau, Germany – died November 25, 1957, Johannesburg, South Africa) was an industrialist, financier, and one of the most successful leaders in the mining industry in South Africa and Rhodesia.
Oppenheimer became a junior clerk at the age of 16 with Dunkelsbuhler & Company, London diamond brokers. In 1902 he moved to Kimberley, South Africa, where he served as a Dunkelsbuhler’s representative. In 1917, with considerable backing from the financier J.P. Morgan, he formed the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa Ltd, to exploit the east Witwatersrand goldfield. Two years later he formed Consolidated Diamond Mines of South West Africa Ltd (reformed as the Namdeb Diamond Corporation in 1994). This diamond-prospecting corporation was so successful that he gained control of De Beers Consolidated Mines, which once dominated the world diamond market, and in 1930 he established The Diamond Corporation Ltd.
In 1929, Oppenheimer formed the Rhodesian Anglo American Corporation to exploit the rich copper deposits in Northern Rhodesia. His last project was the pioneering of new goldfields in the Orange Free State, South Africa. Oppenheimer served as mayor of Kimberley from 1912 to 1915 and was a member of the Union of South Africa Parliament from 1924 to 1938. Oppenheimer used his positions as mayor and member of parliament to expand and consolidate his business empire. He was involved in a number of controversies; including price fixing, antitrust behaviour, and an allegation of failing to release industrial diamonds for the United States war effort during World War II.
Mr Hichilema, in a new time and new way, is following in the footsteps of Rhodes and Oppenheimer by using his political position of President of the Republic of Zambia to expand and consolidate his business empire. But we all know that using political office to advance personal or associates’ business interests amounts to grand corruption.
Following this path of businessman/politician, Mr Hichilema may turn out to be the most corrupt President of our country. It is not a secret that Mr Hichilema’s businesses, like those of Rhodes and Oppenheimer, are doing business with the government he controls and directs. This is a very primitive, crude form of insider dealings. Mr Hichilema is without shame or restraint directing government business to businesses he is associated with or is in one way or another gaining a benefit from.
Today, civil servants are in a very serious and painful debt trap that is benefiting their political leaders, who are connected to Bayport and other companies that are mercilessly exploiting them. And because of this, attempts at debt swaps to bail out civil servants have been frustrated or reversed. Today, civil servants are forced into medical insurance schemes with Madison, whose books they are acquiring. There is no doubt that the key leadership of this government is also associated with companies getting government tenders to supply fertilisers.
They are really following in the footsteps of Rhodes and Oppenheimer, who ruled and did business with the governments they controlled and directed. But whereas Rhodes and Oppenheimer got away with it, Mr Hichilema and his league will find it very difficult to do so, no matter what schemes of concealment of business interests they deploy. Times have changed. The Zambian people will certainly demand the highest levels of transparency and accountability of Mr Hichilema’s business dealings.
There we go again with senseless ancestral histories of bandits some 1000 years ago! No sensible policy discussion or alternative ideas to debt restructuring or anything current!!! And please when you speak Zambians don’t just include me mu fyabupuba!!!
He thinks this will win him elections. He has a long way to go in opposition
Comrade membe AKA Mwansa kapinga on LT………….
With his 1970s mugabe nationalist favour, some 40 to 30 years too late on LT………
All former presidents in Chambia lose all their wealth
Hichilema is Following the Corrupt Path of Rhodes, Oppenheimer and Mmembe is Following the Corrupt Path of Jacob Zuma
Mr Meembe is caught up in a timewarp and he cannot extricate himself from the vortex of the ideaologies of capitalism versus communisim.World events are now shaped by neo-liberalism where both ideaologies have accepted the efficiencies of the market economy and profits.But Neo-liberalism is currently in the process of cannibalising itself.The revolution in the perception and practices in human development is now championed by conservationists,greens and the wonders of the internet.Ultimately,It is the youth of the world that will push the final paradigmn shift in the perception of society.Marxism-Leninism theories are now a waste of time’
Certainly we should thank Fred for reminding us of historical facts, less we forget. Well researched.
m’membe is a political gasbag!
The Capitalist who preaches Socialism so that he can be the only one that is wealthy. Take note.
We don’t listen to failed individuals/ pseudo politicians like Fred Mmembe. We listen to successful people like the current President of the Republic of Zambia who offer real solutions
Get on the ground and start organizing what you call a party, political commentary wont take you any where. Thank me later
Well said
The case of applying a wrong job
Ba Fred my grandmother in Chipulukusu won’t buy that horse sh.it you giving out.
You will die in opposition
WHAT A WASTE OF TIME, EVEN IF ONE WANTED TO COMMENT, IT’S TOO LONG AND ABOUT NOTHING.
THERE ARE SO MANY BUSINESSMEN WHO BECAME PRESIDENTS OR PRIME MINISTERS IN RESPECTIVE COUNTRIES…..TRUMP IS AN EXAMPLE, AND DID THE AMERICAN PEOPLE CRUCIFY HIM FOR THAT? OF COURSE, HE MADE HIS OWN MISTAKES STEMMING FROM HIS CHARACTER AND NOT BECAUSE HE IS A BUSINESSMAN. SO WHY IS MNEMBE GETTING MAD ABOUT HH? mMEMBE HIMSELF, NOT LONG TIME AGO, WAS A BUSINESSMAN AND DO YOU THINK ANY REASONABLE PERSON (EXCEPT OPPORTUNISTS, LIKE FRANK BWALYA), WOULD BELIEVE MMEMBE WITH 180 DEG TURN FROM A CAPITALIST TO A SOCIALIST? GIMME A BREAK !!
Really laughable…this man thinks he is still the Editor of the best selling private Newsprint in the country…Mr Rich Socialist!!
Completely and utterly lost in his own self importance and intelligence or the lack of…..what really happened to this man called Fred Mmembe?
Are there any serious Zambians who still listen to this hypocrity and bad hearted man who destroyed the lives of many Zambians who he lied about. There is nothing socialist about this Mmembe, he’s one of the most brutal, Capitalists in Southern Africa. By the way is there any one who stops this evil and strange man from being rich. In Zambia there is no law that stops politicians from receiving money from any part of the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if this man receives money from the Russians or Socialist International.
This man is a wolf in sheep’s clothing ..he never talks about himself or his enemies he just harbours his hate inside coiled like spring or how he became a socialist from a capitalist who wasnt even paying tax and haulage. He just turned up in a hat with some potraits of Che in the background and said he was a socalist.
Instead of planting his ‘nashala neka party’ in all parts of the country, he talks about HH every day, HH in the morning HH in the afternoon HH at night and HH in his dreams. Zeroes are waiting for you in 2026 if you continue on this path. Mmembe has friends from the Socialist/communist Party of Cuba and we don’t write articles about him or accuse him of being a puppet of that country.
Rhodes, Opeinheimer etc. love them or loathe them, they took the chances life gave them and made a lot of money out of it. The author of this post was once a very wealthy man who also married into a wealthy family. At the time he was at the helm of the media industry in Zambia, he was driving a gas guzzling and poluting capitalist vehicle, owning trucks and a house in a lucrative surburb of Lusaka. He squandered the chances he had. Now he wants everyone to believe that he is a socialist who wants the best for Zambia. Pigs will fly!
This man is still weathy but pretends not to be because he passed all ownership to his wife…why do you think he took his wife in the middle of the night to The Post Offices when he knew he would not be let in. He has never talked about the Post or the happenings in the past but wants to talk about everything like Rhodes and Oppenheimer.
This man is still weathy but pretends not to be because he passed all ownership to his w ife…why do you think he took his wif e in the middle of the night to The Post Offices when he knew he would not be let in. He has never talked about the Post or the happenings in the past but wants to talk about everything like Rhodes and Oppenheimer.
Why do you at LT take up space publishing nonsense.
You all must have seen by now that President Hichilema is a serious politician and the best president is Africa who is achieving things.
The biggest fraud that Cecil Rhodes committed was to dupe the Litunga that he was a King. Up to now many Lozi haven’t come to terms with the fact that Litunga isn’t a King
Is that why he wears that British admirals uniform?
All of you heaping up to attack Fred, you will remember his words in the nearest future.
Watch this space!
What for? We aren’t interested in those words. We have heard them before
Can Fred Mmembe say, ‘To be born a Zambian is to draw the greatest prize in the lottery of life?’
Chiluba had people (bootlickers) who sang praises to him and thought he could do no wrong. So was Lungu, he also had praise singers who looked at him as a saint. My warning to all of you who seem to think HH is saint and can do no wrong is that YOU WILL TERRIBLY BE DISAPPOINTED if you think politicians are born ANGELS and don’t need YOU, as citizens, to keep the in check. There is a reason why even people who are already wealthy f!ght, and are willing to k!!l, just to be in positions of ultimate power. It is certainly not because they need a salary from Govt……so what is it? KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN FOLKS, NEVER TRUST ANY POLITICIAN TO BE HONEST ON THEIR OWN….that will never happen!
This man is busy finishing up himself. You should also remember that, those joining you, are there for a Kwachas you have and soon they will run away from you. say something that will help the government to restructure things in the Country. Don`t just condemn.
Love him or hate him, he as well as HH are children of the same system. Both used connections to make money. Fred is no socialist, HH is no philanthropist.
Both are in politics to satisfy their ego and power to be comfortable in life.
Anglo Americans ditched Zambia when copper price went down, so did every second South African business that opened shops with Chiluba’s tax incentives, and flew out after tax breaks were over.
A few that remained had strategic relationship and advantage.
Fred is no god and HH is no Jesus.
Keep ears and eyes open, make informed decisions than short-term whitewash agenda.