A burial site already prepared for former president Edgar Lungu at the Lungu burial site National Monument will remain unoccupied, Government has confirmed, with officials yet to decide what becomes of the plot now that the Lungu family has won the legal right to bury him in South Africa instead.
Ministry of Information Permanent Secretary Thabo Kawana told journalists at a briefing that no decision has been made public on the site’s future, more than a year after Government began preparing it in anticipation of a state funeral.
The Lungu burial site has been a topic of national discussion following the recent developments.
“The nation will be guided what will happen next to the prepared resting place at the Lungu burial site. In due course, the nation will be informed what is to follow,” Kawana said, when asked directly what would happen to the grave.
The uncertainty follows South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruling that Government has no legal authority to override the family’s wishes on where Lungu should be buried. Kawana confirmed Government would not escalate the matter to South Africa’s Constitutional Court, formally ending its 12-month pursuit of repatriation.
Pressed on whether Government might revisit the matter should the family have a change of heart, Kawana said that door has effectively closed from Government’s side. “It is now all in the hands of the Lungu family, and government has basically stopped the process of the court processes so that the family can go ahead and bury him in South Africa as they wish,” he said.
Kawanaa was assked asked how Zambia would handle the customary annual memorial observances held for former heads of state, given that Lungu’s resting place will be on foreign soil rather than at the national shrine where his predecessors lie. In response Kawana said the absence of a grave in Zambia would not change how the former president is remembered.
“President Lungu was president of the Republic of Zambia and his works are recorded here in Zambia, and therefore he will be treated as we have treated all other presidents, and when it’s time for memorial I will set up memorial for him. The difference is that we will be remembering our head of state but buried on foreign soil,” he said.
He described the outcome as a source of national regret, distinguishing Lungu’s case from those of leaders buried abroad for reasons of conflict or political exile. “It is very, very unfortunate to have a former head of state, former commander-in-chief buried in a foreign land, not because there’s turmoil in the country of origin, not because there’s war in the country of origin, but because the family feels so, the family desires so, that they want to bury their beloved person who also was a father of the nation in a foreign land. Really, it is unfortunate for our country,” Kawana said.
Asked whether Government would stand in the way if the family wanted to hold a separate, private funeral service in Zambia alongside the South African burial, Kawana said no such permission would be required. “If they want a private funeral here, they’ll do it. They don’t need to apply to government. His funeral now is left in their hands,” he said, though he noted the family had already signalled its intention to proceed with burial in South Africa rather than holding any parallel ceremony at home.
Kawana said Government’s pursuit of repatriation had rested on a consistent pattern of how the country has honoured its former leaders. He noted that Levy Mwanawasa was buried at Embassy Park in 2008 even though his will had expressed a preference for his farm in Palabana, after the government of the day determined that a national, accessible resting place better served the public interest. Frederick Chiluba followed in 2011, and founding president Kenneth Kaunda in 2021, the latter after his own family’s court bid to have him buried beside his late wife was unsuccessful. Rupiah Banda was the most recent occupant of the site, buried there in March 2022.
That precedent, Kawana said, is precisely why the empty plot now poses an awkward question for Government. “We believed that we would honour the sixth president as we have honoured all other presidents and thereby give millions of Zambians he led an opportunity to mourn him in their own country. Unfortunately, this is not to be, as the family have decided to bury him in South Africa.”
For now, the plot at Embassy Park stands as the only unresolved piece of a dispute the courts have otherwise settled. Government has confirmed it accepts the ruling and extended its condolences to the Lungu family, but the question of what becomes of the ground set aside for a president who will never lie there remains, in Kawana’s own words, a matter for “due course.”
