Zambia: the fight for life

AS IN MANY African countries, Zambia’s worst problem is poverty.
The World Bank estimates that 80 per cent of its people live below the level of subsistence, without enough income to meet basic daily needs. It is unlikely that the government, or the Churches, or international relief agencies, will be able to do anything to correct the situation until Zambia’s huge burden of foreign debt, assessed in 1999 as being five billion pounds sterling, has been massively reduced or written off.

The burden of debt

Christians in Zambia have pointed out that the debt is unpayable, because it entirely prevents economic progress or financial stability — it blocks development, is politically destabilising and hurts the poor. In 1998 interest on the debt exceeded the government’s expenditure on health and education combined, they claimed in an ecumenical pastoral letter. They cautiously welcomed negotiations with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to write off some of the debt under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, but warned that this step did not go far enough. IMF provisions that fees should be charged for health and education services were merely transferring part of the burden to the poor, they said.
Poverty is everywhere in Zambia, but is perhaps more acute in rural areas than in the cities. The midwife Janet Fearns, writing in The Tablet, speaks of the difficulties of even reaching Kasaba where she works. Important people don’t come to this remote, beautiful area, she says. It is too far, too dusty, too many potholes and mosquitoes...why should the IMF and G8 be interested? But if they don’t visit it, how can they know the problems of dealing with patients who have had to travel more than five hours in a leaky canoe to find medical help? She reflects that it is easy to become starryeyed about serving the poor, but when one finds the poor stealing from those who are even poorer, or when bedding, food and drugs go missing, one is forced to a degree of cynical pragmatism. Then, too, One is only too aware that those who are meant to be the dispensers of government funding are lining their pockets with it.

From colony to republic

Zambia, situated in a tropical zone but blessed with a temperate climate thanks to its height above sealevel (up to 6,000 feet) came under British rule in 1869 as Northern Rhodesia. It achieved self-government in 1963 when the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland broke up, and became an independent republic in the British Commonwealth a year later under the name of Zambia. It is considerably larger than France in area, but has a population of only ten million.
Compared with some of its neighbours, Zambia has been remarkably peaceful both before and after its independence.
Its president for many years was the mission-educated nationalist Kenneth Kaunda, leader of the United National Independence Party (UNIP), who took over in 1964. He espoused a form of African socialism called humanism, which his critics claimed was no more than a device for hanging on to power and ensuring the dominance of his party. Pressure from opposition groups in 1990 led to legislative and presidential elections in which the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) won 125 out of the parliament’s 150 seats. Kaunda was finally replaced as president by MMD leader Frederick Chiluba. The state-controlled economy disappeared as a free-market economy took over, and foreign aid, which had diminished alarmingly in the later years of Kaunda’s rule, began to flow back into the country. But accusations of bribery and corruption soon followed with the concomitant resignation of ministers and members of parliament. The up-turn that had begun with Kaunda’s replacement came to an end with falling copper prices, increased inflation and higher interest rates, while a growth in imports has seriously affected manufacturing and agricultural production.

 The Public Order Act

General elections are expected to take place in 2001. In preparation for them, there is widespread debate on the Public Order Act, a law which restricts political activity.
It says that any group wishing to hold a public meeting must give 14 days notice of it. It also permits any police officer of the rank of superintendent or above to refuse a permit without giving reasons. Opposition groups have often been denied permission for meetings — women’s groups protesting against the police’s failure to stop the murder of teenage girls were attacked by the police in March, and two months later junior doctors demonstrating against working conditions in hospitals were severely beaten. In July the opposition leader Anderson Mazoka was threatened with arrest under the law. Ironically, Kaunda and Chiluba have both been arrested under the Public Order Act: Kaunda when he was leading a nationalist group fighting against British control before 1963, and Chiluba in 1971 for addressing a campaign meeting without having a police permit. Both men promised that when they came to power they would repeal the draconian law, but both kept it.

The Church’s constructive criticism

Zambia’s 11 Catholic bishops have set an impressive example in keeping both government and people up to the mark in human rights and civic responsibilities. In the 1996 general elections, for example, they made a strong appeal to the people to exercise their fundamental human right to vote, urging them to do so in a spirit of honesty, avoiding bribes or cheating, and voicing their concern at the possibility of violence at the polls. They pointed out that Christians had the moral responsibility to vote for candidates who followed the example of Jesus. The bishops have recently come out with one of their strongest and most critical statements on health and education. The statement, signed by Archbishop Medardo Mazombwe of Lusaka, president of the bishops’ conference, and its secretary general Fr. Ignatius Mwebe, noted that the government always seemed to be able to find money for the foreign travels of government officials and the importing of foreign cars, but not for hospital drugs, school books, clean water for villages and sanitation for the poor. Their no-holds-barred statement said the health system was in chaos, with junior doctors striking for the past six months because of the shortage of medicines and instruments. As to education, teachers in both primary and secondary schools were seriously demoralised because of the lack of books and teaching aids. The bishops poured scorn on government claims of economic progress: fancy shopping malls, expensive vehicles, extravagant social events and high levels of consumption among a small number of people were not signs of social improvement, they said.
They referred to public demonstrations by religious sisters to highlight the sufferings of the people, and defended their right to organise them. They called on the president to spend less time on sorting out crises in Angola and the Congo Democratic Republic, and more on his own domestic troubles. They also addressed the growing problem of abortion, sometimes regarded in Africa as an alternative form of birth control. The bishops called for understanding for women who feel driven to end their pregnancies. Poverty, they say, is the main reason, but lack of sex education, weakening of religious and moral values and greater permissiveness among the young are all contributing factors. We need to work for greater justice and equality for women in our society, the bishops say. But they also condemn as unjust and dehumanising the poverty prevalent in Zambia, while rejecting the suggestion that it is caused by population growth and low use of contraceptives and abortifacients. As to AIDS, which has hit Zambia worse than any other southern African country, the bishops say the most effective and lasting solution to the spread of the disease is a change in moral behaviour, not the indiscriminate distribution of condoms.

Firm leadership needed

Throughout nearly 30 years in power Kenneth Kaunda brought Zambia into the modern world and ensured that it played a leading part in the development of southern Africa. He was a close friend of many heads of state, especially Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, and he contributed significantly to the overthrow of apartheid and the arrival at a peaceful settlement in South Africa. With his disappearance from the political stage, Zambia’s regional influence is weaker. Now is the time for firm leadership, and it may well be that the Catholic Church, which has played a crucial role in encouraging the Zambian people and government for the past seven years, is better placed than leading politicians to show the way ahead. Above all, the Church must show that the poor, who were not responsible or incurring the massive foreign debt, should not be left to foot the bill.