United National Independence Party Research Articles

Creation and Preservation of Business History: The Selection Trust and Anglo-American Corporation Archives in Zambia's Copperbelt

Based on original archival research and oral interviews, this article examines archives creation and the preservation of the history of the multinational mining companies of Selection Trust (ST) and Anglo-American Corporation (AAC) in Zambia's Copperbelt region between 1922 and 2000. The investment of foreign capital by multinational companies in the Copperbelt mines from the 1920s, marked the genesis and formal preservation of business archives in the Copperbelt. This article argues that although the ST and ACC archives were privately owned and strictly preserved for corporate interests and administrative efficiency, these documents eventually became publicly available because of Zambia's political independence and the nationalisation of the mining industry in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, the United National Independence Party (UNIP) government nationalised the Zambian mines and merged the two multinational companies to form the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM). Consequently, in 1982, the ST and ACC archives were merged. However, following the complete privatisation of the mining industry in 2000 the identity of mining archives reverted to private entities. This article provides new and significant insights into the power and role of regional and local political-economic shifts in determining the nature and identity of business archives in Zambia.

Reinterpreting Domestic Sources of Zambia’s Foreign Policy: The Party and the President

This article examines the domestic factors that have determined and influenced Zambia’s foreign policy. While this attempt has not been as successful as one would wish, some useful insights are obtainable through analysis of the role of the governing parties from the liberation hero and founding President Kenneth Kaunda and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) and subsequent heads of state and their respective parties, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), the Patriotic Front (PF) and the United Party for National Development (UPND), that have led the country throughout this period. The article contributes to both the rational-actor model and spatial leadership model which measures differential changes in foreign policy decision-making across regimes. The model is a major contribution to the development of viable analysis in changing foreign policy in emerging nations and is an enduring contribution to the modern foreign analysis. This article is an interesting and exciting addition to this model. It also contributes to the discourse on domestic issues that determine political behavior in international affairs. In particular, it discusses the subtleties of presidential power and demonstrates that in the case of Zambia, changes in foreign policy decisions across regimes are mediated by the intervention and personal interests of the president and the influence of the governing parties.

From one-party participatory democracy to multiparty liberal democracy in Zambia since 1990: Reality or illusion?

From the late 1980s, culminating in 1990, Zambia experienced a sustained call to end the one-party political system. This wave of a fresh wind of change resulted from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which aroused the Democratic Wind of change, first in Eastern Europe and later in Africa in the early 1990s. It is also important to note that this was more powerful and contagious than perhaps the wind of change in the 1960s, which saw the end of colonial rule in Africa. Almost all in Zambia embraced it. In 1990, President Kenneth David Kaunda, whose United National Independence Party (UNIP) ruled Zambia for over 27 years, amended the constitution to facilitate the registration of opposition political parties. The re-introduction of multiparty democracy in 1990 after 18 years of one-party rule was heralded as a milestone in the political history of Zambia. Thus, several political parties participated when the first multiparty elections were held in October 1991. The newly created Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) won the elections. The founders were men and women from different backgrounds whose only shared vision was to remove the UNIP regime from power and introduce liberal democracy in the country. Consequently, the MMD began to crack and splinter political parties emerged from it. This paper examines the failure of democratic consolidation and why the democratisation process was still weak 30 years since the reintroduction of liberal democracy. The paper attempts to answer the following question: What lessons were missed in the historical institutionalisation that underpinned other democratising nations that succeeded. The seventh tripartite elections were held on 12th August 2021, marking 30 years of liberal democracy. Yet, liberal democracy appears weaker than ever before: What is the root cause of this situation?

Mining the Past: A Report of Four Archival Repositories in Zambia

Abstract:Researchers and scholars have written on the history of mining in Zambia using a variety of sources and archives. But much of the history written from local archives has relied heavily on the National Archives of Zambia. Yet, important archival holdings for researchers of the history of Zambia’s mining industry also exist in the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Archive, the United National Independence Party Archive, and in the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia Headquarters. These repositories house rich collections of data invaluable for understanding Zambia’s mining industry. Covering the period from the 1890s to the present, these archives make possible new questions and interpretations of Zambia’s mining industry.

‘A White Man Will Never Be a Zambian’: Racialised Nationalism, the Rule of Law, and Competing Visions of Independent Zambia in the Case of Justice James Skinner, 1964–1969

Much of the existing historical work on politics in independent Zambia stresses the country’s comparative lack of racial tension. However, this article argues that, as elsewhere in Africa, racial ideas were deployed in the early years after the achievement of independence in 1964 and found expression in the competing forms of nationalism that manifested themselves within the governing United National Independence Party. The article considers the case of James Skinner, a white Zambian of Irish descent and head of the country’s judiciary, who in July 1969 was forced to resign after he supported the decision of a white High Court judge to acquit two white Portuguese soldiers who had illegally crossed into Zambia from Angola. Drawing on archival, newspaper and oral sources, I argue that the Skinner case was a touchstone for divergent intra-party visions of Zambia as an independent nation: visions that played out through racial and regional security considerations. Slogans deployed during the campaign to oust Skinner, most notably ‘A white man will never be a Zambian’, shed light on how the construction of Zambian political attitudes, national identity and citizenship became closely aligned with racial identities. Zambia was not the exception within southern Africa that it has commonly been assumed to be.

Empire of Sentiment: The Death of Livingstone and the Myth of Victorian Imperialism. By Joanna Lewis (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2018) 266 pp. $39.99

<i>Empire of Sentiment: The Death of Livingstone and the Myth of Victorian Imperialism</i>. By Joanna Lewis (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2018) 266 pp. $39.99

Attempting to Assert African Agency: Kenneth Kaunda, the Nixon Administration, and Southern Africa, 1968–1973

After three frustrating years of fruitless efforts to convince the United Kingdom (UK) to end the conflict in Rhodesia, Zambian leader Kenneth Kaunda and his United National Independence Party (UNIP) embarked on a different foreign relations course in late 1968 which lasted through the end of 1973. During this five-year span, Kaunda and his UNIP colleagues attempted to assert African agency in order to build an international alliance which would apply diplomatic and economic pressure for peace and justice in southern Africa. Kaunda felt emboldened to pursue a high-profile diplomatic agenda through active participation in multilateral organisations such as the United Nations (UN), the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). An important aspect of Kaunda’s alliance-building strategy was seeking support from the administration of Richard Nixon in the United States of America (USA). From 1968 to 1973, Kenneth Kaunda launched a diplomatic offensive in hopes of asserting African agency and attaining top-level participation by the USA in a broad alliance to promote peace and racial equality in southern Africa; however, Richard Nixon did not share Kaunda’s priorities regarding southern Africa nor his faith in international organisations and rejected his efforts out of hand.

Refractory Frontier: Intra-party Democracy in the Zambian Polity

Despite the important role that intra-party democracy plays in democratic consolidation, particularly in third-wave democracies, it has not received as much attention as inter-party democracy. Based on the Zambian polity, this article uses the concept of selectocracy to explain why, to a large extent, intra-party democracy has remained a refractory frontier. Two traits of intra-party democracy are examined: leadership transitions at party president-level and the selection of political party members for key leadership positions. The present study of four political parties: United National Independence Party (UNIP), Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), United Party for National Development (UPND) and Patriotic Front (PF) demonstrates that the iron law of oligarchy predominates leadership transitions and selection. Within this milieu, intertwined but fluid factors, inimical to democratic consolidation but underpinning selectocracy, are explained.

Challenge for the Ball: Elites, Fans and the Control of Football in Zambia’s One-Party State, 1973–1991

Given the widespread popularity of football in Zambia, the poor performance of the national soccer (football) team in the mid 1970s triggered protests from fans and a decisive move by President Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party (UNIP) government to control the game. Kaunda was interested in football and his government played a role in the development of the game, but they also feared that their political opponents might use football as a vehicle for expressing dissent. This article examines how Kaunda and his UNIP government contributed to the development of football in post-colonial Zambia, how they attempted to control the game and how Kaunda tried to use football to shore up his popularity. It argues that despite Kaunda’s one-party state having authoritarian tendencies and control over most aspects of Zambian society, it never gained total control of football. This was because many ordinary citizens paid close attention to the involvement of authorities in the running of soccer and reacted forcefully whenever they felt that their game was being mismanaged. This further hints at the state’s awareness of its vulnerability if popular sentiment were to turn against the incumbent government.

Revolutionary Nonviolence

Revolutionary Nonviolence

Socialist internationalism and state feminism during the Cold War: the case of Bulgaria and Zambia

After independence, the southern African country of Zambia was governed by the United National Independence Party (UNIP), which, from 1972, ruled in a “one party participatory democracy.” Although Zambia initially hoped to remain non-aligned, after 1972, the country embraced a socialist path to development and began to rely heavily on aid from the Eastern Bloc. Women had been key participants in the struggle for national independence and continued to play a role in the UNIP party. This article examines the political economy of aid transfers from state women’s organizations in Eastern Europe (in particular from Bulgaria) to the nascent Zambian women’s movement, with a specific focus on the bilateral aid sent to develop and support the UNIP Women’s League. Through exchange visits, educational scholarships, travel grants and specific technical and logistical support, the Eastern Bloc countries built state feminist capacity within Zambia and helped Zambian women find their political voices on the international stage during the United Nations Decade for Women (1975-1985).

‘Men Between’: The Role of Zambian Broadcasters in Decolonisation

This article traces the history of a group of Zambian broadcasters who established the first radio station in the country and made their mark on broadcasting for years to come. It describes their contribution to modern Zambian culture and to nationalist mobilisation. African broadcasters developed formats, ways of presenting and choices of music that appealed to Zambian listeners and established new, authentically local styles.While radio quickly established itself as an integral part of everyday life and culture in the colony, its effect was highly ambivalent. Broadcasters at the same time undermined and enforced the colonial project of using the medium as a transmitter of modernisation ideology. The article explores Thomas Turino's characterisation of this team as ‘cosmopolitans’ and shows how they were influenced by BBC ideas of journalism and modernisation ideology. To do so, it analyses the relationships African broadcasters had with Europeans in senior positions and with colonial and postcolonial governments. This shared value system brought these Zambian broadcasters into conflict with the post-independence government and its plans to bureaucratise radio, despite their nationalist commitment and strong support for the United National Independence Party (UNIP) before independence.

Research note: The historiographical challenges of exploring Second World–Third World alliances in the international women’s movement

Throughout the United Nations (UN) Decade for Women, world governments met three times in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980), and Nairobi (1985) to discuss the status of the world’s women and produce conference documents that would serve as transnational road maps for improving women’s rights. Throughout the Decade, a coalition of women from the socialist bloc countries and women in the so-called nonaligned countries often joined together to isolate and antagonize Western feminists. These ‘Second World’–‘Third World’ coalitions perhaps shaped the political outcomes of the three women’s conferences, but today the history of the UN Decade is often written with an air of Western triumphalism, as if it was exclusively women from North America and Western Europe who championed women’s rights on the international stage. This research note specifically explores the transnational socialist solidarity networks that were forged between the Committee of the Bulgarian Women’s Movement (CBWM) and women from Zambian United National Independence Party (UNIP) Women’s League between 1975 and 1985. It discusses the theoretical and logistical challenges of doing research to fill in these glaring historiographical gaps.

MASS PRODUCTION OR PRODUCTION BY THE MASSES? TRACTORS, COOPERATIVES, AND THE POLITICS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN POST-INDEPENDENCE ZAMBIA

ABSTRACTThe fall of colonial regimes across Africa was accompanied by the rise in expectations for rapid and inclusive rural economic progress. In Zambia, the cooperative production unit was one of two key initiatives at the centre of the United National Independence Party's ambitious development efforts. The other was the tractor. By following these two interlinked initiatives in the years immediately following independence, this article contributes to the under-explored history of early postcolonial development. It argues that both the power of expert groups and the level of continuity between late colonial and postcolonial development was not always as great as has recently been suggested. Cooperative mechanization policies emerged from a confluence of competing claims over knowledge, power and resources. However, as is demonstrated, they also reflected more fundamental tensions in the development endeavour between the prioritization of economically efficient mass production, and inclusive development for the masses.

The Killing of Lilian Margaret Burton and Black and White Nationalisms in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) in the 1960s

The symbolic significance of politically-motivated killings of Europeans during the nationalist struggle against colonial power in Africa in the 1950s and 1960 has long eluded the scrutiny of most historians. For although many historians have demonstrated the ways in which such killings shaped the pace of the decolonisation process in the continent, they have seldom shown how the killings themselves became an important terrain on which competing black and white nationalisms were played out. This article draws on recent academic discourse that places a premium on the political significance of death to explore the ways in which the murder of Lilian Margaret Burton by African activists of the United National Independence Party on the Zambian Copperbelt in 1960 informed rival nationalisms prior to the country's independence in 1964.

‘The Hour Has Come at the Pit’: The Mineworkers' Union of Zambia and the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy, 1982–1991

The study of civil society's role in pro-democracy movements in sub-Saharan Africa has generally neglected the underlying motivations informing mass participation in such movements. The role of Zambia's mineworkers and their union in the 1990–91 Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) is an important example of such participation. Frederick Chiluba's accession to the MMD leadership and to the Zambian presidency rested on his leadership of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), which was in the vanguard of opposition to the ruling United National Independence Party (UNIP) from the late 1970s. Chiluba's authority, however, was based on the resonance of his critique of UNIP with urban workers, in particular its implementation of structural adjustment policies. Mineworkers' willingness to challenge UNIP's practical authority in the economically strategic copper mines was rooted in the failure of the postcolonial political settlement to adequately meet their expectations for social and economic change. Their resultant discontents led some to participate in ZCTU-organised underground political opposition in the late 1980s, which provided Chiluba with an unrivalled support base in the MMD. Mineworkers resisted the co-option of their union into UNIP structures, utilising rank-and-file organisation to challenge and to remove leaders perceived as close to the ruling party. The consciousness that informed this participation – a distrust of leadership, a reliance on workplace and community-based self-mobilisation, and a belief in their right to adequate recompense for their harsh and nationally important labour – was, in mineworkers' support for the MMD, abandoned in favour of a belief that a political party led by a trade unionist would address their expectations. The experience of Zambia's mineworkers provides instructive parallels with the dilemmas facing unions engaged in political alliances in southern Africa and beyond.

‘IT MEANS AS IF WE ARE EXCLUDED FROM THE GOOD FREEDOM’: THWARTED EXPECTATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE IN THE LUAPULA PROVINCE OF ZAMBIA, 1964–6

Based on a close reading of new archival material, this article makes a case for the adoption of an empirical, ‘sub-systemic’ approach to the study of nationalist and postcolonial politics in Zambia. By exploring the notion of popular ‘expectations of independence’ to a much greater degree than did previous studies, the paper contends that the extent of the United National Independence Party's political hegemony in the immediate post-independence era has been grossly overrated – even in a traditional rural stronghold of the party and during a favourable economic cycle. In the second part of the paper, the diplomatic and ethnic manoeuvres of the ruler of the eastern Lunda kingdom of Kazembe are set against a background of increasing popular disillusionment with the performance of the independent government.

Independence Negotiations in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia

AbstractThis article examines the processes of negotiations for autonomy from British rule in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It shows that developments in the Zambezia region, in particular African resistance to the Central African Federation, influenced the nature and pace of the negotiations. African nationalists conducted horizontal negotiations among themselves in addition to intense negotiations with colonial authorities divided between the Federation and London. In the end, the negotiations succeeded in transferring power to the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) led by Kamuzu Banda and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) under Kenneth Kaunda.

Donor-driven Initiatives and Media Training in Africa

In 1992, the U.S. Agency for International Development, (AID), launched a $15-million program to consolidate democracy in Zambia. The aid program followed multiparty elections which ended the 28-year reign of Kenneth Kaunda and the United National Independence Party, (UNIP). For 17 of those 28 years, Zambia had operated a single-party state, with UNIP serving as the sole, legitimate party (Bratton, 1992). The defeat of Kaunda and UNIP at the 1991 general elections, and the victory of former trade union leader, Frederick Chiluba, and his Movement for Multiparty Democracy, (MMD), was seen by many as an opportunity to consolidate democratic pluralism in Zambia (Bratton, op.cit.). It was this vision of democratic pluralism that led the U.S. government, acting through its Agency for International Development, (AID), to embark on a bold initiative it termed the Democratic Governance Project (DGP). The central objective of this initiative was to render public decision making more accessible and effective.(USAID Project Paper, 1992).1 Five years after the launching of the project, AID is scaling it down, uncertain about the future of democracy in Zambia. Part of the pessimism stems from the performance of the Chiluba government and the Movement for Multiparty Democracy, (MMD), in the post single-party government era. Dogged by charges of corruption, economic mismanagement, and political intolerance throughout much of its first term, critics of the MMD government say that its record so far has been just as bad as that of the Kaunda regime it succeeded (Bratton and Liatto-Katundu, 1994). Others point to more systemic problems. According to Ihonvbere (1995), Zambia is caught in the contradiction of nurturing and consolidating plural democracy under very difficult socioeconomic conditions (Ihonvbere, 1995:23). The controversies over freedom of the press, and the failure to conduct free and fair elections at the end of Chiluba's first term in office, are perhaps the most significant emblems of this failure at consolidating democratic pluralism in Zambia. For example, Chiluba's entire first term was marked by several tussles with the press, particularly the private-enterprise press. Notwithstanding the shortcomings of the private-enterprise independent press, those supporting transition to democratic pluralism argue that the frequent tussle with the press over critical and sensational stories against members of the Chiluba government did not help with the image of progress toward democracy.2 As for constitutional reforms, the government's failure at compromise with the opposition over several issues, including proposals for an independent judiciary, the need for an independent electoral commission, the procedure for adopting the constitution, and plans to include a Bill of Rights in the main constitution, seriously undermined the legitimacy of the constitution.5 Worse still, the refusal to rescind a clause in the new constitution which forbade former president, Kenneth Kaunda, from contesting the elections as a presidential candidate because his parents were not of Zambian origin, seriously compromised the integrity of the democratic process . The subsequent boycott of the elections by Kaunda's UNIP, and the denunciation of the 1996 elections by several groups as unfair, and undemocratic, was one by-product of the failure at constitutional reforms. Significantly, two of the key components of the U.S. Agency for International Development's democratic assistance plan for Zambia dealt with freedom of the press and constitutional reforms. Is-ow that Zambia is under attack on both of these scores, it is not surprising that AID is scaling back its commitments to assist Zambia in achieving democratic consolidation. This paper examines AID's media assistance plan under the Democratic Governance Project initiative, with particular emphasis on three aspects: (a.) the attempt at policy reforms that were intended to protect freedom of the press and ensure the privatization of mass media institutions in Zambia; (b. …

The 1996 Zambian elections: still awaiting democratic consolidation

On 18 November 1996 presidential and parliamentary elections were held for the second time under Zambia's Third Republic. The first elections, in October 1991, ended the unbroken grip on power enjoyed by the United National Independence Party (UNIP) since 1964 and returned the country to a multi‐party political system after 18 years as a one‐party state. UNIP was heavily defeated by the MMD (Movement for Multiparty Democracy) and Kenneth Kaunda, the country's president since 1964, was replaced by Frederick Chiluba. The peaceful nature of the changeover in 1991 was applauded locally and internationally. There was a sense of optimism about the country's democratic prospects. Zambia was widely held up as a model of successful democratic transition and aid flowed in, partly in support of the democratic experiment and partly because of the new regime's commitment to economic liberalisation and structural adjustment. In some cases donor support was specifically earmarked for the promotion of good government and the encouragement of civic education (Endnote 1).