On the 20th August of 2007, senior representatives of the villagers living within the Luembe Chiefdom of Zambia, went to have their application endorsed for the formation of the Luembe Development and Caretaker Community Association. In order to do this, as required by the Registrar of Societies in Lusaka, they were compelled to obtain the signatures of the Nyimba District Council and the Nyimba Police. They duly obtained these, but, unusually – as it is not normally required, they were told by the Council to obtain the signature of the District Intelligence Officer in the Office of the President (OP), Nyimba branch. Then came the surprise, the officer, by the name of G.K. Mumba, stated that he knew that the group were connected with me, and that I had posted on my blogs the news that his office had recently gone in to Luembe to investigate our complaints of an elephant ivory and bushmeat poaching ring being operated by Zambia Wildlife Authority personnel. The village leaders were upbraided for having given secret information to someone who had then used it for ‘economic sabotage against Zambia’ by telling the world that the OP, as they are called, were investigating corruption. When asked how this was economic sabotage, Mumba replied that I had sought to dissuade hunting clients from coming to Zambia on safari by telling them of the poaching and other corruption.
The irony here is that as a result of being a whistleblower of the massive poaching ring operating in the district, I had also sought to publicize illegal land alienations of customary land and National Forest involving corrupt local forestry and wildlife officers, a corrupt Chief, corrupt elements within the Nyimba District Council, corrupt businessmen, and corruption in the Ministry of Lands. As a result, I had been accused by State House of plotting to overthrow the ruling MMD Government, of planning the destruction of the maize stocks of Zambia; accused by one of the Chiefs in the district of having committed game offences – though I had not ever hunted in his area; had my phones and emails tapped and my house placed under surveillance and, in my absence, my wife had suffered an invasion of the property by thugs; and then, in an act of sabotage which impacts both on our business, on the local community – as they share income from safaris, and on the good name of Zambia, had our client agents told that we were no good – immediate cancellations being the instant result. Whom is sabotaging whom, I ask.
Of course the Luembe community are awakening from their slumbers, now being aware of their rights under the law and the Constitution. Having got rid their chief for selling off their land, they found him reinstated without due customary process, and are oncemore fighting to have him ousted. Daily their wildlife resources and elephant are being plundered by the very people mandated to protect them. Not only has development aid passed them by, but they have to bear the yoke of malign interests seeking to further disenfranchise them. They now realize all this; hence their wish to form an Association, a perfectly normal democratic urge. But now the OP has put the spell on them.
