CHALLENGE TO SIGN A PERMANENT COURT OF ARBITRATION SUBMISSION

DUGUÉ & KIRTLEY AARPI CHRISTOPHE DUGUÉ AVOCAT BARREAU DE PARIS WILLIAM KIRTLEY AVOCAT BARREAUX DE PARIS │WASHINGTON │NEW YORK For the attention of: Mr. Michael Chilufya Sata President of the Republic of Zambia State House Lusaka Republic of Zambia From: William Kirtley Partner, Dugué & Kirtley AARPI E-mail : wkirtley@duguekirtley.com Admitted to practice in Washington, D.C., New York and Paris Christophe Dugué Partner, Dugué & Kirtley AARPI E-mail : cdugue@duguekirtley.com Admitted to practice in Paris Sylvana Sinha Attorney-at-law, IAA Network E-mail : sylvana@post.harvard.edu Admitted to practice in New York By e-mail and DHL Paris, 28 March 2014 RE. : CHALLENGE TO SIGN A PERMANENT COURT OF ARBITRATION SUBMISSION AGREEMENT Dear President Michael Chilufya Sata, We are writing you on behalf of the Barotseland National Freedom Alliance (“BNFA”), which our firm represents in tandem with co-counsel Ms. Sylvana Sinha. It would be unfair to hold you personally responsible for the issues concerning Barotseland’s status within the Republic of Zambia (“Zambia”) today, for it was primarily your predecessors, including the former President Kenneth Kaunda, who made a mockery of the Barotseland Agreement 1964 by which Barotseland became a part of Zambia. Nevertheless, given your position as the President of Zambia, on behalf of our clients, and the People of Barotseland, we would like to propose a peaceful solution to end the outstanding issues of Barotseland’s disengagement from Zambia. If you believe that Zambia’s position is legal, then you should have no difficulty with respect to our simple proposal that you sign the enclosed arbitration agreement so that this matter may be settled in accordance with the law. It is our client’s position that the undisputed legal basis for the creation of modern Zambia, formed by Barotseland and the rest of Northern Rhodesia, is the Barotseland Agreement of May DUGUÉ & KIRTLEY AARPI │2 BIS, RUE GUENEGAUD 75006 PARIS FRANCE │TEL. + 33 1 42 60 04 31 │FAX. + 33 1 42 60 04 55 │WWW.DUGUEKIRTLEY.COM SIRET 79922270800015 │TVA INTRACOMMUNAUTAIRE FR20799222708│ TOQUE C1401 Membre d’une association agréée, le règlement des honoraires par chèque est accepté Page | 1 DUGUÉ & KIRTLEY AARPI CHRISTOPHE DUGUÉ AVOCAT BARREAU DE PARIS WILLIAM KIRTLEY AVOCAT BARREAUX DE PARIS │WASHINGTON │NEW YORK 18, 1964 (“Barotseland Agreement”), which we submit must be legally qualified as an international treaty signed by Sir Mwanawina III, OBE, then King of Barotseland, Mr. Kenneth Kaunda, the Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia (to be renamed Zambia), and the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies on behalf of the United Kingdom. Starting in October 1965, the Zambian Government began to violate its obligations under the Barotseland Agreement, and it has continued to violate both the spirit and the letter of this treaty, even going so far as to purport to annul it constitutionally and by wrongfully stripping Barotseland of powers over its land. Our client’s position is that Zambia has flagrantly violated the Barotseland Agreement by refusing to comply with its obligations to maintain the special autonomous status of Barotseland and by depriving Barotseland of its full economic potential. Furthermore, it is our client’s position that Zambia’s unilateral attempts to renounce the Barotseland Agreement and to deny Barotseland the right to an autonomous existence represent a repudiatory breach of the Barotseland Agreement, granting Barotseland the right to terminate the treaty once and for all and to determine its own fate. Our client’s position is also that Barotseland validly exercised its right to terminate the Barotseland Agreement on 26th and 27thMarch 2012, when a National Council representing the people of Barotseland formally recognized the abrogation of the Barotseland Agreement by the Zambian Government, thereby freeing Barotseland from its former union with Northern Rhodesia. Therefore, resolutions such as the following must be given their full legal effect: “The people of Barotseland shall exercise their right to revert Barotseland to its original status as a sovereign nation, so that the people of Barotseland shall determine their political, cultural, social and economic development.” On the basis of the BNC Resolution, and under international law, Barotseland has therefore legally reverted to the status of being an independent nation. It is further our client’s position that the continuing attempts by Zambia to force an independent nation to remain under its yoke, without its consent, is a flagrant violation of international law, with the result that, under international law, Zambian authorities and State institutions must immediately vacate Barotseland. If you believe that any of the above positions are incorrect, and that Zambia’s actions have in fact been legal as a matter of international law, then our clients invite you to prove it, by DUGUÉ & KIRTLEY AARPI │2 BIS, RUE GUENEGAUD 75006 PARIS FRANCE │TEL. + 33 1 42 60 04 31 │FAX. + 33 1 42 60 04 55 │WWW.DUGUEKIRTLEY.COM SIRET 79922270800015 │TVA INTRACOMMUNAUTAIRE FR20799222708│ TOQUE C1401 Membre d’une association agréée, le règlement des honoraires par chèque est accepté Page | 2 DUGUÉ & KIRTLEY AARPI CHRISTOPHE DUGUÉ AVOCAT BARREAU DE PARIS WILLIAM KIRTLEY AVOCAT BARREAUX DE PARIS │WASHINGTON │NEW YORK signing the following arbitration clause, which would allow for an independent and impartial international arbitral tribunal to determine the validity of Zambia’s actions as well as the current legal status of Barotseland under public international law. This issue is separate, but complementary, to the issue of Zambia's violations of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights with respect to the people of Barotseland, which is currently being examined by the African Commission of Human and Peoples Rights in Banjul. You may be disinclined to sign the following arbitration agreement, but you would have nothing to fear if Zambia’s actions and positions were in fact legal. We hope you realize that your failure to sign the arbitration agreement must be viewed by the international community as an acknowledgement that Zambia has acted illegally in its relationship with Barotseland. If we do not hear from you within two months from the date of this letter, we shall consider the matter to have been ignored in bad faith by you and the Zambian Government, and our clients reserve their right to pursue the other options that are available to them at this time. With this in mind, we trust that you will sign the enclosed arbitration clause, which grants jurisdiction to a neutral arbitral tribunal to peacefully resolve all of Barotseland’s outstanding disputes with Zambia. Your failure to sign this arbitration clause would not surprise us in the least, but can only be viewed as a clear admission that Zambia’s actions with respect to Barotseland are in violation of international law. Sincerely yours, ______________________ ______________________ William Kirtley Sylvana Q. Sinha Dugué & Kirtley AARPI ______________________ Christophe Dugué Dugué & Kirtley AARPI Encl. - PCA Submission Agreement (signed) DUGUÉ & KIRTLEY AARPI │2 BIS, RUE GUENEGAUD 75006 PARIS FRANCE │TEL. + 33 1 42 60 04 31 │FAX. + 33 1 42 60 04 55 │WWW.DUGUEKIRTLEY.COM SIRET 79922270800015 │TVA INTRACOMMUNAUTAIRE FR20799222708│ TOQUE C1401 Membre d’une association agréée, le règlement des honoraires par chèque est accepté Page | 3

I SHOULD NOT BE ALIVE!

By Namakando Nalikando-Sinyama I have been traversing the Southern route back and forth using MazhanduFamily Bus Service since January of 2008. Having been such a regular patron of this bus, there has been certain ‘benefits’ or privileges that accrue like having preferred seats reserved for me well in advance. I have always been offered the front roll seats when I travel. I have often joked that if the distance I have covered to date on this bus were to be stretched, it might easily run from Cape to Cairo! On this fateful dayof 05/10/2012,keeping true to this tradition, I was given seat No. 2 which is right behind the driver’s seat. All seemed well and relatively uneventful after we started off from Livingstone at about 09:00hrs until at around 10:25 or so at a point 10 to 15 km before Choma, when our bus had a front tyre bust while moving at speed and careered off the road. This sent it hurtling into the nearby bushes where we yet again had a second tyre bust from hitting into tree stumps and a living tree, effectively uprooting it in the process until we came to a traumatizing stop some 100 meters away from the first tyre bust. It is worth mentioning that throughout this ordeal, our gallant driver, though having passed the regulation speed, telling from the breaking distance of our bus, he had his hands firmly on the steering until he brought the bus to a stop. We all know that stories abound where drivers have been known to jump out through the window or in a feat of sudden panic they apply emergency breaks which if it had been done we would certainly have flipped over making fatalities all the more likely. Judging from the bus wreckage,a number of people must have been badly hurt and indeed they were.Some people I sat next to sustained broken limbs and very deep cuts. In the thick of things, due to her instinctive infinite maternal ‘wisdom’, there was a lady who decided to toss her young infant through the back windowof this wildly speeding bus. This infant may have landed head first on the hard ground because she had a soiled head when we later met up with them at Choma General Hospital where we had gone to have our vitals checked and shots of Tetanus injection administered due to the threat of our wounds becoming septic. This poor baby’s neck or spine would have instantly snapped on impact. As to whether or not this was a right decision by her mother, may not be for me to say as I never experienced pangs of labour! Granted that in instances such as these rationality is thrown out of the window, literally! There were people who got badly injured and some could have so easily died, so you will not catch me dead leaping to thanking god that my life was spared and because I escaped with merely superficial bruises on the body, aching spinal column and a severely sore left Gluteus maximus,my head was left in a dazed state from the post-traumatic stress which might explain why moments after the accident I just stood there in a transfixed pose,I am having pieces of glass debris still imbedded into my skin. The only visible reminders of this incident on my person is, that despite the famed hardness of a cotton fabric that denim is, its structural integrity was breached as a hole was made in it near a very delicate part of my body.If only whatever made this impression had moved upwards by a few inches, I would have kissed my procreative ability good bye! There is a deep lesion in my left breast made by some sharp object. If the object had moved just slightly to the left I would have lost a nipple! My lower back is experiencing some dull but telling pain as I cannot seem to support the bulk of my frame as well as I used to. I now have to walk gingerly with a slight noticeable limp. I do not intend to trigger any religious debate but I happen not to subscribe to the common notion of there being a Celestial Ledger where world events are neatly choreographedor orchestrated by the powers that be and where it was ordained that on a specific day this lady who sat next to me was to break her leg in two points!The same way I find it rather utterly inconsiderate of people who escape death in an accident where others have died but they thank God they did not die themselves. This, of course, is notwithstanding the ecclesiastical proclamation of there being time for dying and time for laughing etc. What is fact though is thataccidents do happen and always will to one and all.Some people die and some people survive, some people end up with severed limbs and others come out of accidents unscathed, others are maimed forever others end up only with a mere headache and a version of events to narrate. It is quite implausible that a whole bus could have been filled up with very special people who god wanted to save on this day for some later assignment and higher purpose in life. Whether there is some yet unknown reason why we did not die and others have died gruesomely before is not an area am prepared to delve into just yet as am still recuperating to entertain philosophicalred herrings. Look,going by The Law of a Probable Outcome, the very frequency with which I have travelled that route just rendered me prone to any of such freakish accidents. A number of conditions conspired to make this bizarre event possible. In my opinion, the driver may have over sped well over 140 Km/h,owing to the extreme mid-day temperatures and the possibility of the bus being in a semi-state of neglect, that is,tyres not having been checked or replaced with more road worthy ones made them fail to hold their own against the full brunt of the mid-morning sweltering heat coupled with the traction frictional heat. Sadly, not even Thegod Vulcan could protect us as the tyres gave in to the massive heat generated from the tarmacadamised road surface. After having said all this, what remains to be said is that despite all the whys and wherefores, I have yet again Lived To Die Another Day!

THE RESTORATION OF THE NATION OF BAROTSELAND TO FULL SOVEREIGNTY

By William Kirtley Although few who were born after World War II know of the State of Barotseland, a previously well‐known nation that is slightly larger in size than Germany and forms the Western part of what was until recently universally considered Zambia, this is likely to change in the near future. The union between Barotseland and the rest of the former Northern Rhodesia is in its death throes, after nearly five decades of misrule and neglect of Barotseland by the Zambian central government, which has seen Barotseland go from the most affluent region of Zambia to one of its poorest, and Barotseland, on the basis of public international law, is seeking formal recognition as the 55th African State. “Recognition” is the proper term, since, on the basis of pure public international law, de jure independence has existed since Barotseland chose to terminate the original Barotseland Agreement on 26 and 27 March 2012. While the separation of Barotseland from Zambia may ring of treason, the far better view from a legal perspective is that Zambia’s attempts to force Barotseland, which has had a special status in southern Africa for hundreds of years and which was previously recognized as an independent nation, to remain trapped within the Republic of Zambia without its consent is illegal as a matter of public international law. Barotseland is one of the few nations in southern Africa never to have been annexed or conquered by a European power, and the first nation north of the Zambezi River to sign a concession agreement with the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes. For the hundreds of years prior to the British period, Barotse rule extended over a large region of up to 370,000 square kilometers, and the Kingdom of Barotseland governed many other tribes in the region. Barotseland’s existence as a State was recognized by the King of Italy, in an arbitration award of 1905 concerning the Anglo‐Portuguese Barotse Boundary dispute, and most legal scholars today, such as James Crawford, recognize Barotseland as a classic example of a sovereign to which “the general rules of international law were applied,” similarly to Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Tonga and the Kingdom of Swaziland (see James Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law, p. 263). In violation of the law of treaties, the Government of Zambia has plainly begun an attack that is designed to force Barotseland to remain within a union to which Barotseland no longer is bound. It has recently arrested Barotseland’s former Prime Minister, Clement Sinyinda, is increasing its deployment of soldiers to the nation, and the number of human rights abuses against Barotse civilians has increased dramatically. To date, over 100 independence activists have been imprisoned, and 84 were recently charged with “treason,” a misguided charge given the history and legal basis of the inclusion of Barotseland as a part of Zambia, which is punishable by death under Zambian law. The undisputed legal basis for the creation of the modern Republic of Zambia as a unitary nation formed by Barotseland and the rest of Northern Rhodesia at the time of decolonization was the Barotseland Agreement of May 19, 1964, which must be viewed as an international treaty signed by Sir Mwanawina III, OBE, then King of Barotseland, Mr. Kenneth Kaunda, the prime minister of Northern Rhodesia (to be renamed Zambia), and the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies on behalf of the United Kingdom. At the time, the United Kingdom was overseeing Barotseland as a “protectorate,” the same legal status that had been granted to diverse countries such as Kuwait, Monaco, Andorra, Liechtenstein and Morocco. The Protectorate of Northern Rhodesia had been created through an amalgam of territories acquired through treaty, grant, sufferance and “usage” by the British South African Company of Cecil Rhodes, which was initially operated under a Charter granted by the British Crown, but was eventually administered by the United Kingdom itself. Throughout this period, the successive treaties signed by the King of Barotseland ensured Barotseland’s power over land, natural resources, regional government, and its court system, and other aspects of sovereignty that were never abandoned. These treaties were to terminate upon the independence of Northern Rhodesia, allowing the territories constituting Northern Rhodesia to proceed to independence separately. Faced with this scenario, the Interim Self‐Government of Northern Rhodesia, led by Kenneth Kaunda as Prime Minister, pressed for a new agreement with the King of Barotseland to operate as a substitute for the colonial agreements that were coming to an end, in order for Northern Rhodesia to become independent as a unitary Republic of Zambia. The net effect of the new treaty, cited as the Barotseland Agreement 1964, was simply to reaffirm the continued autonomous status of Barotseland as a condition for its incorporation into the republic of Zambia. As noted in the book The Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations, the Barotseland king only signed the Barotseland Agreement under British pressure, despite the many legal protections ensuring Barotseland’s continued autonomy that were enshrined in it. In the Barotseland Agreement, the people of Barotseland consented to be associated with the rest of Northern Rhodesia to form modern Zambia, on condition of maintaining the primary legal aspects of their sovereignty, including the recognition of the Barotseland King and his Council as the “principal local authority for the government and administration of Barotseland,” the continuation of Barotseland’s legal tribunals, the maintenance of Barotseland control over local taxation, as well as the preservation of its right to land, forests, fishing rights, game preservations, the management of the Barotseland treasury and other rights that it had previously maintained while a British Protectorate. It was also expressly stipulated in this Agreement that the Republic of Zambia would take steps to ensure that the laws of the Republic were “not inconsistent with the provisions of this Agreement.” On behalf of Northern Rhodesia, Kenneth Kaunda also recognized that “full consultation should take place with the Litunga [Barotse King] and Council before any land in Barotseland is used for public purposes or in the general interests of economic development,” and it was expressly agreed that appeals from decisions of the local courts to Zambian jurisdictions could only be made with the approval of Barotseland appellate courts. Kenneth Kaunda, who would soon become the first President of Zambia, agreed to each of these conditions and, on this basis, the King of Barotseland signed the Agreement on his own behalf, and on behalf of his heirs and successors, his Council, and the chiefs and the People of Barotseland, thereby agreeing to the union creating modern Zambia. Unfortunately for Barotseland, however, Kenneth Kaunda’s international commitments to Barotseland would be flouted, and he did everything possible to remove all aspects of Barotseland’s special autonomous status, starting very soon after independence. In October 1965, the Zambian government, under Kenneth Kaunda, first passed a law taking away the privileges and rights of the Barotse King, in violation of its obligations under the Barotseland Agreement, under the Zambia Independence Act and Zambia Independence Order. In 1969, President Kaunda then unilaterally announced that Barotseland would be renamed “Western Province,” in a speech entitled “I wish to inform the nation.” The Government of Zambia then introduced and passed the Constitution Amendment Act No. 30 of 1969, which rather than enshrining the rights agreed to in the 1964 treaty, purported to annul it, leading to mass protests which the Government responded to with mass arrests. From 1969 to 1970, the Government of Zambia then passed the Western Province (Land and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act No. 47, which stripped Barotseland of its powers over its land and, instead, vested them within the power of the President of Zambia as Zambian Reserves of Barotse nationals. Such acts in violation of the spirit and the letter of the Barotseland Agreement have continued to this very day, despite the many protests on the part of Barotseland, including the King of Barotseland’s warning in 1994 that they expressly reserved the “right to revert to their original status.” The leaders of Zambia must understand that their past attempts to change the Constitution of Zambia, in order to negate the existence of Barotseland, merely represents changes to municipal law, which do not possess the legal force of interational treaties like the Barotseland Agreement of 1964. This is a basic principle of international law, as is the principle of pacta sunt serva, literally “agreements must be kept,” which is clearly not what occurred with respect to the Barotseland Agreement. Under Article 60(3) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, a material breach is a repudiation of a treaty by a party, or a violation of a provision essential to the object or purpose of the treaty, which entitles the other party or parties to invoke the breach as a grounds for terminating it. As noted by the International Court of Justice in the ICJ’s Gabcikovo ‐Nagymaros (Hungary/Slovakia) case of 1997, the breach must already have occurred for the termination to be legal. Zambia has not only violated each of its obligations under the Barotseland Agreement by denying the obligations it owed to maintain the special autonomous status of Barotseland and neglecting its obligations to assist in its economic development, but its unilateral attempt to renounce the Barotseland Agreement and to deny its very existence is clearly a repudiatory breach of it, granting Barotseland the right to terminate it once and for all should it wish to do so. Barotseland chose to exercise its right to terminate the original Barotseland Agreement on 26 and 27 March 2012, when a National Council, representing the people of Barotseland, formally recognized the abrogation of the Barotseland Agreement by the Zambian Government, freeing it from its union with Northern Rhodesia, and noting the natural consequence that it had been restored to the status of an independent nation. Barotseland is in the process of taking the necessary steps to become a fully‐recognized member of the international community, and has requested that Western Governments, especially the former colonial power, Great Britain, which is a signatory to the initial treaty that created the union between Barotseland and the rest of Northern Rhodesia, urge their Zambian counterparts to free all Barotse political prisoners and then comport themselves in respect of human rights law and international legal standards. Both States will clearly be better off if they choose the path of Czechoslovakia, smoothly transitioning into two States on the basis of negotiations, rather than becoming the next Yugoslavia or Biafra. It would indeed be a success story for the increasingly modern and prosperous Africa, and a sign of its maturity, if two States could peacefully revert to independence. Although Barotseland’s struggle does not concern economic nationalism, there are various consequences that do necessarily flow from its decision to revert to independence. Namely, Zambian concession agreements negotiated that concern Barotseland land or mineral rights are technically invalid since at least March 27, 2012, since the Zambian State lacked the legal capacity to make them. While Barotseland’s representatives have expressed a willingness to honor the commitments contracted by the former Zambian Government, those contracts must plainly be entered into with the chosenrepresentatives of Barotseland, or face the consequences of illegally operating in a State without its consent. Another consequence of the termination of the Barotseland Agreement is that Zambia’s recent arrest of the former prime minister of Barotseland may best be seen as the arrest of an ex‐diplomat of a foreign State, and sending soldiers into Barotseland may be legally qualified as a foreign occupation. These are hostile acts on the part of Zambia and, in addition to reserving the right to seek compensation for economic harm, Barotseland has put Zambian politicians, soldiers, policemen and other armed groups on notice that their prosecution will be sought for all criminal acts performed by Zambians falling within the scope of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to which Zambia is bound. There is nothing sacrosanct with respect to the combination of Barotseland and Northern Rhodesia into modern Zambia, with the encouragement of British Colonialists who appear to have done so purely for the sake of their own administrative efficiency. One may hope that the Republic of Zambia recognizes its obligations under international law to cooperate with the newly‐proclaimed independent State of Barotseland, and that it has the diplomatic maturity to recognize that the two independent nations would be better off by respecting international law, and living harmoniously as they did prior to the Barotseland Agreement of 1964, which appears to have been a noble, but failed, experiment. ‐ William Kirtley, Partner at the international arbitration law firm Dugué & Kirtley AARPI, on behalf of the Barotseland National Freedom Alliance.

THE TOTAL UNDOING OF SOMBER DIPLOMATIC ETIQUETTE - BUCHIZYA MUTEPA KAUNDA’S OUTBURST!

By Namakando Nalikando-Sinyama So, did that really qualify as a befitting tribute in your books? It was to me the worst affront to the magnanimous memory of our Khosa Brother, U yoyange Rohlihlahla Madida. Whichever way you choose to look at it calling, an Afrikaner a Boer (Farmer) in this day and age is a form of derogation which for all intent and purposes was utterly uncalled for. This was supposed to be a time when people should have been healing. Which healing was being completed by the passing of an individual who epitomized the struggle and was himself one of the architects of the reconciliation process and the eventual emergence of what we have come to endearingly refer to as The Rainbow Nation. It was not too much to ask that true and genuine seasoned statesmen ought to have adopted a more reconciliatory posture. The other time it was again the man from the Highlands of Scotland ranting on about something so misplaced and not in keeping with the spirit of good neighborliness. One day, just one day soon my brother, the regional giant will roar to reassert its position on certain pertinent matters and heads will most certainly turn and the Geo-political landscape of Southern Africa never shall be the same. When this happens you will remember that I was not such a Nostra-Dumb-Arse after all! What we saw done was the scratching of a healing wound, the cicatrix covering years of emotional anguish was being painfully peeled off. To me, it was just as bad as a white person calling a person of colour a Nigga (of course not in the manner it is now glorified in this incoherent racket laced with vulgarities they call music) or a Melon in The Deep South or The Bronx. Then you turn around and call them Hillbillies back and see how the men hooded in Bed sheets would get back at you. If you are in Birmingham and you are originally from Uttar Pradesh and you are called a curry-muncher it is really not cool at all. I reckon it is even worse than a southern European (Spanish or Italian being called a Dago twit in New York. So listen people, these are ethnic slurs that are commonly accepted as impolite to use and it had to come from your inspirational leader! Gosh! Did not they teach the very basic tenets of Diplomatic Etiquette and International Relations at Lubwa Mission even as an elective? The other unsung hero of the attainment of majority rule in Azania is Fredrick De Klerk. Granted, that this is highly debatable but it is my opinion nonetheless. Even when the world felt there was way too much pressure weighing in on the Apartheid regime to release Madida , I strongly feel If they so wished, they could have easily chosen to hang onto Madida just a little bit longer to simply prove to the world that they could in a show of revulsive defiance. I do not really mean to demean people’s eternal icons but that ‘speech’ did not really cut it for some of us I may not be a Northern Rhodesian but I empathetically felt like burying meself in the sand from utter shame and embarrassment. It was not exactly the type of witty defiant rhetoric, if that was the delivery that was intended, you know, like one you would have heard from say Mahmoud Armedinajad, Fidel Castro, Muammar Gaddafi , Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Malcolm El Malik Shabbaz X, The Right Honouraboe Minister Louis Farrakhan or H.I.M Emperor Haile Sellasie I et al . It does therefore go without saying that thank heavens for the adept time keeper, after that nebulous rant, I was gripped with an overpowering sense of ennui. And for the record, I will let you in on a little diplomatic state secret; the ‘speech’ time was not really up at all! It had more to do with the taste, choice of words, tone, general timing and to be honest downright shocking sense of occasion. But then, in retrospect, what exactly did you expect? You were well represented by the best right? How I so miss The Gaffer, starring Bill Maynard, the very best of ITV British situation comedy. He was definitely outdone!

FOOTBALL INSPIRED HATE

By Namakando Nalikando-Sinyama While many a Northern Rhodesian are busy baying for the head of Mamadou Gaye, the much loathed Ivorian Super Sport football commentator, some of us are realistic enough to boldly state that he was for the most part spot on about some pretending champions getting booted out in the very first round of the AFCON. Therefore, for that sporting insight by him, we will always sal...ute his discernment. It does also go without saying that if we are to be really honest with ourselves, after watching them struggle through friendly fixtures, most of us held this view anyway. It is just that a well know aspect of human nature sustained them, that is, to always hope against hope so as to avert the inevitable even when it stared us in the eyes! Listening to his highly corrosive sarcasm and scathing attacks on feeble but pompous outfits in that deep, pigeon or is it creole marred and adulterated accent of his, was something i could listen to the whole day. Certain truths have to be told somehow and sugar-coating them rarely ever improves their biting reality. The latest spin is, look, our fellow group members being Bukina Faso and Nigeria have both qualified to the next round, what this proves is that they were put in the ultimate group of death! Sadly this angle of reasoning may have eluded me totally because fact remains fact; You-Did-Not-Make-The -Cut, period. Brother, have you no shame? OK, we did not qualify even to the second round of the AFCON, let us now focus on winning the World Cup! Am i the only one seeing the funny side of this type of reasoning? For the umpteenth time may you know that god is not a soccer fun, ‘Christian’ nation declaration coming to your aid(zilch!), spiritual and ritualistic appeasement(bathing at the Gabon crush site) do not work at all, well at least not any more. I just feel bad for laying it bare like this for people and inadvertently seem as though I am scratching a healing wound. CAUTION: You are not me, for safety reasons, never talk like this in public (This is only safely managed in the virtual public), people are still going through a process of healing and the natural thing to do is empathize with them.

THE BIG BROTHER SERIES OF SHOWS

By Namakando Nalikando-Sinyama The obvious hand of the Illuminati in this television programme is undeniable if only one cares enough to pay attention to all the signs. It is not just the symbol of the all seeing eye of Horus that gives it away as being the work of people whose motives may not be entirely beneficial to those who have been gullible enough and have the time to tune in. Without seemingly becoming the wet blanket that I am not, may I just state here that the massive intellectual and cultural benefits of this show have completely eluded me sadly. If Africans have now worked hard enough to now pass time watching shows that have no direct and observable value but which do more in contributing to the overall moral decadence of the continent then that is entirely their choice. Just what form of encouragement do Africa’s youth get from this show? What aspect of Africanness is accurately depicted by what you see in BBA show? How are your youth who stay up late nights to watch that material enriched by being glued onto the screen for hours on end? By addressing these issues, I am not in any way declaring myself moral police nor am I constituting meself judge of anyone’s conduct as we all have the right to choose what we can and cannot watch on satellite or cable Television. It is really doubtful to some of us if this social construction of reality that BBA is has any real lasting value to the average thinking and serious individual; for we see it very much as a failed experiment which has managed to occupy the minds of the mediocre. I kindly beseech you not to take serious offense at what I am disclosing to you if you happen to be caught up in this web of deceit and hedonistic show of carnal immorality neatly packaged as reality TV. It is in the end all about choices we make in life and as to whether or not we will be able to live with the consequences of these decisions. What, they teach how to deal with different human personalities and character traits? You find the different tasks they give in the house intellectually challenging and beneficial in exciting ones cranial department? are they teaching and encouraging team work and sharpening leadership qualities in the house mates? Are they trying to foster African unity by encouraging youths from diverse backgrounds to interact freely in a watched closed environment? If these are some of the many illusions you have been living under I strongly recommend you take the Red Pill before it is too late! (from ‘The Matrix Philosophy’ ) Come on! Namakando get off it, you are spoiling it for us. It was already marred before I had anything to say about it, you just did not want to see what was right before your very eyes. I do sincerely hope that even after allowing my children to make their own free choices in life they will not fall prey to these trappings of libertines. Well then, have you not watched the show you ask? Look, the few times that I have strayed off into the living room and the telly happened to be on, and by some freakish chance the show could have been showing and if by sheer happenstance my eyes were not shut ,then yes I could have caught a glimpse of it and that was all really. What I can tell you with a great degree of certitude is that you will never ever catch me dead sitting through that rubbish. If you are eggshells I might have trodden on thee too hard with my rather candid expression of an opinion that I hold dear whether rightfully or wrongly. As for all those who enjoy the show dearly I respectfully encourage you to carry on with my best wishes as these are the liberated days after all! How then are the Illuminati connected with all this? If you read up on their global agenda you will clearly see how the end justifies the means.

DIARY EXCERPT FROM MY MANY TRAVELS ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Entry No.101 By Namakando Nalikando-Sinyama Nothing do i detest more than seeing or listening to a bunch of lavishly draped women wiggling their bottoms to some blaring and ear splitting clutter of sounds of their preferred Congolese tune they have the audacity of calling Rhumba Gospel emanating from some squeaky onboard television or music system . The sheer naivety of these people utterly shocks me because I can clearly see their dancing where waist gyration is by the way the predominant feature, is inadvertently, depicting the sexual act! But alas, they dance for god. All I know is, Saint Christopher, The Patron Saint of travellers is not at all amused by the din you create. The other annoying thing with public buses is that just because they are playing so called ‘gospel’ music my ears should not suffer as the sound levels are always beyond the allowable decibels. For some strange reason there seems to be an unofficial consensus that if the music be religious then loud it will be. The last time I checked I was never diagnosed with a severe case of ear wax problem or inflammation of the ear passageway or what we in the business call auditory meatus . Look, I paid for this bus ride and frankly, I don’t care less nor am I interested in the racket they create so as to evoke the spirits or as supplication to theirs gods to grant them travelling mercies. I think RATSA should re-educate people that music of whatever genre does little or nothing to confer protection to road users. Simply be smart, follow traffic rules and regulations and keep your vehicles in road worthy condition only then can you arrive alive and let me read my book or finish my crosswords in peace, god!!! .