LUSAKA, Jan. 18 - Land is our heritage and pride, let us protect it. It is very saddening that the world bank has once again come-up with their proposals to the zambian government over land, with serious but suspect land administration suggestions.

We say it is saddening because, in the past, world bank has brought their policies on the Zambians through the government of Zambia. But, almost whatever they have brought has ended-up giving us problems. Together with their popular International Monetary Fund-IMF, the world bank brought the structural adjustment program-sap, which delivered Zambians into abject destitution, poverty, disease, displacement, homelessness and misery due to losses of employment that came as a result of the program.

It must be noted that more impoverishment and confusion among the Zambian people must be expected in the near future if the new deal government of Zambia under president Levy Mwanawasa does not stand against these designed World Bank land proposals.

The Independence we attained in 1964 has been made meaningless by the western forces due to their policies on the people which have compelled us to continue as perpetual beggars annually because of designed poverty?

We are concerned that if the proposals are to be implemented, the Zambians will be displaced as more land has to be given away to new owners who will come to take-over our dear country from the rich western world.

There must be no doubt that rich nationals from the west will buy the land and put-up their infrastructure. It will mean that the poor Zambian people will be turned into labourors or indeed, cheap labourors for westerners in their own country where they have no power due to non ownership of land.

When we look into our future, it can be seen that our future as a people becomes bleak with such land strategies like the ones World Bank is about to set on us.

Our land is our national heritage. It is our pride and prestigy and ownership of our land is therefore, our birth-right. We have to protect our land all of us from giving it away to rich western people because the forces are about to permanently re-colonise us through the World Bank.

We can imagine what type of a country we are going to become should we allow our land to be taken away from us. Our pride as a Zambian people will diminish because we will remain with no opportunity to set-up infrastructure of our own.

We must also question how this coincidence of the World Bank land strategies with our mining sector in which the country’s mining industry is about to get readmitted to the top world mining producers due to viable investments in the sector, nationwide.

If our land is given away, do we expect to carry-out further research into our natural wealth in future in order for the country to open-up for further foreign investment.

We must be aware, therefore that land is a very sensitive issue to the people of Zambia, not only yesterday and today. Our future generation must have something to be proud of in terms of national inheritance. We must preserve our land even for future generations as also strive to take all necessary good steps to protect it from being taken away. We must maintain our national pride and dignity as a people.

We must avoid problems in future as have been experienced in other countries over land related issues.

For more details contact:
Richard Musauka
Dpi acting media and strategy cordinator