Thread by @Kauswe3

ZAMBIAN UNIONIST OPPOSING KAUNDA - NOVEMBER 1981

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Shortly before he was detained sometime in 1980/81, Frederick Chiluba, Zambia's most prominent labor leader, sought increased contacts with Western diplomats and invited them to compare his movement to the Solidarity union in Poland.

The message, one of the Western envoys said, was clear: Mr. Chiluba, the chairman of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, was presenting himself as an alternative to President Kenneth D. Kaunda and his United National Independence Party, the country's only lawful political group.

Mr. Chiluba's aspirations did not go unnoticed by the President. On July 4, after a series of strikes in Zambia's copper mines, he ordered the detention of Mr. Chiluba and three other union leaders.

Since then there had been a standoff in the potentially explosive dispute between Mr. Kaunda and the unions.

The confrontation dates to January 1981 when 17 officials from the union congress were expelled from UNIP, and workers in the copper mines that earned 98 percent of Zambia's foreign exchange went on strike for eight days.

More strikes followed in June and July, leading to Mr. Chiluba's arrest.

The strikes had various causes, including discontent over high food prices and shortages, overlaid with a recognition among the union leaders that their movement has traditionally played a role in bringing about change in Zambia.

As long ago as 1936, for instance, organized labor embarked on the political activism that led to Zambia's independence from Britain in 1964. ''We are back where we started,'' a union official said recently, ''opposing those in power.''

That is where the comparison with Solidarity came in. Union officials said that they, like the Polish movement, were confronted with food shortages, a tired economy and stubborn political authorities.

Western diplomats, however, pointed to critical differences between the Polish and Zambian movements

They said: There is no equivalent here to the ''Soviet threat,'' and while Solidarity is depicted as a national group, the Zambian movement is rooted in the Bemba tribe from the north, which has traditionally opposed those in power in the south.

Most of the 56,000 miners, then were Bembas, and they are the largest group in a union movement of 200,000 - a larger membership than Mr. Kaunda's UNIP party had.

''That is Chiluba's weakness,'' a Zambian banker from the south said. ''As long as he is a union boss, people will support him and back his efforts to improve their conditions. But if he tried to take power he would find many tribal opponents.''

As the only focus of opposition to Mr. Kaunda, Mr. Chiluba had sought to broaden his power base and had played on the Government's failures to improve social and economic conditions.

In the present standoff, the labor leaders were seeking writs of habeas corpus from the courts, and Mr. Kaunda's lieutenants moved to benefit from their absence by diverting basic commodities from other parts of Zambia to the Copperbelt.

This was to insure that the miners, an elite in the country's society, would not go short of food in the stores and beer in the bars.

Western diplomats regarded the President's actions as only short term measures.

Zambia's ability to go on feeding its people was dependent on $800 million in special drawing rights from the International Monetary Fund. There was some doubt whether the I.M.F. would continue to disburse the money if Zambia did not meet conditions attached to the loans.

Yet the consensus among Western diplomats and Zambian critics of Mr. Kaunda was that he had not fully acknowledged the long-term hazards of discontent among his six million countrymen.

Over the years more food riots in Zambia continued and Mr Chiluba capitalised on this to force President Kaunda to abandon the one party state and call for elections in 1991

Mr Chiluba emerged victorious in a landslide win and was declared the 2nd President of Zambia

source - New York Times and Washington Post