•ZAMBIA’s first Republican President Dr Kenneth Kaunda.

By HUMPHREY NKONDE –
THIS year marks 50 years since Zambia got independence from Britain on October 24, 1964.
However, 2014 offers an opportunity to every citizen to look at the status of monuments, relics, and information relating to the fight against colonialism.
In Kabwe, the house where first President Kenneth Kaunda was elected as president of the Zambian African National Congress (ZANC) in 1958 may undergo total transformation in spite of it having been classified as an independence monument.
Dr Kaunda was on March 8, 1958 elected as the president of ZANC at House Number E 1376 in Kabwe’s Bwacha Township.
In spite of that house having been turned into a national monument, it is no longer in the custody of the National Heritage Conservation Commission  (NHCC).
The Kabwe Municipal Council allowed ordinary occupancy of the monument located near Bwacha Police Station under the housing empowerment scheme of the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD).
The local authority has even issued the occupant of the monument, Dailess Changwe, with a title deed and also approved her re-development plan.
Ms Changwe, said in an interview in Kabwe that she was willing to sell the house to the government so that it can be kept as part of Zambia’s political heritage.
A check at the house found sand and burnt bricks she has organised to complete the transformation of the structure.
“I will pull down this old structure after I build a larger one around it. But before I do that, I would like to offer the government an opportunity to buy it back from me.”
She has, however, delayed re-developing it because she is aware of the house’s history and public interest of preserving it.
Indeed the house is connected to one of the important events leading up to Zambia’s independence and one of the dramatic points in the country’s political history.
Dr Kaunda was elected as president of ZANC at that house after he and others broke away from the defunct African National Congress (ANC), which was led by the late Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula.
Some of the politicians who left ANC together with Dr Kaunda included the late Simon Kapwepwe, Sikota Wina, his late brother Arthur, late Munukayumbwa Sipalo and the late Mukwae Nakatindi.
It is after the latter that Nakatindi Hall in Lusaka has been named. She is the mother of the late Princess Nakatindi Wina, Zambia’s first female Member of Parliament.
After visiting Bwacha Township, the author proceeded to Matero Township in Lusaka on Monze Road and visited House Number 1344, which served as the first headquarters of UNIP from 1959 to 1961.
UNIP was formed after Dr Kaunda and other leaders of ZANC were arrested in March 1959 after the then Governor of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) Sir Arthur Benson banned the latter for taking a militant stance.
Following his arrest, Dr Kaunda was restricted at a house in Kabompo, another classified independence monument under the NHCC.
Due to the lack of publicity and education tours to the independence monument in Matero, even people who live around it do not know its connection to Zambia’s political history and heritage.
The author interviewed many Matero residents who wrongly think that Dr Kaunda lived there.
“This is where Dr Kaunda used to live before Zambia got independence,” a resident of Matero mistook it for House Number 394 in Chilenje, another independence monument, where Dr Kaunda lived from January 1960 to December 1962.
It is only the Chilenje and Kabompo Houses that have retained their independence monument status.
The Matero one has been occupied by one of the workers for the NHCC.
There is need for the monument to retain its original status and can be used, like the Chilenje House, as a repository of Zambia’s political history in form of literature and pictures.
House number 394 in Chilenje, from where Dr Kaunda steered the country  to political independence from Britain, contains a copy of the first constitution of UNIP, the property for Dr Kaunda’s family including sofa, dining table, kitchen utensils, a single metallic bed and wardrobe.
Although memories about last year’s 20th United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) General Assembly are slowly fading, the international event showed how important it is to fund institutions that are repositories of relics, knowledge and culture.
Zambia and Zimbabwe co-hosted the UNWTO General Assembly from August 24 to 29, 2013 in Livingstone and Victoria Falls Town respectively.
Before the international event, Government released K 1 million to Livingstone Museum, which was used to construct a new curio shop, procurement, and installation of a generator for backup power, paving of the front surface and painting of the building.
Livingstone Museum, which is in the custody of the motorcycle that Dr Kaunda used during the struggle for independence, has contributed to research on Zambia’s history.
For instance, we understand how people lived during the Early Stone Age, Late Stone Age and the Iron Age due to archeological projects that Dr Desmond Clark carried out.
Dr Clark is known from history books as an archaeologist, but many do not know that he was the first director of the Livingstone Museum, which was opened in 1934.
Dr Clark worked on excavations at Ing’ombe Ilede and explained the early use of fire at Kalambo Falls, which has helped scholars, researchers and the general public to understand Zambia’s past.
Without paying a courtesy call on the current director Chipo Simuchembu, the author would not have known about the motorcycle in the museum that Dr Kaunda used during the struggle for independence.
It is one relic that needs to feature prominently in the media this year due to its connection to the emancipation of Zambia from British colonialism.
What has featured prominently in the media in the past is the Land Rover that Dr Kaunda used to break the yoke of colonialism.
The vintage vehicle has been displayed by the NHCC outside the first President’s former residence at House No. 394 in Lusaka’s Chilenje Township.
On arrival at the Livingstone Museum, the visitor is greeted by a light military aircraft that was used by the Zambia Air Force to train the first indigenous pilots immediately after Zambia got independence.
The plane attracts people to the museum, but there is danger it may be rusted because it has not been kept under a hangar.
“We are planning to construct a hangar for the plane,” said Mr Simuchembu who spearheaded transformations at Livingstone Museum before Zambia and Zimbabwe co-hosted the 20th UNWTO General Assembly.
The steam traction engine, which is in custody of the Copperbelt  Museum, where Mr Simuchembu was director before he was transferred to Livingstone, has got rusted because it was not kept under a hangar.
There was need for proper preservation of that steam engine, kept outside Lowenthal Theatre in Ndola, as the first form of motorised transport during the early days of British colonialism in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).
As we celebrate Zambia’s independence jubilee this year, there is need for government to channel funds to the NHCC and museums to re-organise the independence monuments, relics and information for the people to understand how Zambia got independence. Ends

(The author is the project leader of the Zambian Insight Media Group that has partnered with the Free Press Unlimited and the Hivos, both of the Netherlands, to produce the first Braille magazine for the blind in Zambia to promote independence of reading because ordinary newspapers are read for them).