Talk:Luapula Province border dispute

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''CHIENGE IN THE ZAMBIA–CONGO DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC (DRC) BORDER ISSUE A PART OF CHIENGE’S RICH LEGACY: Some historical notes from the National Archives. Researchwork done by Dr and Mrs Katele Kalumba. 1996 updated 25th January 2004.

Article 1 Clause 1 of the Zambian Constitution states “ Zambia is a unitary, indivisible, multiparty and democratic sovereign State”. And so the case of Chienge District in Luapula Province must be heard. We submit herein that case. It is also understood that a President swears an oath of office to protect the “territorial integrity” of Zambia. Yet in 1989, President Kaunda apparently agreed to give away to Mobutu, 95 square kilometres of viable and valuable Zambian land including the Lunchinda-Pweto enclave considered as part of Chienge which the British colonial authorities fought to defend for nearly a century from 1864 to 1964. Zambia rejects this unconstitutional give away of land and notes that no democratically elected Parliament ratified such a scandalous Agreement with the corrupt Mobutu regime and therefore our government must restore our sovereignty to the pre-1989 status. Worse, The Vice President Mr Nevers Mumba admitted to Parliament on 21st of January 2004 that no provision was given to the people in the Lunchinda-Pweto enclave of Chienge to decide on nationality issues in 1989 thereby violating their constitutional rights and depriving them of their birth right. Government appears uncertain on the exact border position on the Chienge-Pweto axis. No border demarcation activities have taken place and in fact, the Lunchinda-Pweto enclave is currently occupied by rebels defiant of the UN authorities, thus subjecting the Bwile people who were forcibly alienated from Zambia in 1989 to be subject to various war crimes and atrocities.

Chienge northern border has been, and still continues to be a contested one. In line with the OAU Declaration on Border Disputes, Chienge’s north-western boundary point remains, as defined in the Lands Survey department, Ministry of Lands following the Chienge District definition: at the point were the Luvua or (Lualaba) leaves lake Mweru in the town of Pweto and not the Lunchinda River which is almost 33 kilometres inside Zambian territory. Local people in Pweto can point to the beacon, where they historically knew the boundary of Northern Rhodesia to be. The boundary of Chienge District should not, must not and shall not be conceded to Congolese Sovereignty by the sheer fact of a de facto occupation by the colonial Belgium authorities. The territory south of the Kashengeneke Beacon near the Ruvua remains occupied Zambian territory and as Chienge we believe the Zambian government has an obligation to liberate this piece of land as a matter of sovereignty and constitutional obligation as defined under Article 1 of the Constitution. Accounts to justify the alienation of this mineral rich Zambian territory are not supported by historical evidence and political and economic prudence. Evidence from the historical archives clearly attest to Zambia’s right of claim of ownership of this territory and the effort to alienate it to the Congolese under the corrupt Mobutu government by the Kaunda regime was unconstitutional. The people of Chienge would like the Zambian government to declare the Charles Manyema Report and its consequent Zambia-Congo Delimitation Treaty of 1989 whose ratification by Parliament or implementation has not been achieved null and void and re-engage the Congolese government into a more rational negotiation to reclaim viable Zambian territory. It is a failure of negotiation to seek to swap highly viable territory with thalwegs on the Luapula River, which have no known economic value. Zambia as a nation must reject this scandalous give away of our land.''

Charles Matthews 22:22, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I've been reading around this subject, and it's quite interesting. However, there seems to be no real order about what is included and what is kept out. I think the article needs to be cleaned up and some order imposed on it. There also seems to be no attempt to ensure NPOV, with most of the details sounding like belly-aching by a Zambian with vested interests. Furthermore, the material given above seems to be original research, which isn't allowed in Wikipedia, or is it?

Mungo 05:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Too true. It appears to have been added all by a single anonymous editor, and it does have problems with WP:OR, WP:V, WP:NPOV, even if, as you noted, the subject is quite interesting, and very little known.--Aldux 11:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Given the poor formatting of the original version, I suspect a cut-paste copyvio. The original header says "CHIENGE IN THE ZAMBIA–CONGO DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC (DRC) BORDER ISSUE A PART OF CHIENGE’S RICH LEGACY: Some historical notes from the National Archives.  Researchwork done by Dr and Mrs Katele Kalumba. 1996 updated 25th January 2004."  Unless it was Katele Kalumba himself who uploaded it. jnestorius(talk) 18:03, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there a dispute at all any more?
I have been trying to find references on this topic and have come to the conclusion that there is no Luapula Province border dispute, and what there was, was quite minor. It seems that it was settled by Kaunda decades ago, and the author of the article, from Chiengi district, doesn't like that settlement, but no-one else is pushing it. The article provides a lot of detail, some of it historically interesting, but has a hard time making a case. I'm not saying that any of it is wrong, just that it omits facts such as the matter being regarded as settled. Otherwise most of it seems to have the ring of truth but there are some odd things -- for instance, the missions listed under "Missions In Chienge" aren't in that district, they are not even close. Then there's the odd final lists. As far as I can tell this is what happened regarding the border: --1890s: the Mweru-Tanganyika border between the BSAC territory and Congo Free State was agreed to as from the north bank of the Luvua where it exits Mweru to Cape 'Akalunga' as listed by Stanley in his published journals. --1892 onwards: Belgain authorities set up a post at Pweto on the north bank of the Luvua where it exits Mweru, and ignore the fact that in theory their lake frontage is in Rhodesia; and in the absence of a BSAC post they administer the lake shore to the east, even though it's Rhodesian. --1914: The Anglo-Belgian border commision finishes the first border survey but can't find Cape Akalunga; Stanley's geographical notes weren't the best. So they agree a point in the area. --Up to the end of the colonial era, the British let the de facto situation continue, that the Belgians (and Greek fishermen) in Pweto carry on as if the Pweto lake shore and the land east up to the Lunchinda River 9 km east are their territory -- a triangle of about 36 sq km. In Northern Rhodesia they don't want to push the Belgians on this point since they have got Kilwa Island on the lake over Belgian claims, and they need Belgian agreement to the Congo Pedicle Road. --After independence, Kaunda agrees that the border should exit the lake at the Lunchinda River 9km east of Pweto, run about 8 km north-east, then go straight to a point on Lake Tanganyika between Cape Pundu and Cape Kisimbi. The Chiengi-Pweto Road therefore crosses the border at the Lunchinda River. And this appears to be the current situation. I have looked extensively in the Northern Rhodesia Journal and the Times of Zambia and done lots of Google searches but can't find any reference to the border being under dispute to any extent, and I don't remember anything beyond the usual minor border incidents up there when I lived in Luapula (I did once have an AK47 shoved in my face just south of the border but that was by a Zambian paramilitary policeman). Can anyone else find a reference which says that it is still an issue? If not I propose to remove all the current article to the discussion and replace it with the points above.Rexparry sydney 13:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Playing politics
The origin of this article appears to be political. As noted above, the research was done by Katele Kalumba, who is none other than former MP for Chiengi and MMD politician who became Minister of Health in the Chiluba government of the 90s, followed by various portfolios, finally Foreign Minister in the Mwanawasa government in 2002. However, from 2003 onwards there were allegations of corruption, alleged theft of a BMW, and finally the notorious underpants-and-witchcraft scandal of 2003. He was arrested after hiding out in a tent in Chiengi district for three months with a solar-powered laptop and witchcraft charms to make himself invisible, while being hunted by police not wearing underpants to counteract said charms. I am not making this up, if I get time I'll do an article on Dr Kalumba, he sounds like a character (but please go ahead, anyone else). Anyway, the Kaunda government had signed a treaty with Zaire just before Chiluba & MMD got into power, and Kalumba started a campaign against the treaty which had given away the Lunchinda enclave to Mobutu, but there may also have been an element of having a go at KK. There is some stuff on this on the National Assembly website but lots to wade through there. Rexparry sydney 02:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Rexparry Sydney's contribution to this issue violates the guidelines on WikipediA talk." I am not used to sitting in a sewer and adding to it" as Algernon Swinburne (1837-1909) would have put it. The politics of Zambia including its tyrannical tendencies against perceived adversaries are now well known. The courts threw away most of the nonsense, Sidney refers to.The legal matters have a forum. The issue of "playing politics" with the border issue is marred by the sordid dramatics of a demented and phobic stately and Sidney seems to enjoy participating in it. If the border dispute was settled by the 1989 Delimitation Treaty between then Dictators Mobutu and Kaunda ( truly reformed man now), why did Laurent Kabila and Chiluba start setting up an expert team to review it in 1999? Further, why was it debated inconclusively in the Zambian Parliament in 1994? Where are the beacons of such delimitation? Mr Rexparry Sidney is unaware of the history of the subject matter and it well be useful to avoid imputing motives and the cesspool dramatics of Zambian politics. In 1959, District Commission Thompson in a letter to Fort Rosebery clearly refused to concede Lunchinda as a border. He called it a de facto border delimiting the boundaries between Chief Pweto and Puta in Congo and Zambia respectively.He even refused to put up a customs post. The map he drew clearly confirmed his official position that Pweto was the "de jure " border.


 * Borders issues are complex matters and the current Zambian constitution being debated (or which has created some controverse) has highlighted the fact that no piece of Zambian land shall be alienated to a foreign sovereinty. The 1989 Delimitation violated a number of international laws on bounderies and on the rights of indigeneous people. It further violated the principle that the Queen of England could not give away an island on Lake Samfya as a birth day Present to King Leopord when Northern Rhodesia was not a colony but a protectorate? It was the island Zambian negotiators were unaware of that the Congolese used to wish to batter away the richer estate of Lunchinda-Mpweto enclave. It is also clear Mr Sidney comes counsel for the other side when he uses an AK47 in his face as evidence that there have been only minor incidents when more encroachment has happened even after the 1989 Delimitation treaty. BMW, tramped corrupt charges, police underpants do not resolve the questions the border issue raises. Intellect will help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KAKA MSIMANGO (talk • contribs) 04:55, January 27, 2014‎ (UTC)