The Long-lasting fallout of Shock & Awe – Lumwana Mine.

Shock and Awe is a term recently invigorated by the Bush administration’s initial military strategy in Iraq. The term defines the show of great strength and the rapid dominance that will

"Impose this overwhelming level of Shock and Awe against an adversary on an immediate or sufficiently timely basis to paralyze its will to carry on . . . to seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary's perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels."

The Lumwana mine project may not be a military maneuver, however its design and execution smacks of the shock and awe strategy.
After acquiring financing that the mine managing director Hurry Michael calls

“ the largest debt finance package in Africa, five international financial institutions from different countries which include South Africa, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Canada have agreed to lend us US$584 million for the development of the project," Post Zambia ( I think this is an overstatement, there are bigger debt package by the Chinese and others).

Equinox the foreign owners dominate the land and copper deposits in Lumwana by a hundred percent and have brought in the largest means to extract the copper.

Michael says Lumwana mine would be among the largest copper mines in the world as evidenced by the equipment that would be used at the mine.
This mine will have the largest mills and to run these mills we will need 18 mega watts of power to run each mill, three times power consumption of the of Solwezi.

In the face of this huge display of shock and awe by Equinox, Solwezi district commissioner Albert Chifita and the local people, indeed have much to be fearful of -

"The Kabwe scenario would not be repeated in Solwezi, as you may be aware that the closure of Kabwe mine in June, 1994 brought the economy of the town to its knees and everything in the area changed drastically." ALbert Chifita

The poor are at some risk of not participating in the economic opportunities of mining while bearing many of the costs as well as risks that result from the introduction of a mine in an undeveloped area such as Lumwana.


Chifita explains that government knows that minerals are wasting assets and cannot be relied upon forever adding that government was trying to diversify the economy by emphasizing on agriculture and tourism as a mode of diversification.

Mr. Chifita may be a noble pragmatist in hoping the local people should look into agriculture and tourism as the long term economic activity for the area; however the sheer scale of this mining activity in the area ensures that this remains as the current and future counterpoint of the local economy.
Agriculture, Tourism and other economic activity may thrive during the lifespan of the mine but will they withstand the absence of the multitudes that have been drawn to the area by this huge short term mining activity?

The region lies vulnerable to fallout of shock and awe - the choice of quick profit over sustainable progress.
The rapid construction, commencement of mining and associated population increase does not allow the local to plan or develop sufficient capacity to ensure long lasting benefits from this interaction. Instead the more immediate and transient demands of accommodation and consumables like food, shops etc have boomed.
Because of scale it is usually beyond the capacity of local businesses to meet the demand of high cost business needs like equipment and recurring business needs; hence supply of these needs is outsourced, giving the real business opportunities to outsiders.

Despite Mr. Michael’s pronouncements of good intent that measures will be in place to protect people and the environment from the negative effects and risks of large scale mining, the local people must always be mindful that the implementers of shock and awe have little attachment to local causes and always preclude themselves from legal liability of environmental disasters such as accidental river pollution.

Unless the Zambian government or the local administration take bold and decisive measures to regain dominance –

i) In regulating the framework of business activity between the mine and local economy and ensure local businesses are not marginalized.
ii) Regulate and enforce environmental safety standards now and post mining period.
iii) Local land administration - zoning and property taxes collection to ensure local population also access utilities water, energy.
iv) Support local capacity to develop agriculture, tourism and craft/art through grants and resource personnel.

The people of Lumwana may yet find themselves as the Broken Hill people without copper or a mainstay economy in forty years.

Cry my beloved Zambia!

The Tonga have a proverb buchente buliha kabi (poverty will make you, eat dirty things).
Last week, I spent some time reading the SCIAF report on Zambia (http://www.sciaf.org.uk/news/2007_news/don_t_undermine_development_in_zambia ) and weighing former finance minister Nawakwi and others’ rebuttal at accusations of participating, in the rape of Zambia’s most vulnerable. These reading in of themselves, make me sick with nostalgia, anger and brazen wrath at the likes of Nawakwi, Kalumba, Magande, Chiluba and Mwanawasa.

If vultures and flies can perceive and detect rottenness from miles away, how could these men and woman, to whom the Zambian people despite their abject poverty have availed every possible resource (hefty pays, slush fund, SUVs etc) to avert their abuse and exploitation, fail to see this coming?

Lumwana fires 100 workers
One hundred and two workers at Lumwana Mine's Group Five construction in Solwezi, North Western Province have been fired for complaining about excessive pay deductions. ZNBC.

The workers at Lumwana mine are the most vulnerable in Zambia, because the mine is a 100% foreign owned. It is as though this mine is standing on, no man’s land, right within the Zambian borders. How did such a thing, happen to a people whose right and privilege it is, to own and exploit this copper?
Ironically I have found out that, Equinox did not even buy the 49%, usually held by GRZ, directly from the Zambian government. No my countrymen, Equinox by 2004 only owned 50% of the Lumwana project, they later purchased a further 49% from a Zambian registered American corporation Phelps Dodge mining (Zambia) ltd. (http://www.infomine.com/index/pr/Pa272620.PDF)
And so, Kashikulu asks, did we as Zambians ever own or indeed lay claim to any part of this land in Lumwana on which so much copper resides?
If we as Zambians ever laid claim, how did we come to this low almost insignificant position in the Lumwana mining arrangement?

At this point, I remember the woman and her two year old daughter that sat and begged for alms, daily at the main post office in Lusaka, several years ago. The woman must not have been successful in begging because her two years soon took matters into her own hands and forcibly grabbed anyone that passed by with food or ice cream.

It appears the Zambian people in regard to their appointed guardians (Ministers and President) are at a similar crossroad; do we as Zambians sit by and starve as our weak government continues to beg and invite our abuse or should we as a people take matters in our hands and claim what is rightfully ours?

Even the World Bank, from whom our government has done the most begging and suffered still the most abuse, is now feed up…

WORLD Bank country manager, Kapil Kapoor has called for prudence in borrowing to ensure that Zambia does not fall back into another debt trap.
Speaking at a media breakfast meeting in Lusaka yesterday, Dr Kapoor said borrowing was not bad as long as the borrower had good intentions for using the borrowed resources.
He said Zambia must learn from other countries that had transformed their economies by prudently using the borrowed money.
‘‘It is very important that we know why we are borrowing, and once this is done Zambia will not go into a debt trap again,’’ he said. Times of Zambia.


When are we as Zambians going to get it, haven’t we suffered and cried enough?

Lead poisoning in Kabwe

Zambia' s economic outlook is slowing getting better, however the ghosts from its past economic failures - stretch their terrible shadows everywhere. In Kabwe the threat from the collapsed lead mining venture is present and needs desperate attention from ALL Zambians abroad. We can NOT just express dismay or disgust as children and adults expose their fragile bodies to lead poisoning. Lead poisoning has grave effects including reduced IQ, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, behavioral problems, stunted growth, impaired hearing, and kidney damage. At high levels of exposure, a child may become mentally retarded, fall into a coma, and even die from lead poisoning.
Al Jazeera has this recent report by Yvonne Ndege.....

Kabwe is a wasteland full of the remnants of Zambia's once glorious mining past.
Decades of unregulated mining, however, have turned Kabwe into Africa's most toxic town.
Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege travelled to Kabwe, about 150km north of the capital, Lusaka, and filed this report.
Abandoned by industry in 1994, former workers still come to Kabwe in search of lead and other metals to sell, to scrape a living.
Exclusive report
Watch Al Jazeera's report on Zambia's toxic town Alex, a father of four has been working here illegally for years. He thinks he already has lead poisoning and that, eventually, it will kill him.
"It's dangerous," he said. "But its just to help our family to survive."
Mines in Kabwe were built and operated without health and safety concerns or environmental regulation. As a result, Zambia's people are now facing the consequences.
Families in the area have been warned not to drink water from wells in their garden. Source Al Jazeera

Zambians in the US, UK and other countries can take the following actions;

• Initiate written or verbal petitions with Zambian mission to cause the Zambian government to condone off the Kabwe mine deposits by whatever means necessary including police deployment.
• Begin purchasing Lead poison testing kits to send to Kabwe through Zambia mission.
• Initiate fundraising projects to support safe income generating ventures for those affected.
• Lobby international agencies that might support cleaning up the mine deposits.

Please feel free to add other ways to help, you can make a difference for the children in Kabwe.