Kenneth Kaunda Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
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As you achieved independence and you governed your country, you constantly had to deal with the international economy. The new word is "globalization," the buzz word. It would be interesting for our audience to have you reflect on the vulnerability of a poor country, once it empowers itself to achieve independence, to begin its national politics, to navigate this international economy where suddenly the price of copper, for example, can fall precipitously. Talk a little about the problems that you confront in trying to realize the best intentions because of your dependence on the international economy.
Right. Another good question, Harry. You see, we were not only fighting for independence of Zambia (Northern Rhodesia to become Zambia), we were also very much concerned with seeing to it that our neighbors in that region were becoming independent. Angola, west of us; Mozambique, west of us; Zimbabwe, south of us; Southwest Africa, Namibia today; and of course South Africa itself -- these were being run by colonialists, settlers, apartheid elements in society, people who did not believe that people of all races were God's children, people who believed that they [alone] were put on earth by God. They formed churches which were only for whites and blacks could not go there. So, it became openly apartheid there in the South Africa, [but also] it was there in Zimbabwe, it was there in Angola, Mozambique, and various colonial systems.
We decided that we had no right to say yes, Zambia's independent [and leave it at that]. We had to do what Julius Nyerere, that great son of Africa in Tanzania (Tanganyika in those days), was doing. Julius Nyerere brought in all the liberation movements from these countries and gave them liberation centers in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania. We ourselves were there, Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia. We were there, we had our own offices there. As soon as we became independent it was our duty now to do what Julius Nyerere had been doing. We opened our doors and all liberation movements moved from Tanzania to Zambia. That meant being bombed from time to time by South African war planes. Zimbabwe, Southern Rhodesia in those days, the Portuguese in Angola, the Portuguese in Mozambique, the settlers in Namibia, all these were now attacking Zambia because they wanted us to fear that accommodating liberation movements meant being bombed, bridges being destroyed; you build, they will bomb them again, and so on. Oil places, where you hide your oil, they come and bomb and destroy those. This is what life then was, but it was something we had to do. When God says, "Love they neighbor as thyself," and "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you," there's no choice there, if you understood that. We understood that, we accepted it, we worked together.
One good missionary wrote a book about my humble self and he asked President Nyerere to put an introduction there. And he said in this introduction, "If Kenneth Kaunda and the people of Zambia had decided that it was too difficult," like Dr. Banda in Malawi had done, "we would not participate in the struggle." President Nyerere wrote, "We all would have understood that this was really the right thing for him and the people of Zambia to do." But he said, "They went ahead because they believed in what they were doing." So, you can see that all of our people who understood the situation there were realistic enough to make that point, that it's a very, very difficult situation. But we were committed. It is right that all people, God's children, should be free, should be free from oppression of other people. And today it's wonderful to be able to say yes, we suffered, but the price was worth it, everybody now is free. Yes, we are making mistakes but they are our mistakes, this government's, not foreign people making them for us. So, we're happy with what we did.
So, in a way you're dealing with multiple problems in your role as the first president. You're empowering the people to enjoy their own resources and benefit from them, but at the same time you're recognizing and fighting for the same goals for all your brothers and sisters in other parts of Africa.
Indeed, Harry. It is perhaps important to point this out, that even in countries in Europe, or for example, in America -- I used to go to America to tell them about South Africa, the [situation in] South Africa, to try to explain it to different governments. First one I gave here was to President Carter, a very good personal friend. Harry, that man gave me three days of discussions, and very sympathetic. He understood what we were trying to do and was saying yes, he would help, "We're going to work together, fighting apartheid." Now another one came in through Ronald Reagan ...
From California?
[laughs] From your California. I went again to explain this thing. And I could see differences between the two. There was very little time, but at least I spoke to him for one and a half hours, explaining, "Look, this is the meaning of apartheid to fellow human beings," and so on. He was listening -- I thought he was listening carefully, and at the end he said to me, "Mr. President, let's do business together." That's what he said. Well, President Carter was listening and asking questions, "What can we do here and there and there?" President Reagan, all he could say was, "Mr. President, let's do business together." I think what he meant -- "Let us do business together in South Africa," or other [parts of] Africa, I don't know. But that is all I got from him. And then of course, you have people like Bill Clinton, President Clinton, who's a fighter with us. When I was arrested, by our own president in Zambia, after we left office -- President Clinton sent a powerful message to him: "Either charge him or release him." So, you can see the differences between leaders.
Now to get back to the point -- what I'm trying to say here is, the west, on which copper markets depend, has leaders who may support apartheid or who may be against apartheid. So, for us it was a tragedy when a leader who supported apartheid came to office in Europe. My -- what I call my dancing partner,*[see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Thatcher_kaunda.jpg] Margaret Thatcher, did not support our policies on South Africa. I can tell you one example. When we discovered oil, the presence of oil on our soil in Zambia, an important oil company from America came to join us. They began doing wonderful things there, investing, getting ready to start exploiting our oil resources. Do you know what happened? They appointed somebody called a "resident director" in Zambia.
To manage the oil.
To manage the oil. Exactly. Thank you. And then one day he came to me: "Mr. President, can I invite you to come and see what we are doing by way of exploiting oil in your own country?" I said, "Most welcome." So, I put him on my plane, the government aeroplane; we went to a certain district and found little choppers there, we got into those choppers and went to the place where the exploitation was taking place.
Now, Harry, this was wonderful, really incredible. Big machines here and all over, a real development, and I was saying, "Thank God, thank God. Now copper and oil, now we have power, real power. We'll be able to feed our people, everything we have been doing, even more." After a month or so, I was seeing the shock of my life. All those machines I saw, temporary homes, where had they gone? I learned later that there was cooperation between the two, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. They didn't like this talkative native president of Zambia who is talking so much about South Africa, and so on, all this babble, and so on. "We can't feed him and his people." They paid, understand, some money, how many millions or billions, I don't know. But these people took this company out of Zambia.
When you have situations like that, your copper will only be mined in your country if prices are good. But during my time, when I was talking too much about South Africa, Rhodesia, all these colonial countries, some Western countries did not like that and so they punished me, real punishment, by putting down the prices of copper, and by pulling out people who are going to provide all the money for my schools, my hospitals, and so on. So, you can see the problem that we have.
I hope that some day organizations like the World Bank, IMF, and so on, will be able to perform in accordance with the requirements of the whole world, not just the developed world.
What I hear you saying that it's not just the economic constraints of a poor, small country, but it's the political constraints that they are placed under, especially if the leadership has courage, vision.
Now we're transitioning into a new world of globalization in which at least parts of the world are recognizing the common problems that we all face: poverty, disease, and so on. I know that you are seizing this time to use your political skills and offer a vision that contributes to this. Do you believe that to solve these problems now, one has to turn more and more to the NGOs to address problems such as AIDS and poverty?
I have said, Harry, that there are people like Bill Clinton, my friend Carter, you have many others, these countries in Europe, Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, for that matter, a number of countries like that. And in countries like Britain and America you have all the many citizens, also some in NGOs, church leaders, who stand up against any type of destructive approach to these problems of development. There are investors who invest, but if they don't have the right approach to problems they'll not use that money also to help. [They want to] make profits, and I accept that. Investors, Harry, are investing to make money, make profits. It's welcome, it's right, it should be so. But once you make profits at the expense of a people whose copper, whose oil, whose this and that you're exploiting, you leave them completely with nothing, I cannot accept that type of thing at all. I'll fight that [even] if I would lose. When I was in office I listened to this type of thing, I didn't accept. When I took a stand on apartheid in South Africa, Rhodesia, and so on, copper prices in the eighties went down miraculously. And we understood, we understood. And so, these things do happen.
But I'm not saying all people in Europe or in America are bad, no. I've told you two places I knew: the first man who introduced me to good politics was Abraham Lincoln. I read about him. He has influenced me very much indeed. So, to me, color is immaterial. A human being -- God says, "Love thy neighbor." This neighbor is not defined in terms of color. He's not defined in terms of tribe, not even in terms of faith. All of us are God's children. He loves us. I was very happy when President Bush kindly invited me to be present when he was announcing his global fund.
The Millennium Fund.
Yes. I was very happy, I was grateful. When I approached them I hoped that fund would be able to support my program, but I'm not taking that for granted, that President Bush's organization can support me. Once I go to them and give them my submission this is what I want to do, because I think it's right, it's good, he will support it. That's why I think he invited me to his launch of that good program. So, this is how the world is. That's how I see it. But the most important thing, Harry, is for us to accept that we must work together in this world. I'm here, for example, to respond to the call by an important organization which has been working with us in Zambia.
This is Project Concern International ...
Precisely.
... which has several projects in Zambia, one focusing on vulnerable young people and supporting them, and the other is working with the Zambian military to fight AIDS.
Right. They do a wonderful job in Zambia. Therefore, when they kindly invited me to be honored to go with the fifty other organizations which they are going to honor, I readily accepted that, and I thanked God that there was an organization like that which could recognize, not only recognize but also show to the world that they were appreciative of what type of things my colleagues and I are doing in our organization, and the other colleagues in other projects, fifty of them, who were also being honored. That is a great move, I think.
We should mention you have an NGO which is focused on the same kinds of problems called the Africa Children Foundation.
Yes, it's called the Kenneth Kaunda Children of Africa Foundation. We are fighting HIV and AIDS. Maybe you can come see my map [holding map] [website: http://www.kkcaf.org/] -- fighting AIDS at the Zambian flag down there, and up there it's fighting tuberculosis, not yet malaria, but we'll soon be joining them. We have a battle fighting malaria, also. We are doing that because we consider children as our future; any world, any country, anyplace on earth, the future [depends] on what we do with children. So, I appreciate very much the work of my colleagues for inviting me, and for what this organization, the Project Concern International organization, is doing in Zambia and elsewhere.
There's a continuity in our conversation. You're talking about the empowerment of your own people, their realizing their national identity, the leaders of Zambia trying to navigate the international waters to help their own people, and in this new era it almost seems like people like yourself have to bring your vision and your charisma and interface with the technical competencies that might lie in the international realm to address these problems. What do we have to watch as we do this? Because we want to respect all that's been achieved by the people themselves in building their own world, but on the other hand, powers like the United States and Europe have an obligation to help.
Yes, that's true, Harry. What you are saying is true. A project called FAIR International is a wonderful example of what you're talking about [http://www.fairinternational.org/]. They can't do that on their own, alone. That's why in their wisdom they identify other organizations such as the ones they are now going to honor here, to invest in parts of the world, especially Africa. They go there, they do some work on their own, and they also identify people who are doing something similar or who can do something similar to what they would like to do.
So, it's a joint effort across anything artificial, just realizing and accepting that the human being is one, God's child, man east, man west, man north, man south. No woman should be angry with me that I'm leaving out the woman. It is every human being, east, west, north, south, and all of them must be looked after by all of us. Those who will do something must come together and do something about this. So, that's why I'm saying that. The world is not lost yet to the concept of Christ, of loving across anything artificial. And as I said, I've good faith: these neighbors could be Muslims, could be Jews, could be Hindus, could be anything else, but accept they are God's children. If they are in need, go there, if you can help, go there and assist.
This is how I see this world, Harry. I appreciate greatly Americans, Europeans, Indians, everyone who can cross barriers and go out and assist where it is required, assist fellow human beings in aiding in today's world. Much needed. Just before I came out here we were talking about teaching children in Africa, in Zambia today, who weren't there before during our time. They're in school, all at school. They built schools for them. They didn't have enough schools. So, they're in the streets, and this is painful. And we say now, what can we do, Kenneth Kaunda Children of Africa Foundation. We can't do it alone, we come here and this organization honors me, honors fifty others, a wonderful thing to do.
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