World Watching And Politics

Cambodia Today

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Pol Pot, the architect of one of the most brutal and radical revolutions that had its origins in Beijing China, was never brought to international justice. He died in 1989 from Malaria (or some say a massive heart attack). Some of his cohorts are running free; some are in jail in Phnom Penh.

The guesthouse where I was staying offered motorcycle tours to Pol Pot’s house and grave about four hours from Siem Reap but knowing that there are still a few thousand Khmer Rouge out there and knowing they hate the Americans I decided to stay put. Today Hun Sen of the Cambodian People’s Party, who destroyed all his opposition with political guile and cunning and likes to be called The Strongman of Cambodia, was elected Prime Minister in 1998, amid rioting and demonstrating, but recently seems to be a force for stability. There will be another election in 2003.

The People
Even though the country is very poor, the Cambodian people are surprisingly open, cheerful and friendly…busily going about their business on bicycles and motorcycles…scars lying just beneath the surface by years of conflict and the legacy of an estimated four to six million landmines dotting the countryside awaiting new victims. As many as 40,000 Cambodians have lost limbs due to mines…the highest per capita rate in the world…about one in 250 people. But they are reserved and guarded with foreigners…those human ATM machines.

At the Goldiana Hotel in Phnom Penh, the desk folder contained 7 double sided pages of Non Governmental Organizations with 35 NGO’s listed on each page…all attempting in one way or another to undue the ravages of war…providing over 70% of the income of the country.

It is heartening to see children gleefully playing marbles in the street and friends laughing over a beer in a sidewalk cafe…life bravely continuing on. We still prefer to eat at sidewalk food stalls, many of which are really extensions of the family kitchen that is all moved back inside at the end of the day. We did stop in one restaurant for Bob’s favorite drink, iced coffee and my favorite drink, Lemon Juice, to find that as many as 35 older children from the countryside lived and worked there so of course Bob entertained them all with his camcorder…their giggling and laughing…

Repression & The People

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Next door to the restaurant in Taunggyi I struck up a conversation with a young university student who was tending a a small bookstore. “Can everyone speak (out) in America,” he asked. “Yes, we can,” I said, thinking I will not tell him about “politically correct” speech that I consider just as fascist as the rules perpetrated by his government.

A few people, forbidden to talk about politics with foreigners, tried oblique approaches to the subject. One man with delicious donuts on a platter came up to me at the market and said to me in perfect English that he used to be a teacher. Then he disappeared and returned a few minutes later with his wife who wanted to meet me. “She wants to go to America-so bad,” he said. I made several attempts to ask him to have tea and then dinner with us but was disappointed when he looked furtively around him and told me he couldn’t do that. The government has forbidden the people to talk to foreigners about politics but they are afraid to be seen talking to you at all as it could mean trouble for them.

However, in Bagan our hired tour guide for a day to view the pagodas, told me that some Americans once told him that that there was a lot of fighting in Burma but that he reassured them there was no fighting in his country. I bit my tongue thinking of the BBC special the night before that described the fighting between the ethnic minorities and the military near the Thai border where camps harbored thousands of refugees. American and European doctors regularly cross the border under cover of fire to care for the Karen tribal people who are suffering from a government policy of ethnic cleansing by burning their villages and killing the people outright or overworking them to death in forced labor groups. “I’ll bet he is a government informer,” I said to Bob. “I think so too,” Bob said.

The next morning as I am waiting for my breakfast in the top floor restaurant I watch as two monks enter the alley below on their early morning rounds. They stand outside the gate of a house and wait for the owner to come out. After a few minutes a woman does and immediately drops to her knees and bows with her head down to the ground. The older monk appears to give her a blessing and a few words. She stays on her knees as they walk to the next house where a man comes out with some food but he doesn’t get on his knees.

The People
Everyone assumes you are well intentioned. If you give them a smile you will immediately get one back-without guile or expectation. Waiters in restaurants wait on you with respect like altar boys at mass-putting the plate down slowly and respectfully in front of you.

Poverty, Government Greed and Human Sweetness

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August 18, 2002 Rangoon (renamed Yangon)
We took Thai Air to Rangoon. Bob left his Lonely Planet Guidebook Burma (renamed Myanmar by the military junta) on the plane and of course someone had pocketed it by the time we debarked. But we remembered the Yoma Hotel downtown and headed there in a taxi…discovering how the locals get free rides when a guy jumped in our taxi with us for the ride into the city.

At the Yoma a French Canadian couple at dinner loaned us their LP so we couldlocate a bookstore somewhere in the city. Incidently the guidebook says that Lonely Planet is outlawed by thegovernment in that country…but lo and behold we found one…at a government gift shop/ bookstore no less…the Myanmar Book Centre…for the hefty price of $30 for a book that has a sticker price of $17….but hey, we have to admit we felt lost without it so we were stuck paying the money.

I was pretty much cut off from email and the internet; the government does not allow anyone the use of the internet-even tourists. They only allow businesses to have access and it was extremely disconcerting for the hotel to tell me I could not click on the browser to get my web-based email. The hotel had their own email address that I could use on Outlook Express, they told me! That was no help of course because all my email addresses were on the web.

Rangoon (Yangon) is the only city in Burma, I was to discover, that had access to the internet. All of this restriction, of course, is government control to limit access of the populace to international information.

Watching the street scene outside the hotel window that first evening I see bare-footed boys playing soccer on the sidewalk and a line of bare-shouldered monks in maroon colored robes banging a gong as they marched single file down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Bicycle rickshaws with side chairs weave in and out of traffic..there are no motorbikes or auto rickshaws here…it is heavenly…a third boy in thongs has joined the soccer game.

The next day walking down the sidewalk I am stopped by the sign of an old man nuzzling a tiny baby while carrying it. More barefooted monks carry louvered or round food bowls on their daily rounds. They usually carry a large fan the same color as their robes that they hold up to their faces.

Having called ahead we took a taxi later to the bookstore to bargain for our Lonely Planet guidebook. The taxi driver and I laughed when I pointed to the steering wheel; he had used his horn so much he had worn a hole through the vinyl in one spot! After checking out the outrageous prices for the ethnic artifacts in the museum/bookstore we walked next door to a very nice hotel. The Prime Minister of Malaysia happened to be in town and there was a trade exposition at the hotel. Found out the most common kind of oil the people use for cooking is Palm oil which isn’t even considered a food in the U.S!

One afternoon we decided to check out the American Embassy and register our presence in the country but when we found the building it was cordoned off with guards stationed around it and we were told we could visit an out-station about 20 minutes away by taxi. Needless to say we scrapped that idea.

Then walking past St. Mary’s Cathedral compound we decided to go in and pay a visit; we were greeted by Ms. Bernadette Ba Tin, a matronly woman who showed us the inside of the church (very unique interior-looked like Arafat’s headdress) and told us her life story. She had been in the military as a young woman but when they wanted her to spy and report on people she took the recommendation of her father and got out. “I was mean,” she said. “I would kick and pinch and hit people. But I’m not like that now.” She retired a couple years ago as the editor of a Catholic publication and they gave her the job of watching and cleaning the church in exchange for her room and board. We exchanged addresses; after all my middle name is Bernadette.

Asane’s Taxi Tour

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In Mumbai, we took a three-hour government sponsored tour in an Indian-made Ambassador car with “Indian A/C” which is a fan that sits on the dashboard. While we were waiting for Bob to run back to the hotel for the camera, Asane explained a bit about the Hindu ceremony (puja) that was taking place at a covered altar at the edge of the parking lot of the tour company a few feet away.

Asane is Catholic and he pays a fee for his children to go to school. His wife is a teacher but he says he forbids her to work because “who will stay home with the children?” Later he explained that his extended family (3 families) all live in housing joined together. I thought to myself that there was possibility here of shared child care but I did not ask.

I told Asane that I have practiced traditional meditation many years and then he wanted to know if I knew Rajneesh! Oh no, I said! But he was in my state, I said, and then asked him if the papers here made a big deal about the Rajneesh in India. Yes, he said, he was very rich and not a very good man and India ran him out of the country! Yes, I said, Oregon did too. Even though Rajneesh is dead, his ashes are kept at the Osho Commune International that is still doing a big business of running expensive meditation courses and New Age techniques about 4 hours away by train in Pone (Poona). Lonely Planet says that order to meditate at the commune you must fill out an application form, “prove HIV-negative by an on-the spot test and buy 3 swanky tunics…”

Open Air Laundry
Asane says we won’t see this anywhere else in the world! Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat is an open air laundry where some 5000 dhobi-wallahs use rows of troughs and giant concrete tubs of water that stretch as far as the eye can see to soak, scrub and beat the heck out of thousands of pieces of soiled clothes. The dhobi-wallahs pick up the clothes in the morning and at the end of the day deliver them on their handcarts to their owners. The laundry is over 100 years old and each dhobi-wallah owns his own business-renting his four foot by eight foot tub from the government that provides clean water every morning and that by evening is fllthy dirty.

Terrorism
We asked Asane whether he thought there would be war between Pakistan and Kashmir. He said “no, otherwise we are finish. After war we don’t have business!” Pakistan wants Kashmir, he says, because it is the most beautiful place in India and lots of tourists bring in a lot of money.

Then Bob asked him what he thought of America being in Afghanistan. He said that it was a good thing for America to be stopping terrorism everywhere-that small countries cannot defend themselves in the face of this kind of threat, although there was a scathing editorial against the “New Imperialism” and “Bellicose Bush” in the next day’s India Times newspaper. Asane asked Bob if people in America were afraid of more terrorism. Not surprisingly Bob and I gave opposite answers-he saying that everyone was very afraid and I said that people were going about their business as usual even though they knew there would be a good chance of another attack.

Jain Festival
Asane took us to a local festival at a Jain Temple. The Jains believe that only by achieving complete purity of the soul can one attain liberation and that fundamental to the right behavior is ahimsa (nonviolence) in thought and in deed. They are strict vegetarians; everyone in the temple wore a cloth mask when performing their pujas to avoid the risk of breathing in a bug or mosquito. I was particularly touched by a young boy of about 14 and his younger brother who was reverently bowing before the puja table wearing a Billabong T-shirt.

Otjiwarongo Cheetah Camp

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June 5, 2002
The next morning James drives us back to Outjo, the small predominantly German/Afrikaner town we had stayed in before and we buy apple strudel and real drip coffee in the bakery and scarf it up during a 10 minute email check on one of the two terminals. Then on to the Cheetah Camp for lunch and tent set-up.

The camp is owned and operated by an Afrikaner farm family who is trying to conserve some of the only 2000 Cheetahs left in Namibia. We all pile into the back of Mario’s pick-up and he drives us to the homestead a couple miles away. As we walk through the gates we see four Cheetahs pacing back and forth across the lawn. We are led around to the back of the house with Cheetah’s dashing unexpectedly back and forth-sometimes brushing our legs-one dashed at me and clamped his teeth softly around my ankle-releasing a flood of adrenalin!

Bob whispers in my ear that we are probably going to get hit up for a donation while Mario and his dad pet the Cheetahs. He approaches us one-by-one and asks if anyone wants to come pose with a Cheetah for a picture. A few have their picture taken.

Then Mario disappears and the Cheetahs start pacing expectantly. Bob says there is going to be a surprise…and sure enough Mario comes back with a bucket full of meat chunks which he throws to the Cheetahs to catch with their powerful jaws in mid-air. All this time some of us notice sheep and goats bleating nervously in the field outside the yard…then after a few hat and stick throwing and catching we are taken in the back of the pick-up again to some large fenced areas near the camp area and watch as Mario throws large pieces of meat to the wild Cheetahs.

At the end of the demonstration Mario disappears and returns with a baby Cheetah that is less than a week old-the oooohhhs and aaaaahhhhhs go up-especially when he nuzzles it with his chin…but…but…questions will be answered in the bar in ten minutes he says.

Then we get a fairly passionate pitch from the young good looking ex rugby player: Cheetahs are recognized as an endangered species everywhere except in Namibia and the farmers are killing them off to keep them out of their livestock. The problem is, he says, that Namibia has passed some laws that prevent Cheetahs from being trapped and sold to parks and game reserves-instead the laws require that any trapped Cheetah has to be neutered. It’s bullshit, he repeats angrily over and over.

So Mario and his family are running an illegal operation…this is Africa he says when questioned…as long as you are careful you can play the game…Mario and his family believes that by working for years with Cheetahs they have learned some game management techniques that the so-called authorities do not learn from “the books” one of which is that Cheetahs will breed in captivity if they are happy. But what is “captivity” he asks…even the Etosha National Park is fenced he says…

At the end he asks for donations in return for being on a email list…his goal he says is reaching the outside world and the media. I think of two things that would be good for him to do. Form a non-profit organization so that he is above reproach as far as money is concerned and so that donations can be tax deductible. Also no reputable media association is going to be able make his case for him until someone with credentials-not associated with the environmental groups that he thinks are in cahoots with the political entities of the country-comes in and studies his game management. Bob looks at me and says what he needs is a good grant writer…I ask him if he wants to live in Namibia but he doesn’t reply. In the end I give Mario US $5 to help pay for the donkey meat he feeds the game because I want to be on his mail list-and I want the recipes for the homemade Afrikaner squash boats, curried cabbage and pickled beets that is served with the spit lamb after the talk.

Mario will stay up as long as he can sell the rest of the campers shots of everything alcoholic on his shelf…we hear laughing and talking coming from the partiers in the bar until early morning! The next day on the road Heather is sick again…

Meeting Mario and his family gives us our first contact with rural Afrikaner farm culture. Working the land makes you very down to earth and practical anyway. However, Mario had an independent attitude that reminded me of my dad. When he sold the ranch in southern Oregon and bought a small acreage near Salem to be near his only grandchildren, I told him that since he no longer had a Caterpiller cat to dig his own garbage hole, that he would have to take his garbage to the local landfill. But he came back with the first load he took! “They wanted me to pay to dump my garbage” he said disgustedly. “The hell with them!” So after that Bob and I had to take my parents’ garbage to the landfill for them.

We head south and then west across Namibia. The topography is flat desert with dunes. The closer we get to the coast the colder it gets until we see the crummy weather up ahead hovering the shore. Even though the Kumuka Truck left camp at 5am we pass it parked at the side of the road having lunch in the harsh wind. We honk as we pass and exchange The Finger. The kids all laugh.

Then finally the arrow-straight road on the flat African pan that we have been on for the last five hours ends flat out at a right angle with the beach!

Buffalo Fence & Planet Baobab

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May 27, 2002
We see the 3000km of 1.5 meter high “Buffalo Fence” along side the road on the way to Okavango Delta in Botswana. It’s actually a series of high-tensile steel wire barriers that run through some of Botswana’s wildest terrain. They were first erected in 1954 to segregate wild buffalo herds from domestic free-range cattle and thwart the spread of foot and mouth disease. However, no one has yet proved that the disease is passed from species to species.

The problem is that the fences not only prevent contact between wild and domestic bovine species but they also prevent other wild animals from migrating to water sources along age-old seasonal routes. While Botswana has set aside large areas for wildlife protection, these areas don’t constitute independent ecosystems. As a result, Botswana”s wildebeest population has declined by 99% over the past decade and all remaining buffalo and zebra are stranded north of the fences.

This story is told in detail in the book “Cry of the Kalahari” by Mark and Delia Owens who spent several years in the central Kalahari and reported seeing tens of thousands of migrating Wildebeest as well as herds of zebra, giraffe and other animals stopped short by the Kuke Fence that stretches along the northern boundary of the central Kalahari Game Reserve. Some became entangled in it, while others died of exhaustion searching for a way around it. The remainder were cut off from their seasonal grazing and watering places in the north and succumbed to thirst and starvation.

The last great tragedy occurred during the drought of 1983 in which wildebeest heading for the Okavango waters were barred by the Kuke Fence. They turned east along the fence towards Lake Xau, only to find the lake already dried up. Thousands died as a result.

The upside of the fence is that it keeps cattle out of the Okavango Delta which is essential if the Delta’s wildlife is to survive. However, the new 80 km long Northern Buffalo Fence north of the Delta has opened a vast expanse of wildlife-rich but as yet unprotected territory to cattle ranching. Safari operators wanted the fence set as far north as possible to protect the seasonally flooded Selinda Spillway; prospective cattle ranchers wanted it set as far south as possible, maximizing new grazing land; and the local people didn’t want it at all because they were concerned it would act as a barrier to them as well as to wildlife. The government sided with the ranchers.

We pass a truck accident-the truck had bounced over a 6 foot open ditch dug out right across the road-the accident must have happened at night-and then another truck hit the first truck and turned over…nearby we noticed a speed limit of 90km per hour…

Veterinary Stop. In 1939 Cattle Lung Disease
(pleuropneumonia) that kills up to 50% of infected animals was iradicated. But it resurfaced in 1995 when it was re-introduced across international borders-probably from Namibia-and quickly spread. The government responded by constructing four veterinary fences around the northwestern corner of the country but the disease was not contained and authorities wound up slaughtering 320,000 head of cattle.

We all have to get out and walk with our shoes through a medicated bath while the truck drives through a pool of the same solution.

At camp the black African woman behind the bar, Tops, was fascinated by the computer when I plugged it in to recharge it. To her delight I showed her how to use it and this is what she wrote:

“Tops i really loved Unice by the night we were at Planet Baobab because she taught me how to use the Computer it was on 27 of may the day of monday 2oo2 i was with KB and
GOSA

welcome Planet Baobab first thing you will find Tops with big
smile on her face as she is trying to use this machine!!!!!

hi tops are you playing nicely with this machine and laughing
while you are doing it. no dear whats the use of laughing whiie still learning? now i have to say something about my colics KT
LULU GRACE TWIST JOHN GOMAN BONES YAPS BEAUTY
and ISAAC

I didn’t correct her spelling. Tops and KB played Botswana dance muusic on the cassette player and danced the Wazoo-Wazoo for us-throwing their hips all over the bar room.

Pioneer Camp in Lusaka

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We pull into camp outside Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. We listen to CNN…TV for the first time in weeks and hear yet another warning about terrorism in NYC…funny-Josh never mentions anything in his emails…I think maybe no one is paying any attention to the warnings anymore…maybe they are just political ploys to keep the hype going. Then we hear that the Palestinians that were holed up in the Bethlehem church are shipped out to various European countries…we all double over with laughter…why not Siberia we say? Then we hear that Nelson Mandela is scheduled to meet with the President of Malawi.

This night I finally got a full blast hot shower…what a pleasure…

To Lusaka Zambia

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Tues May 21-22, 2002 Long Drive to Lusaka the capitol of Zambia
Up at 5 am again and on the truck by 6:30. Take the whole day just to drive to Lusaka-about 12 hours or 800 km on the “bloody truck” as Janine put it in her diary.

Stopped off in a village in the early afternoon; watched two women under a tree lather up a naked little boy-child about 3 years old with soap and water from a plastic bucket but we are too respectful to take a picture. Whenever the truck stops raggedy kids materialize instantly…seemingly out of nowhere. Waiting for…hoping for a handout. I throw out two little bags of chips…The two biggest ones got them, I tell Rod! He answers with a cynical grin…African Democracy!

Then a black African adult about the age of 40 walked past the truck and yells at us bitterly, “What are you doing here! You are from free countries! You look like prisoners sitting up there! And don’t give the kids anything! You just teach them to be beggars!” I don’t blame him one bit for his bitterness…I want to know about his bitterness…otherwise how am I to know how to act-particularly in regard to my government’s foreign policies.

We see signs for Zambian beer called Mosi…I see a sign “Anti Corruption Commission!” Rod says “yes and there is an anti corruption commission on the anti corruption commission! Another sign…Knowledge is Power Bar and Restaurant…I can go with that!

African Presidential Excess
On the way into Lusaka all the traffic was stopped by uniformed policewomen and then we finally saw the reason for it; the president in an entourage of about a dozen vehicles…including an ambulance! Someone suggested he was probably on his way to the airport. Later in the South African Cape Times we read “Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa was clearly hoping to impress First World lenders when he ordered his ministers and officials to board a 69 seater bus bound for the airport. He was en route to South Africa to attend the World Economic Forum summit. Apparently the presidential motorcade to see the President off at the airport has become rather a drain on resources so in the interests of cost-saving, the Zambian leader has said it will become standard practice for ministers and party officials to bus it to the airport whenever they want to wave him goodbye.”

This is nothing compared to Zimbabwe’s president however. The U.S. is threatening to recall three commercial airliners sold to the country two years ago for nonpayment. It has been reported that Robert Mugabe will commandeer a plane at a moment�s notice so that his wife can go on shopping sprees in Paris-even having the seats removed so there would be space for all the packages. In the future, with international pressure, I hope this phase of Africa’s development is going to go the way of Uganda’s Idi Amin which is OUT!

On the way into town saw a huge billboard that said  “Do not allow people to become perpetually dependent! Do not give alms to beggars!” I think to myself this town is fighting a losing battle. Another signs read “Polite Notice-No Bus Stops.”

I keep losing track of the date…Bob has to remind me to take our Larium for prevention of Malaria on Sundays.

Every time the truck stops Damian from Australia gets out and runs up like a little kid to ask James “Are we there yet” Damian and Melissa sit behind me and I get to talk to them a lot. I like them. Once Damian made a cynical remark and Melissa apologetically said “Isn’t he terrible?” I said, oh no, that is just black humor! It helps us get through life!

Yellow Chicken Camp

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May 20, 2002
Then to Yellow Chicken Campsite and dinner in the dark. The charming camp, in the middle of a huge 40 year-old German farm, is run by a Brit and his wife who was 8 months pregnant. There is a law now that Whites cannot own land but this farmer’s land was grandfathered in because he had owned it for so long.

Soap and towel even…and so clean…and smells so good with candles burning everywhere…and hot water even…this is the nicest camp yet! The girls all have a shower the night we arrive so I decide to wait until morning. On my way I see how two black African guys have to bucket the water up out of the well…then into a barrel a few feet away…then pull it bucket by bucket up into an elevated water reservoir. Then a fire is built in an outside fire burner to heat the water. I stubbornly return to my tent without a shower.

Lessons from an African Bush Camp Operator
Janine and Sarah stayed up and listened to the camp operator who has lived in several countries in Africa over a period of 15 years talk about things he has seen and experienced. He said most people are Christian but most only convert because they are given a bag of maize or a pair of shoes and still continue their own spiritual traditions including witchcraft.

He also said that if a woman gets pregnant outside of wedlock that she has to marry the father of the child. So sometimes if a man sees a woman he wants he rapes her until she is pregnant and then she has to marry him. I don’t know which countries he was talking about here. About AIDS, the locals don�t understand the disease and don’t believe that condoms are of any use-hence the proliferation of the disease.

The operator was particularly adamant about stopping the food and other aid that people get…he believes it keeps them from becoming self sufficient…teaches them to always have a hand out…that it would be terrible in the beginning to withdraw the aid but in the long run it would be better for the people.

In fact an article appeared in the South African Cape Times a few weeks after this in which it was reported that dozens of nongovernmental organizations rejected the final declaration of the United Nations World Food Summit in Rome saying it was “more of the same failed medicine” and would not end hunger.

Distribution of resources is almost impossible due to bad roads, insufficient trucks and buses, a poor public transportation system.This results in 90% of the villages and towns living in isolation having no access to the market and no access to money. One hundred and fifty poorly developed countries are leaning on 25 developed ones. If one figures in the cost of transporting, servicing, warehousing and preserving food, then the cost of a single meal for a refugee in some camp is higher than the price of a dinner in the most expensive restaurant in Paris, one critic has said.

The answer, many are thinking, is a multidimensional approach to the develop-ment of healthy societies: develop regions especially through education; encourage local societies participation in public life including ability to dialogue; observe fundamental human rights; begin democratization and develop interdependence. This will not be easy. It will require new politicians who care about development-not warlords who sew contention in order to retain their own political power long enough so they can drain the country of money and resources.

The camp operator said that he feels sorry for African-Americans who come to Africa looking for their roots…they leave devastated when they discover they have absolutely nothing in common except color…and being black means nothing here because practically everyone is black…so no one is going to greet the black Americans with open arms-particularly well-fed affluent ones and the Africans assume the blacks who come here must be rich or they couldn’t get here in the first place…and we travelers without a doubt are all immeasurably rich compared to the locals.

In the morning as we were leaving I asked the camp operator what the best thing was about living in Africa…the beauty and wide open free space, he said waving his arm out toward the sun rising over ripe wheat..and being able to live the way you want to with no 9-5 job!

Zambia Border

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2002
Rod warns us the roads in Zambia are even worse “shit” than in Malawi-which we found hard to believe but he was right. Most of these roads we are on are not paved. They repair the potholes by digging them out and throwing them by the side of the road, Rod says wryly.

Reached the Zambian border just before 6pm. Aussies and U.S. pay $25 for a visa to enter the country; Kiwis and Canadians got away with nothing…Brits threw a royal fit when they found out they had to pay $60! Rod said it had something to do with the fact that Britain pulled millions of dollars out of the country when they gave Zambia it’s independence….
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History
In the 18th Century the Portuguese followed the Swahili-Arab slavers into the interior of the country. In 1890 the country became a protectorate of the British South African Company and was named North Rhodesia (the name coming from Cecil Rhodes). Malawi on the southern border was called South Rhodesia. North Rhodesia came under British control in 1924 but won its independence in 1963 when it became Zambia.

I imagine that most of the people in these countries, especially in the rural areas, never even knew they were being colonized! The British taxed Zambia to the bone but spent most of the money on South Rhodesia, a drain that plagued the country until well into the 1990�s. After independence President Kaunda combined Marxism and traditional African values to rule the country for 27 years.

But bloated civil service, mismanagement and corruption bankrupted the country and Kaunda was forced to give up the presidency to a man by the name of Chiluba. There was a failed coup attempt in 1997 and finally one of Chiluba�s men was elected in flawed elections in 2001 but at least it was the end of the rubber stamp one-party system. Nine African states were invited to the inaugural ceremony but none attended in protest of the elections. (I’m getting all this from the Lonely Planet book) 80% of Zambia’s 9 million people live below the UN poverty line of $1.00 a day.