A HISTORY OF MAYUKWAYUKWA REFUGEE SETTLEMENT,

1966 – 2013

BY

NALUMINO LENIN NAMWANYI

A dissertation submitted to the University of Zambia in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in

History

The University of Zambia

Lusaka

October, 2016

i

DECLARATION

I, Nalumino Lenin Namwanyi, declare that this dissertation represents my own

research work and that it has never been submitted for any degree at this or any other

university.

Signature ……………….

Date ………….…………

ii

COPYRIGHT

All rights reserved. No part of this dissertation may be reproduced or stored in any

form or by any means without prior permission from the author or the University of

Zambia.

iii

APPROVAL

This dissertation of Nalumino Lenin Namwanyi is approved as fulfilling the partial

requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Arts in History by the

University of Zambia.

Date

Signed:...................................................................... ...................................

Signed:...................................................................... ....................................

Signed:...................................................................... ....................................

iv

ABSTRACT

This study attempts to reconstruct the history of Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement.

It examines the role and function that was played by the settlement between 1966 and

2013. By 2013, the refugee settlement was the oldest in Zambia. It is illustrated in the

study how most of the changes that occurred concerning policies followed in the

handling of refugees in Zambia were pioneered at Mayukwayukwa up to 2013 when

Zambia began integrating former Angolan refugees locally. The study highlights the

background to the refugee problem in Zambia and how Mayukwayukwa was

established as a temporal settlement to host Angolan refugees in Zambia. Various

frameworks are examined to demonstrate why it was necessary to establish

agricultural based refugee settlements in Zambia like Mayukwayukwa in the 1960s.

The study illustrates how the settlement continued to exist through changing social,

economic, political and ideological policies and atmosphere from 1966 to 2013.

These were changing times in and around the host nation Zambia. The experiences at

Mayukwayukwa in the period under discussion provided lessons on how Zambia

hosted refugees. The study demonstrated how the experiences at Mayukwayukwa

influenced the development of Zambia’s refugee policies. Also discussed were the

attempts to repatriate the Angolan refugees back to their country when the

atmosphere seemed conducive. Last to be discussed were the procedures that were

undertaken to finally change the policy and to integrate the former Angolan refugees

locally in Zambia. The study concluded that there was a strong relationship between

the development of Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement and that of Zambia’s

refugee policy from 1966 to 2013. Also concluded is that various factors contributed

v

to the establishment of refugee settlements in Zambia. Last to be concluded is that

many attempts were made towards the repatriation and local integration of refugees

from Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement.

vi

vii

DEDICATION

To my late father, Grant Siiya Sitali Namwanyi, my wife, Maureen Chimbala

Namwanyi and my children, Tabo, Natasha and Tumelo.

viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to the members of staff at the University of Zambia in the Department

of History whose guidance and support was invaluable in the writing of this

dissertation. Their professional and objective contributions cannot be over

emphasised. Special mention goes to my supervisor, Prof. Mwelwa Chambika

Musambachime, for his support and selfless patience. Prof. B. J. Phiri, Dr. E.K.

Chiputa, Dr. W.T. Kalusa, Dr. W.S. Kalikiti, Mr. F.E. Mulenga, Dr. K. Krishna and

Prof. F.B. Musonda all made it possible for me to continue with this work. Also

greatly saluted are the efforts of two late academic icons of my studies, Dr. C.M.

Chabatama and Dr. B.S. Siamwiza.

Equal gratitude is extended to the members of staff of various departments and

organisations who opened their doors and archives for my research. Their vast

knowledge and patience humbled me. These include members of the University of

Zambia Special Collection, National Archives of Zambia, United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees, Ministry of Home Affairs Commissioner for Refugees

and the administration at Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement.

My wife, Maureen, and children, Tabo and Natasha deserve very special

acknowledgement for bearing with me during the time I was researching and writing

this work. I was not always there but Maureen covered for me and never showed

failure in her support for what I was pursuing. My mother, Catherine Namwanyi and

the entire family gave the support I needed. My postgraduate classmates played a

great role in the birth, growth and molding of the idea which became the topic of this

ix

dissertation. These were the brilliant Mr. Kumwenda, Edina Lungu, Kebby

Mwelanyika, Eunice Moono, Ivy Chimfwembe, Mirriam Fulenge, Tryphena Cheelo,

Joseph Mulenga, Sakwiba Muyunda, Vincent Kayombo, Desteriah Nyanga, Enala

Lufungulo, Yvonne Kabombwe, Abigail Kanjuye, Patrick Malama and Jovy

Katongo. Your input cannot go unmentioned. Thank you all.

x

ABBREVIATIONS

BRE Barotse Royal Establishment

CCZ Christian Council of Zambia (later Council of Churches in

Zambia)

CORD Christian Outreach Relief and Development

DAR Development Assistance and Refugees

DLI Development through Local Integration

DRC Democratic Republic of Congo

FNLA Frente Nacional de Libertacao de Angola (National Front for the

Liberation of Angola)

FRELIMO Frente de Libertacao de Mozcambique (Front for the Liberation of

Mozambique)

GRZ Government Republic of Zambia

HIV-AIDS Human Immune Virus-Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome

ICARA International Conferences on Assistance to Refugees in Africa

IMC Inter-Ministerial Committee

IOM International Organisation for Migration

IZDA Integrated Zonal Development Approach

LDC Local Development Committees

LWF Lutheran Word Foundation

MCH Mother and Child Health

MPLA Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola (Popular Movement

for the Liberation of Angola)

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

NRE Nkoya Royal Establishment

OAU Organisation for African Unity

RAD Refugee Aid and Development

xi

RO Refugee Officer

SRS Self Reliance Strategy

TDA Targeted Development Assistance

UN United Nations

UNAVEM United Nations Angola Verification Mission II

UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

UNITA Uniao Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola (National

Union for the Total Independence of Angola)

VDC Village Development Committee

WFP World Food Programme

ZCRS Zambia Christian Refugee services (A Lutheran World Federation

programme)

ZI Zambia Initiative

xii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures

Figure 1: The Entrance to Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement ................................................. 65

Figure 2: The Issuing of the First Permanent Residency Permit ................................................ 104

Table

Table: Former Angolan Refugees Local Integration Statistics as of December 2013 ................ 108

xiii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents Pages

ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... iv

DEDICATION .........................................................................................................................viiii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .....................................................................................................viiii

ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................................... x

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ........................................................................................ xiiii

CHAPTER ONE ......................................................................................................................... 1

INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ....................................................... 1

CHAPTER TWO ...................................................................................................................... 29

FRAMEWORKS TO THE REFUGEE SETTLEMENTS IN ZAMBIA.................................. 29

CHAPTER THREE .................................................................................................................. 65

MAYUKWAYUKWA’S EXISTENCE IN CHANGING TIMES ........................................... 65

CHAPTER FOUR ..................................................................................................................... 88

MAYUKWAYUKWA AND THE ATTEMPTS AT LOCAL INTEGRATION ..................... 88

CHAPTER FIVE .................................................................................................................... 114

CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 114

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................. 119

1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The subject of this study is Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement located in Kaoma

District in the in Western Province of Zambia. The focus is on the role and function

the settlement played in the history of refugees in Zambia in the period from 1966,

when the settlement was established, to 2013 when the Zambian government

earnestly began granting former Angolan refugees with Permanent Residency Permits

for local integration. By then, Angolans had ceased to be regarded as refugees and

many had been repatriated back to their country of origin.

The background of the study is that in 1966, barely two years after independence,

Zambia began receiving increasing influxes of Angolans fleeing from the liberation

war taking place in Angola. The Zambian Government established a temporal refugee

settlement at Mayukwayukwa in Mankoya (now Kaoma) District.1 Up to 2013,

Mayukwayukwa was still operational as one of Africa’s oldest refugee settlements. It

had hosted refugees from Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) –

(formerly Republic of Zaire), South West Africa (now Republic of Namibia),

Burundi, Rwanda and even Sudan.2 However, in spite of managing this task very

well, little has been written by scholars about the history of the development of

Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement and the role it had played between 1966 and

2013.

2

Kaoma District where Mayukwayukwa is located is found in western Zambia. It is

one of fifteen districts in Western Province. It is 400 kilometres from Zambia’s capital

city, Lusaka, and 184 kilometres from Mongu, the provincial headquarters of Western

Province.3 Access from both Lusaka and Mongu to Kaoma is by all-weather roads.

The district is located in the area lying between latitude 14ᴼ and 16ᴼ south and

between longitudes 24ᴼ and 26ᴼ east. It covers an area of 23, 313 square kilometres

and lies on an average altitude of 1,213 meters.4 It experiences sufficient annual

distribution of rainfall of about 800mm – 1000mm between November and April.

Temperatures in Kaoma can be as high as 34ᴼ C in the warm dry period of October to

November and as low as 5ᴼ C in the cool dry period of June to July.

Kaoma is the most fertile district in the province with 60% of the land being arable

and accounts for most of the marketable surplus production in maize and groundnuts

in the province.5 This is also partly because the district is not part of the Bulozi Flood

Plain and is not affected by the annual flooding like most of the districts in the

province. Moreover, it is more developed than the other districts in the province in

terms of communications and road networks. The soils are predominantly well

drained sandy loam with varying topsoil depth of 100 – 150mm in relatively flat

uplands. The lower parts of the district have more of the sandy clay loam soils.

Agriculture in the district is mainly subsistence based with semi commercial farming

activities being on the rise. The major crop grown is maize which constitutes well

over two-thirds of arable crops. Other common crops grown include cassava, millet,

sorghum, ground nuts, cotton, mixed beans, tobacco and soya beans. Pastoral farming

3

is restricted in the district because it is near the tsetse infested parts of the Kafue

National Park.

Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement, as described by the Refugee (Control) Act of

the Republic of Zambia, is that piece of land, about 40 kilometres west of Mangango

Mission Station, situated at the confluence of the Luena and Luampa Rivers, in

Kaoma District of Western Province of Zambia.6 The settlement is 85 kilometres from

Kaoma’s main business centre and has a geographical size of 163 square kilometres,

in which resided a total of 11,532 refugees as of December 2013 (69 people per

square kilometre).7 The settlement by 2013 was being run with input from the

Zambian government under the Ministry of Home Affairs, United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and implementing partners both government

and non - governmental organisations.8

The history of refugee hosting is well documented as it is common in Africa and other

parts of the world. It was an integral part of humans to move from one area to another

to escape conflicts such as wars, raids and insecurity; famine, hunger, droughts and

floods; and attacks by wild animals. They also moved to look for resources such as

fertile land, salt, good hunting and fishing grounds and minerals such as iron ores.9

Sometimes, they moved in small groups and were hosted as guests for a short or long

period until they became absorbed in the host community. And in some cases, they

moved as a large group that could be accommodated for a short period. Some

remained with the hosts permanently. Others moved on to find new areas to settle in

4

while others went back to their original lands when it was conducive. These

movements took place among the ethnic groups around western Zambia and the

neighbouring territories of Angola, DRC, Zimbabwe, Namibia and others.

During pre-colonial and in colonial times, Africans had a tendency to migrate from

oppressive situations. For instance, the Barotse ruler, Litunga Mulambwa, hosted the

Mbunda people who had migrated and crossed over from present day Angola. In the

colonial times, the migrants were quick to notice the differences in the colonial

systems which often led to flights from colonies where tyranny was rife to where it

was more conducive.10

In post-independence times, a good example is that of the

Zambians belonging to the Lumpa denomination who fled into present day DRC

fearing persecution in Zambia.11

The number of these Zambian refugees in 1968 was

about 15,000 and therefore forced the government of that country to request for

UNHCR assistance the same year.12

At the beginning of 1971, DRC was hosting

10,000 Zambian refugees at Kaniama Refugee Settlement in the Shaba region.13

Of

these, 9,000 were successfully repatriated back to Zambia by the end of 1972 with

less than a thousand remaining as self-supporting.14

Zambia had its first experience of a refugee inflow in 1965 when some 5,000 refugees

from Mozambique crossed into Eastern Province.15

In 1966, Zambia experienced an

inflow of refugees from Angola.16

These were fleeing as a result of the war of

liberation in Angola being waged by the Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola

(MPLA), the Frente Nacional de Libertacao de Angola (FNLA) and the Uniao

5

Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola (UNITA) forces against Portuguese

Colonialist forces in Angola. Many people fled from the area because of the actions

of both the nationalist forces and the Portuguese colonialist forces.17

The unstable

situation forced the Angolans to leave that part of the country into DRC and Zambia’s

Western and North Western Provinces. In Western province, the hardest affected were

Kalabo and Senanga Districts.

The newly independent Zambian government responded hurriedly to these inflows of

Angolan people by establishing two temporal refugee settlements called Lwatembo in

Zambezi District and Mayukwayukwa in Kaoma District in 1966. Both were established

without proper viability surveys. Lwatembo closed shortly after in 1971 mainly due to poor

soils and the failure of communal faming.18

Mayukwayukwa was meant to accommodate the

refugees that crossed the border and settled themselves in the Western Province border areas

of Kalabo and Senanga Districts. Initially, the refugees in Kalabo and Senanga did not report

themselves to the Zambian government authorities but settled themselves in the Zambian

villages. The Zambian authorities were compelled to move the refugees away from the border

areas for various reasons which included security concerns and the wish by the State to make

the refugee problem visible in order to attract international assistance.19

The area where Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement was situated was originally under Chief

Mutondo of the Nkoya Royal Establishment (NRE). Before the settlement was established,

there were few villages in the area.20

In 1966 when the refugee problem arose in Western

Province, the area was selected probably because it had very few occupants and was far

enough from the border area. Kaoma had a population density of 2.4 people per square

kilometre with a growth rate of 2% per annum.21

Chief Mutondo, working in conjunction

with the government authorities, facilitated for the Zambian villagers to be moved to the areas

6

across the Luena River.22

Over the years, more land was made available for the settlement’s

expansion.

Although Mayukwayukwa faced almost similar problems that led to the closure of the

settlement at Lwatembo, it survived the challenges and was still operating in 2013 as

the oldest refugee settlement in Zambia. Other refugee settlements that were later

established in Zambia include Meheba in North Western Province, Nangweshi in

Western Province, Kala and Mwange in Northern Province, and Nyimba and Ukwimi

in Eatstern Province. Among these, only Meheba and Mayukwayukwa were still

operational up to the end of the period of interest to this study. This study addresses

questions like how Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement had participated socially

with the other communities, and how it had remained unclosed all this time. Of

interest to this study is the history of Mayukwayukwa as a refugee settlement and

how its existence influenced the development of Zambia’s refugee policy in the

period under discussion.

According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over

ninety per cent of the occupants of Mayukwayukwa were from Angola’s Moxico and

Cuango Cubango Provinces.23

The earliest groups of fleeing Angolans consisted

mostly of the Mbunda, Luvale, Chokwe, Luena, Mashi and Luchazi. There were

similar ethnic groups already settled in western Zambia which had a history of

migrations into Zambia in the pre-colonial times and throughout the colonial period.24

After Zambia’s independence, people that fled into its territory were treated as

refugees. For a definition, this study uses the 1969 Organisation of African Unity

7

(OAU) Convention’s Article 1 which defines a 'refugee' as any person:

who, owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of

race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or

opinion, is unable or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself

of the protection of that country, or who, not having a nationality and

being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of

such events, is unable or, owing to such fear is unwilling to return to

it.25

The refugees were required to stay in refugee settlements like Mayukwayukwa by the

government. Also addressed in this study is how the refugees were received by the

host communities. This includes the development of Zambia’s refugee policy up to

2013 when UNHCR had announced the termination of the refugee status for

Angolans the previous year. The year 2013 was historical because Zambia began to

employ local integration of former refugees as a durable solution for the first time.

Such an examination will help in the appreciation of the history of Mayukwayukwa

Refugee Settlement and the role it played in the development of Zambia’s refugee

policy.

The character of refugees as perceived by the world including Zambia has changed

over time and situations. The social, economic and political developments which

Zambia has undergone have to be understood in order to appreciate Mayukwayukwa's

historical development over the years. Of importance for instance, was the signing of

international instruments like the United Nations 1951 Convention, the United

Nations 1967 Protocol and the 1969 OAU Convention by Zambia in 1969.26

In Zambia, the perception of the refugees was also influenced by Zambia’s first

8

Republican President, Kenneth Kaunda’s philosophical and political stance on

Humanism and the struggle to liberate neighbouring territories from colonial rule.

The core of Kaunda’s Humanism was the respect for all human beings created in the

image and likeliness of God and mutual cooperation and support in society.

Humanism was man – centred.27

Politically, he strongly supported the liberation

struggle against colonial rule in the region. Zambia as a front line state, perceived

refugees as victims of colonial rule.

There are two main types of settlements for refugees, organized or planned settlement

schemes and spontaneous settlement or self-settlement. As the term suggests,

spontaneous settlements are unplanned and are also largely unassisted by government

authorities. Settlement schemes like Mayukwayukwa are organised with the help of

the host governments and international humanitarian agencies like the UNHCR and

its cooperating partners. Refugee settlements like Mayukwayukwa are often

agriculture-based where the government's target was to make the refugees self-

sufficient as quickly as possible.28

Refugee camps on the other hand are distinguished

from settlements in that the occupants rely on handouts of food and supplies with

little or no prospect or attempt for the refugees to achieve self-sufficiency.29

Settlements and camps are often, depending on the numbers and urgency of the

situation, established in haste in response to a refugee crisis. Planned rural settlements

often share the characteristic that they are placed in peripheral areas and on land that

has not been used by the local population. This might mean that they are badly placed

9

to attain economic self-sufficiency therefore putting pressure on host governments

and humanitarian agencies like UNHCR and its cooperating partners for sustenance.

Jacobsen points out that the longer the refugee situation persists, the more likely it is

that the overall budget for that programme shrinks and levels of assistance decline.30

Despite being underdeveloped, Zambia provided refuge to thousands of refugees at

Mayukwayukwa for over four decades.

During the period under discussion, refugees received humanitarian assistance from

various agencies. Over the years, this humanitarian effort led to improved livelihoods

among the refugees, most of whom utilised the opportunity to attempt to rebuild their

lives. However, the continued assistance to the refugees over the years and Zambia’s

economic challenges led to a situation where the refugees’ living standards were

perceived to be better than those of the hosting local communities. The local

communities in Western Province hosted the refugee community. They lived in

peaceful co-existence. A situation where the host communities were poorer than the

refugees resulted in discontent and affected the social stability that existed.

A strain of such nature on the social relations between the hosts and the refugees

made the whole refugee problem very problematic for everyone. This situation was

coupled with the failed attempts to repatriate Angolan refugees in the 1990s

especially in 1992 and the period between 1995 and 1997.31

The decade experienced

the collapse of two peace agreements of 1991 and 1994 which led to resumption of

fighting, which in turn, resulted in the return of refugees that had been repatriated

10

back to Angola to flee back into Zambia.32

These failed repatriations left a feeling of

distrust among the Angolans for future repatriations. This decade probably led to the

realisation by stakeholders that refugees would remain in Zambia for many years to

come. Hence, a shift in refugee policy began to appear in Zambia. Local integration

as a solution became a consideration where temporal settlement and eventual

repatriation was the mainstay of the Zambian government policy since the 1960s.

The outcome of this policy shift was that, in 2002, the government embarked on an

initiative called the “Zambia initiative” (ZI) to address the problems of poverty and

also to create an improved and conducive situation for refugees to become productive

members of the host communities.33

The main aim of the ZI was to integrate refugees

into the host communities while helping the local region to develop through the

support of small-scale projects in agriculture, health, education, and infrastructure

within the affected areas in Western Province, in particular around Mayukwayukwa

and Nangweshi. This, it was hoped, would lead to integration, peace, security and

stability in the region. This can be pointed out perhaps as the Zambian government’s

first major step towards the local integration of refugees that was sought after by

UNHCR and its donors. The ZI was supported by UNHCR and various donor

countries as it was seen to be in line with the creation of a suitable environment for

local integration as a durable solution for a protracted refugee situation like that for

Zambia.

11

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement had continuously been hosting refugees for forty

seven years despite Zambia’s deteriorating economic status. By 2013,

Mayukwayukwa was the oldest refugee settlement in Zambia and was hosting

refugees from neighbouring countries even before Zambia developed a refugee policy

of its own. Little has been written about how the experiences at the early refugee

settlements like Mayukwayukwa influenced the development of Zambia’s refugee

policy and vice versa. The problem is that the existence of Mayukwayukwa is not

prominent in the written history of Zambia or as a topic of academic research by

scholars. Driven by this awareness, this study illuminates how Mayukwayukwa

developed from a temporal refugee settlement to becoming the oldest refugee

settlement in Zambia. Also highlighted is how the early settlements influenced

Zambia’s refugee policy in the changing social, economic and political landscape of

Zambia from 1966 to 2013.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives of the study are to:-

1. Examine the relationship between the development of Mayukwayukwa Refugee

Settlement and that of Zambia's refugee policy from 1966 to 2013;

2. Examine the frameworks behind the establishment of refugee settlements like

Mayukwaukwa in Zambia.

3. Discuss the efforts towards the repatriation and the local integration of refugees

from Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement.

12

LITERATURE REVIEW

Although a lot of works have been written on refugees in other aspects, there has been

very little academic research on Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement outside of

UNHCR sponsored research and policy documents. There are no academic studies

available which are specifically on the history of Mayukwayukwa as a refugee

resettlement. However, there are notable academic works on the Angolan refugee

situation in Zambia which highlight some aspects of the development of

Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement over time. The major ones are Art Hansen's

'Once the Running Stops: The Socio-economic Resettlement of Angola Refugees,

1966-72'34

and Oliver Bakwell's 'Refugee Repatriation or migrant villagers?'35

Both

Hansen and Bakewell have gone on to publish books based on their doctorate

research findings. Also notable is Wamburakwao Sapao's Masters of Arts thesis

entitled 'A Social and Economic History of Displaced People: The Maheba Refugee

Settlement Experience 1971-1994' submitted to the University of Zambia in 1996.36

The work of the Cheke Cha Mbunda Association is significant to this research in

relation to the understanding of the background and nature of the pre-colonial,

colonial and post-independence movements of groups like the Mbunda into Zambia's

Western Province. Like Axel Fleisch, the Cheke Cha Mbunda write that starvation,

lack of personal safety, hardships and the liberation struggle against colonial rule in

Angola gave impetus for continued flight into Zambia.37

Musambachine's 1989 article

on the other hand is important in that it demonstrates how even Zambians had the

13

tendency to migrate from oppressive situations in the colonial period.38

He explains

that some Zambians in the border areas fled into neighbouring territories like Angola

and Belgian Congo as a result of what they believed were oppressive tax regimes

introduced by the British South Africa Company in North Eastern Rhodesia and

North Western Rhodesia especially after the imposition of cash tax payment in the

territories.39

In his work, he concentrates on the flight of Zambians across the Congo

border.

In reference to the 1966 refugee influx, Art Hansen, in his anthropological study

writes that an historical study of Zambia's border area reveals that the refugee

movement is only the latest in a series of migrations of the same peoples from the

same areas in Angola into the Zambian locality. He points out that the continuing

migration is well documented for the colonial period (1907-1964) and populated the

border area.40

It focuses on the Luvale refugees of North Western Zambia. This, like

his other works, is important to this research in that is sheds light on the self-settled

Angolan refugees whose lives he compares with those in organised settlements

especially Meheba. In 'Refugee Dynamics: Angolans in Zambia 1966-72', Hansen's

focus is still on the self-settled Luvale refugees in post-independence Zambia but he

describes the background to the refuge movement into western Zambia and briefly

looks at the lives in the government schemes.41

Although most of Oliver Bakewell’s academic studies are also on the self-settled

Angolan refugees in Zambia, his 2002 'Review of the CORD Community Services for

14

the Angolan Refugees in Western Province of Zambia' is important in the

understanding of Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement and the Zambian government

policies towards refugees.42

It is noted in the work that Zambia’s insecure

environment in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of its involvement in the region's

liberation struggle shaped the Refugee (Control) Act of 1971 as the first legislation

passed to cope with the growing numbers of refugees in Zambia.43

The work also

provides a description of Mayukwayukwa as a refugee settlement in the 1990s. Also

of importance is that the work analyses the refugee population at Mayuwayukwa in

the 1990s and its economy which is rural based, revolving around household plots of

2.5 hectares of land. He observed the constraints of poor soils as a result of the

occupants being tied to the same piece of land for a long time were a hindrance to

high productivity. Like his 1999 doctorate thesis, the main focus of this work is also

on the state of Angolan refugees in the 1990s.

In his thesis,44

Bakewell, like Hansen and Michael Barret,45

examines the self-

settlement of Angolan Refugees that refused to settle in designated refugee

settlements like Mayukwayukwa, Nangweshi and Maheba in preference to self-

settlement. He provides some reasons why some refugees avoided the established

settlements like Mayukwayukwa. In relation to self-repatriation of refugees from the

settlements, Allen Armstrong’s argument in his work is that the refugees’ nostalgic

longing to return to their native countries must be interpreted as an indication of

inadequate opportunities and facilities in the settlements.46

15

Wamburakwao Sapao's study47

is important to this study in that it is the only available

historically researched work on a refugee settlement in Zambia. His study focuses on

the social and economic activities of the refugees at Maheba Refugee Settlement in

North Western Province of Zambia. It is of interest is that it sheds light on the

challenges that were experienced at Mayukwayukwa and Lwatembo settlements in

the transitory stages between 1966 and 1971. It provides insights on the economic and

social grievances of the refugees at the two settlements. However, Sapao's study

focuses on Maheba Refugee Settlement in the period between 1971 and 1994. It

therefore leaves a wide gap in the history of the refugees in the period from 1994 and

up to 2012.

Michel Agier has a book entitled Managing Undesirables, with a chapter entitled

‘Surviving, Reviving, Leaving, Remaining: The Long Life of Angolan Refugees in

Zambia’. Like Sapao, Agier’s main focus is on Meheba, Zambia’s long time most

populous settlement, but in the period around the 2001-2 refugee crisis. The

anthropologist writes that the Angolan refugees in 2002 all distrusted repatriation

because they were discouraged by the experience of two previous unsuccessful

attempts to end the war, and two abortive returns. This is in reference to the peace

agreements that were signed in 1991 and 1994 which were broken months or years

that followed, forcing the retornados to go back to the camps they had left.48

Also of

interest is how he elaborates how the new arrivals were received in the transit areas.

After some weeks, he continues, the refugees were placed in the empty forests with a

plastic sheet, beddings and kitchen utensils so that the ground could be prepared for

16

agriculture and the formation of villages of about a thousand persons.

In a study, ‘Refugee Integration in Older Refugee Settlements in Africa’, presented at

the 1990 meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Berry Stein and

Lance Clark state that the ideal refugee settlement particularly from UNHCR’s point

of view consists of two main phases. The first was the land settlement phase where a

selected site was prepared for the refugees to move in and work on their individual

sites with the assistance of tools, seeds as well as food rations that were provided until

the refugees achieved the expected self-sufficiency in two to five years.

The second phase was the consolidation and integration phase in which the

completion of infrastructure development at the settlement was done and there was a

deliberate promotion of a sense of community among the refugees. The whole idea in

this phase was to integrate the settlement into a larger social, political and economic

life of the host country.49

This study is vital in the understanding of the ideal situation

of the establishment of refugee settlements with the view of locally integrating the

refugees in the host countries. The authors conclude that this has not been so because

of the divide between the mostly low-income host countries and the rich donor

countries that assist UNHCR regarding responsibility for the refugees. Host countries

had long and consistently maintained that refugee settlements were temporal and that

the refugees would eventually be repatriated. UNHCR and the donor countries, on the

other hand, consistently think in terms of the durable solution of refugee integration

into the host countries and the termination of international assistance.

17

Shelly Dick’s study examines Angolan among other refugees in Zambia. Like

Hansen, Bakewell and Sapao, she mentions how refugees have been living at

Mayukwayukwa since 1966. The work is important to this research in that it sheds

light on how the Zambian government established Mayukwayukwa Refugee

settlement in which each household was allocated land for cultivation and was

expected to produce its own food. This was opposed to other Zambia refugee camps

like Nangweshi, Kala and Mwange where little or no land was allocated for

cultivation.50

The work puts emphasis on UNHCR and Zambian government's

development of the new local integration policy called the ZI in 2002. She observes

that the ZI was embarked on by the stakeholders with the assumption that not all

refugees would go home.

Johan Brosche and Maria Nilsson's work illuminates the changing objectives of

hosting refugees by the Zambian government over the years. It points out that the first

President of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, was notable in his dedication and support for

the independence struggles in the region and the refugee issues that followed. His

policy was based on an anti-colonial interest. The objectives for housing refugees by

the Zambian government after 2004 were more humanitarian than political. Just like

Dick's work, this study is of importance in that it sheds light on some changes of

government policy towards the refugee problem over the years.51

Brosche and Nilsson's work also highlights the fact that the Zambian government has

18

a regulation ruling that an international actor cannot directly operate a refugee camp

or settlement in Zambia. This implies that UNHCR has to go through a local

implementing partner to run a refugee settlement scheme. At Mayukwayukwa,

UNHCR has had implementing partners like African Humanitarian Agency (AHA),

Lutheran World Federation / Zambia Christian Refugee Services (LWF / ZCRS) and

Christian Outreach Relief and Development (CORD).52

Mwanza and Seshamani's paper53

is important in that it is an academic work written

by scholars familiar with Zambia's situation. The paper illuminates the socio-

economic aspects of Zambia's hosting of refugees in the 1980s and how Zambia tried

to cope with the burden of refugees when the economy was in a grave crisis. The

work illuminates the fact that the inflow of a few thousand refugees hardly had a toll

on Zambia's economy. However, after the 'dual shock' to which the economy was

subjected by the oil shock of 1973 and the copper shock of 1974, a declining trend set

in. They explain that by the early 1980s, the economic situation in Zambia had

become critical. The work emphasises that ironically, it was precisely during this

period of sharp economic deterioration that the pace of refugee influx into Zambia

stepped up. The literature is important to ones understanding of the impact of the

economic crisis on the refugees already resident in the country and, conversely, the

impact of new refugees on the socio-economic life of both the resident refugees and

the indigenous population.

Karen Jacobsen’s work is of importance to this study in that it focuses on economic

19

survival in refugee camps and settlements. Although it focuses on East African

refugee camps, it sheds light on some experiences of refugees who live in camps and

settlements, and how they survive declining levels of humanitarian assistance. She

writes that refugee situations that become protracted experience gradual and

sometimes sudden reduction in humanitarian assistance including food rations which

sometimes become serious problems.54

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has operated in Zambia since

1966 and has a rich stock of published and unpublished materials. UNHCR

publications include works on refugees in general, like the Universal and Regional

instruments55

governing the concept of refugees and displaced people. It also has

materials specific to Zambia like mid-year reports, annual reports and many other

working documents. For instance, in 'Zambia: Analysis of the Gaps in Protection of

Refugees', UNHCR bemoans that although Zambia has an open door policy towards

asylum seekers which ensures that those arriving at the frontier seeking protection are

admitted, She has a severe lack of female officials to interview women, especially in

remote areas.56

There are also UNHCR Global Reports for instance, that are made on

every country that the UNHCR operates in and include important information like

current operation highlights, working environment, achievements and impact, work

with other stakeholders and many other important details.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The study is guided by the concept propagated by Karen Jacobsen’s findings that, the

20

longer the protracted refugee situation persists, the more likely it is that the overall

budget for the programme shrinks, assistance reduces and the refugees become

invisible to the public eye.57

Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement had operated for

over forty seven years and had faced many challenges as refugees continued to flee

from their troubled countries into Zambia. The settlement came into existence as a

temporal measure and was not properly planned for. The exacerbation of the refugee

problem led to many challenges as Mayukwayukwa developed into a refugee

settlement. The experiences at the settlement as the situation became prolonged were

used by stakeholders as a lesson in the handling of other refugee situations and the

formulation of policies and strategies. This study uses Jacobsen’s approach to

examine the development of Mayukwayukwa and its role in the handling of refugees

in the period between 1966 when the first Angolan refugees arrived and 2013 when

the Zambian government began locally integrating former Angolan refugees after

cessation of Angolan refugees was announced by the international community in the

previous year.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Part of the research was conducted in the University of Zambia Library especially the

Special Collections sections where published and unpublished primary and secondary

sources were consulted. The next part of the research was done at the National

Archives of Zambia (NAZ). The focus there was on records like old newspapers,

magazines, Hansards, agricultural and cooperatives reports, and other documents

available. Another part of the data collection was done through consultation at the

21

offices of the Commissioner for Refugees under the Ministry of Home Affairs,

UNHCR, OXFAM and the Zambia Red Cross Society. Of great importance was the

field research in Kaoma District where records at Mayukwayukwa Refugee

Settlement were consulted and interviews with refugees who have been residents at

the settlement for a long time were conducted. Equally informative were interviews

with the host community. Lastly, the data collected was qualitatively analysed and

historicised before writing down the findings.

ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY

This dissertation is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction and

the historical background of the study. This chapter also attempts to review the works

of other scholars which were relevant to the study. The second chapter discusses the

underlying frameworks that necessitated the establishment of Mayukwayukwa

Refugee Settlement and other refugee hosting areas in Zambia. To merely state that

the establishment of refugee hosting areas in Zambia was as a result of influxes of

refugees and Zambia having acceded to international and regional instruments like

the 1951 United Nations Convention and the 1969 Organisation of African Unity

Conventions relating to refugees is not enough and overlooks other important factors.

Discussed are factors like Zambia’s first Republican president, Kenneth Kaunda’s

political and philosophical ideas. Kaunda’s strong support for the liberation

movements against colonial rule in Africa contributed to Zambia’s open door policy

towards the earlier refugees that were seen as the victims of the liberation struggles.

22

He also pursued a policy of humanism that was centred on man and his wellbeing.

The wellbeing of refugees were of primary importance. In the chapter is also argued

that cultural factors equally contributed to the establishment of these refugee hosting

areas in that it is in the nature of most African cultures to welcome people from far

and near. This was because movement of people in Africa was very common. Also

discussed in brief are the other refugee settlement and camps that were established in

Zambia in the period of interest and how they fared.

Chapter three focuses on the existence of Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement in the

changing times in the period of under discussion. This is in reference to the changing

economy in the host country, the development of refugee policies and political

atmosphere within and outside Zambia. Discussed are the challenges and the

resilience of the refugees to attain self-sustenance in the early years from 1966 to

1973. Also discussed in the chapter is how the settlement operated between 1973 and

2000. This was the period after UNHCR declared that the refugee settlement had

attained self-sustainability and handed over the full responsibility of running the

settlement to the Zambian government. The last discussion in the chapter is on the

role that the settlement played in the period after 2000 when Zambia hosted its peak

refugee population.

The fourth chapter discusses how the refugee and host communities lived alongside

each other for over four decades considering that the host area was rural with limited

development in key areas like education, health, transport, sanitation, markets and

23

infrastructure. The refugees in the settlement on the other hand had had continued

humanitarian and donor attention since the 1960s aimed at improving these same

sectors. Highlighted is how the Zambia Initiative (ZI) was initiated to reduce the

disparities that emerged in wellbeing of the residents of the two communities. The ZI

projects aimed at benefiting both the refugee and the hosts.

The chapter also discusses the efforts to repatriate refugees back to their countries of

origin whenever the refugee generating atmosphere seemed to calm down.

Repatriation was the most preferred solution to the refugee problem for the Zambian

government as opposed to the integration of refugees locally. The argument is that

refugees often voluntarily repatriated on their own and sometimes with minimal

assistance and incentives from home governments, host government and humanitarian

agencies especially after territories gained independence. This was what was expected

and what occurred in the cases involving refugees from Zimbabwe (1980) and

Namibia (1990). The Mozambican and South African refugees also repatriated after

democracy was introduced in their countries in 1990 and 1994 respectively.

It is also demonstrated in this chapter that the case for the Angolan refugees at

Mayukwayukwa was different in that the repatriations that were organised in the

1990s failed because war broke out again and again in Angola as peace agreements

failed to cement peace. Also discussed is the ZI that was embarked on by the Zambian

government after it was clear that the host communities were poor and that the

refugees would stay longer as the protracted Angolan refugee situation continued.

24

Illuminated are the development efforts that were made to alleviate poverty among

the host communities and also to facilitate the integration of refugees.

The chapter examined the experiences at Mayukwayukwa in reference to the

cessation of Angolan refugee status which saw Angolans ceasing to be recognised as

refugees by UNHCR and the world at large. Focus is on the fate of over 10,000

former refugees still in Zambia that felt they did not want to go back to Angola. Some

of these refugees pointed out that they had grown too old in Zambia and had no

strength to be able to start a new life in Angola. Others claimed they had been born

and raised in Zambia, the only home they knew, while others pointed out that they

were married to Zambians and wondered what nationality would be slapped on their

children. Last to be discussed is the procedure and criteria that were employed by the

government of Zambia for the local integration of some 10,000 former Angolan

refugees who had valid claims for not going back to Angola. In conclusion, the fifth

chapter summarises the findings and salient points of the whole paper.

25

ENDNOTES

1 UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/6711), 1st January 1968, para. 163.

2 UNHCR, UNHCR Zambia Newsletter, (UNHCR, 2013), p. 24.

3 http://www.kaoma.climatemps.com/map.php

4 http://www.kaoma.climatemps.com/map.php

5 A. Muna, ‘Animal Power for Weed Control in Kaoma District, Zambia,’ in Starkey, P.

and T. Simalenga, (eds) Animal Power for Weed Control: A Handbook,

(Wageningen: Technical Control for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, 2000), p.

207.

6 Republic of Zambia, Laws of Zambia, Chapter 120 Section 4(1)

7 This figure which is used in the UNCHR Zambia Operation Fact Sheet for 1

st March

2014 consists of refugees from various countries that were residing at

Mayukwayukwa settlement by December 2013.

8 UNHCR, UNHCR Zambia Newsletter, (UNHCR, 2010), p. 18.

9 M. Berrett, ‘Social Landscapes and Moving People: The Mysterious Meaning of

Migration in Western Zambia’, New Issues in Refugee Studies, Working Paper No.

78, 2003.

10

M. C. Musambachime, 'Escape from Tyranny: Flight Across the Rhodesia – Congo

Boundary 1900 – 1930, Transafrican Journal of History, (vol.18, 1989), p. 147.

11

B. Stein, 'Refugee Integration and Older Refugee Settlements in Africa', (American

Anthropological Association, 28th

November 1990), No page numbers @

www.msu.edu/course/pls/461/stein/FINAL.htm [Accessed 22/05/14]

12

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/7612), 1st January 1970, para. 119.

13

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/8412), 1st January 1972, para. 105.

14

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/9612), 1st January 1975, para. 114.

26

15

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 11

(A/6311/Rev.1), 1st January 1966, para. 140.

16

The number of Angolan refugees in Zambia estimated at about 100 at the beginning of

1966 increased to nearly 2,800 by the end of the year after more refugees crossed into

Balovale, Kalabo and Senanga Districts.

17

J. A. Marcum, The Angolan Revolution: Exile Politics and Guerrilla Warfare

(1962 – 1976), vol. 2, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1978), pp. 145-6

18

UNHCR, Report, (A /8412), 1972, para. 161.

19

Richard Black, ‘Putting Refugees in Camps’ in Forced Migration Review, 2 (August

1998), p. 6.

20

UNHCR, ‘Zambians and Refugees Awarded for Exemplary Service on World

Refugee Day’, UNHCR Magazine, 3, 4 (2013) p. 14.

21

Central Statistics Office (CSO), 2000 Census: Western Province, Vol.9, (Lusaka:

Central Statistics Office, 2004) p. xvii

22

UNHCR, ‘Zambians and Refugees Awarded’, p. 14.

23

The percentage was arrived at based on the annual reports of the UNHCR to the

General Assembly of the United Nations in the period of interest.

24

Cheke Cha Mbunda Cultural Writers Association, The History and Cultural Life of

the Mbunda Speaking Peoples, (Lusaka: University of Zambia, 1994), p. 64.

25

J. Colombey (ed), Collection of International instruments and Other Legal Texts

Concerning Refugees and Displaced Persons, vol. II, (Geneva: UNHCR, 1995), p.

4.

26

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/8012), 1st January 1971, para. 25.

27

B. J. Olivier, ‘Kaunda’s Zambia’, Africa Insight, 11, 1 (1981), p. 33.

28

UNHCR, Report, (A /8012), 1971, para. 76.

29

Stein, 'Refugee Integration and Older Refugee Settlements’ No page numbers @

www.msu.edu/course/pls/461/stein/FINAL.htm [Accessed 22/05/14]

30

K. Jacobsen, The Economic Survival in Refugee Camps, (Bloomfield: Kumarian

Press, 2005), p. 23.

27

31

M. Agier, Managing Undesirables: Refugee Camps and Humanitarian

Governments, (Cambridge: Policy Press, 2011), p. 118.

32

Agier, Managing Undesirables, p. 118.

33

UNHCR, Zambia Initiative: Refugee Hosting Community Development

Programme, Donor Mission Report (15 – 28 March 2002), p. 3.

34

A. Hansen, 'Once the Running Stops: The Socio-economic Resettlement of Angolan

Refugees (1966 – 1972) in Zambian Border Villages', (PhD Thesis, Cornell

University, 1977).

35

O. Bakewell, 'Repatriation: Angolan Refugees or Migrating Villagers?', (PhD Thesis,

University of Barth, 1999).

36

W. Sapao, 'A Social and Economic History of Displaced People: The Maheba

Refugee Settlement Experience, 1971 – 1994', (M.A. Dissertation, University of

Zambia, 1996).

37

Cheke Cha Mbunda Cultural Writers Association, The History, p. 18.

38

Musambachime, 'Escape from Tyranny,’ p. 147.

39

Musambachime, 'Escape From Tyranny,’ p. 151.

40

Hansen, 'Once the Running Stops,’ p. 26.

41

A. Hansen, 'Refugee Dynamics: Angolans in Zambia 1966 to 1972', International

Migration Review, 15, 12, (Spring – Summer, 1981), p. 175.

42

Christian Outreach Relief and Development (CORD) is a United Kingdom based

agency that aims to aims to address the needs of vulnerable and marginalized people,

especially children, displaced communities and refugees.

43

O. Bakewell, 'Review of the CORD Community Services for the Angolan Refugees

in Western Province of Zambia', (UNHCR, 2002), p. 9.

44

Bakewell, 'Repatriation: Angolan Refugees or Migrating Villagers?’

45

M. Berret, 'The Social Significance of Crossing State Borders: Home, Mobility and

Life Paths in the Angola – Zambia Borderland' in S. Jansen and S. Lofving (eds),

Struggles for Home: Violence, Hope and the Movement of People, (London:

Berghahn Books, 2009).

28

46

A. Armstrong, ‘Refugee Wellbeing in Settlement Schemes’, Journal of Refugee

Studies, 1, 1 (1988), pp. 57 – 73.

47

W. Sapao, 'A Social and Economic History of Displaced People: The Maheba

Refugee Settlement Experience, 1971 – 1994', (M.A. Dissertation, University of

Zambia, 1996).

48

Agier, Managing Undesirables, p. 118.

49

Stein, 'Refugee Integration and Older Refugee Settlements’ No page numbers @

www.msu.edu/course/pls/461/stein/FINAL.htm [Accessed 22/05/14]

50

S. Dick,' Changing the Equation: Refugees as Valuable Sources Rather than Helpless

Victims', The Fleitcher Journal of International Development, 18 (2003), p. 23.

51

J. Brosche and M. Nilsson, 'Zambian Refugee Policy: Security, Reparation and Local

Integration', Minor Field Study, (Uppsala University, 2004), p. 13.

52

Brosche, et al, 'Zambian Refugee Policy,’ p. 13.

53

A. M. Mwanza and V. Seshamani, 'Refugees an Important Aspect of the Human

Dimension of Africa's Economic Crisis: Zambia Case Study', (Cambridge: ASAUK

Conference, 1988).

54

Jacobsen, The Economic Survival, p. 23.

55

Colombey, Collection of International instruments, p.4

56

UNHCR, Zambia: Analysis of the Gaps in Protection of Refugees, (UNHCR,

September 2007), p. 7.

57

Jacobsen, The Economic Survival, p. 23.

29

CHAPTER TWO

FRAMEWORKS TO THE REFUGEE SETTLEMENTS IN ZAMBIA

The first refugee settlements in Zambia became operational in 1965. The

establishment of the refugee settlements like Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement

was necessitated by a number of factors that cut across international, legal, cultural,

ideological and political lines. These included international instruments that the

newly independent state found itself obliged to adhere to like the universal 1951

United Nations (UN) Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967

Protocol. At regional level, there was the 1969 Organisation for African Unity (OAU)

Convention Governing Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. At a national

level, refugee settlements were necessitated by the enactment of the Refugee

(Control) Act of 1970. Other factors that contributed to Zambia’s handling of

refugees were the nature of the African culture of receiving people, and the first

Republican President, Kenneth Kaunda’s philosophical and political beliefs.

The UN 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was an instrument that

was adopted on 28th

July 1951 to regulate the status of refugees.1 It consolidated

previous international instruments relating to refugees and provided the most

comprehensive codification of the rights of refugees yet attempted on an international

level. It also laid down the basic minimum standards for the treatment of refugees and

the granting of more favourable treatment without prejudice by States. The 1951

Convention was to be applied without discrimination based on to race, religion or

country of origin.

30

The Convention had certain provisions that were considered so fundamental that no

reservations could be made to them by any member state. These include the definition

of the term “refugee” and the principle of “non refoulement”. Non refoulement meant

that no contracting state should expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee, against his or

her will, in any manner, to a territory where he or she feared persecution. The 1951

Convention defined a refugee as:

a person who was unwilling to return to his country of origin because

of (a) “events occurring in Europe before 1st January 1951”; or (b)

“events occurring in Europe or elsewhere before 1st January 1951

owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race,

religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or

political opinion.”2

The Convention included refugees that were specifically generated by events that

occurred during Second World War up to 1951. According to this definition, most of

the refugees in Africa were not recognised as such. Zambia found itself in a situation

where it was obliged, by virtue of being a member of the United Nations, to work

within the 1951 Convention. Zambia had pledged to respect the principles and

resolutions of the United Nations Organisation. By joining the UN, the Government

of Zambia declared that it would continue to be bound by the terms of the 1951

Convention, the application of which had already been extended to its territory before

independence.3

In 1966 engulfed with an influx of refugees from Mozambique and Angola in 1966,

the Zambian government had confidence in the systems of the United Nations

Organisation and its agencies. This confidence in the system was evidenced by an

31

invitation that the Zambian government extended to the United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to establish an office in Zambia. Following

the invitation, UNHCR established an office in Lusaka in May 1966 render assistance

in solving the refugee problem.4 The High Commissioner had already pledged to

consider the practical aspects of the refugee situation without being bound by the

definition of refugees. He considered it his duty to take an interest in any given

refugee problem provided that its scope and character justified special action by the

international community through his office.5 UNHCR was present in Zambia and at

Mayukwayukwa from 1966 to 2013.

Zambia’s confidence in the United Nations system also stemmed from the fact that

UNHCR had by 1966, already shown commitment in extending its mandate to Africa.

In May 1957, UNHCR affirmatively responded to a crisis in Tunisia concerning some

85,000 Algerian refugees who had crossed the border during the previous two and a

half years.6 The refugees fled after the start of the war of independence in Algeria.

This was the first occasion in which UNHCR emergency assistance was extended to a

Third World territory. To fully appreciate the development, one has to bear in mind

that Algeria, at that time, was a French colony. The causes of the refugee flight from

Algeria were the colonial conditions obtaining there. France initially objected to

UNHCR’s involvement in Algeria because of fears that the crisis would draw

international attention. The colonial power claimed that Algeria was an integral part

of France and that a solution would be found internally to repatriate the refugees back

to Algeria.7 The resistance by the French was eventually overcome through a

32

combination diplomacy and demonstration of moral authority by the efforts of the UN

family. The Algerian refugees were assisted through an emergency relief programme

that eventually aided over 180,000 refugees.8 The UNHCR’s assistance to the

Algerian refugees marked an important step in the organisation’s development. It also

gave small nations confidence by proving that the UN would pursue its mandate even

against major world powers like France.

By 1966, the international community was acknowledging that the refugee problem

had shifted from Europe to Africa and Asia. It was in Africa that the major part of the

UNHCR’s refugee problems was found. Africa then, had an estimated fast growing

refugee population of 730,000 arising from independence struggles and civil wars.9

The solution that was mostly applicable to the refugee problem in Africa and

preferred by UNHCR was the integration of refugees in rural settlements that were

established.10

The Zambian government established rural refugee settlements in line

with the UNHCR but with the hope that the refugees would be repatriated quickly.

This was evidenced by the fact that Zambian laws did not include any provision

supporting the naturalisation of refugees to become Zambian citizens.

In order to rectify the anomaly with regards to the definition of refugees which clearly

did not cover refugees fleeing into its territory, Zambia teamed up with other UN

member States in 1966 to push forward a draft resolution. This draft resolution,

submitted to the United Nations General Assembly proposed to facilitate for the

approval of a protocol that would extend the scope of the 1951 Convention

33

definition.11

It was proposed that the definition of the term ‘refugee’ would be

amended so as to include all refugees around the world. Refugees would be regarded

as such regardless of whether they were generated by 1951 or not. It was desirable

that equal status and attention be enjoyed by all refugees covered by the definition

irrespective of when they became refugees. The submission was made on 7th

December 1966 by the following fifteen member states: Zambia, Algeria, Burundi,

Congo (Brazzaville), France, Guinea, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan,

Sudan, Tunisia, Tanzania and Yugoslavia.12

This draft resolution resulted in the birth

of the UN 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees which entered into force

on 4th

October 1967.13

The Protocol extended the scope of the 1951 Convention by

removing the dateline of “1st January 1951” contained in the definition. By accession

to the 1967 Protocol, States undertook to apply the substantive provisions of the 1951

Convention to all refugees without the limitation of date. It eliminated the major

short-coming of the 1951 Convention by extending its scope to all persons who were

refugees at that time and any time to come. The Protocol gave the 1951 Convention a

broader and more universal character that made it applicable to new groups of

refugees like those found in Africa.

The OAU was also concerned about the problem of refugees in Africa. At the 1965

Summit Conference at Accra, the organisation arrived at a resolution that member

States should accede to the 1951 Convention while the OAU Convention on refugees

was still being worked on.14

This was an expression of appreciation for the assistance

provided by UNHCR so far. Zambia also attended the OAU Summit that was held in

34

Addis Ababa in October 1966 at which the refugee situation in Africa was discussed.

The member States deliberated over a draft refugee convention prepared by a

committee of legal experts tasked to localise the 1951 Convention in Africa.15

The

OAU wanted to come up with a convention specifically made to assist with the

problem of refugees from the African perspective. The member States also wanted a

convention that would become an effective regional complement to the 1951

Convention.

The OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa

was adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government at its Sixth ordinary

Session held in Addis Ababa on 10th

September 1969.16

It entered into force on 20th

June 1974 in accordance with the resolution which stated that the Convention should

come into force upon the deposit of instruments showing that one-third of the

member states had ratified it.17

The OAU Convention defined a refugee as a person

who:

owing to persecution or well founded fear of persecution for reasons of

race, colour, religion, political belief or membership of a particular

social group: (a) leaves the state of which he is a national, or the

country of his nationality, the state of which he is a habitual resident;

or (b) being outside such a state or country, is unable or unwilling to

return to it or to unveil himself of its protection.18

The passing of the 1969 OAU Convention acted as the final catalyst that made the

Government of the Republic of Zambia in the same year to accede and become party

to the 1951 Convention, the 1967 Protocol and the 1969 OAU Convention.19

These

35

instruments greatly influenced the treatment and finding of solutions for the refugee

problem in Zambia.

These international instruments led to the enactment of Zambia’s own refugee

legislation in the form of the Refugee (Control) Act of 1970. This was the only piece

of legislation that was passed in Zambia that dealt directly with refugees. It was

passed by Zambia’s National Assembly on 28th

August 1970 in order to implement

some of the provisions that were laid down by the international instruments. The Act

was the embodiment of the refugee policies that had been pursued by the Zambian

government in the early refugee settlements like Mayukwayukwa, Lwatembo and

Nyimba from 1965 until 1970. The challenges, achievements and the general

experiences at these early settlements from the time of Zambia’s first contact with the

problem of refugees to the time of the enactment of the Act played a major role in the

shaping of this piece of legislation on refugees in Zambia.

The Act legitimised and strengthened the existence of refugee settlements that were

already operational at that time by providing constitutional guidelines in accordance

with the laws of Zambia. For instance, the Act required that all refugees should reside

in a designated refugee reception area like a settlement or camp. It made it a legal

requirement that refugees should report themselves to the nearest relevant authorities

upon entry into Zambia so that the refugees could be guided to the refugee reception

areas. This law was definitely intended to discourage the settlement of refugees

36

among the local communities which was common in Zambia. The Act regulated all

refugee activities in Zambia with only a few amendments made.

The political ideology pursued by the President Zambia then, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda,

was another important factor in the establishment of rural settlements for refugees

like Mayukwayukwa. Although still in its infancy, the ideology of Humanism played

a major role. The philosophy of Humanism had notable history with philosophers like

Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel and Josiah Royce.20

Basically, the theme

of Humanism was man - centred and revolved around man and his wellbeing. Corliss

Lamont defined it as a representation of a specific and forthright view of the universe,

the nature of human beings, and the treatment of human problems.21

Kaunda’s

Humanism sought to create a society that placed the human person at the centre of all

activity, social, economic and political.22

Kaunda argued that Humanism stemmed from the structure of traditional African

societies in which the vast majority of Africans lived in contact with nature and kept

the element of their culture alive.23

This was in reference to the extended family

system that constituted a social security system that followed a natural pattern of

personal relationships rather than being the responsibility of an institution. The tribal

society as Kaunda put it was an accepting community in which social qualities

weighed more than individual achievements and that it was a mutual society

organised to satisfy the basic human needs of all members, therefore, discouraged

37

individualism.24

He also believed that it was an inclusive society in which

relationships involved some degree of mutual responsibility on widely spread basis.25

According to the principle of man-centredness, society and its institutions were

nothing more than tools in man’s struggle for survival. Man was valued and respected

above everything else and regardless of his social status, skin colour, creed, race or

religion.26

Refugees in the context of Kaunda’s Humanism were seen as human

beings needing the assistance of fellow human beings. Bound by the tenets of

Kaunda’s Humanism, Zambia had to accommodate the refugees fleeing across its

borders.

Kaunda was also bent on assisting whoever was opposed to or affected by the

colonial administrations still holding on to the dominance over the Africans. The

refugees that necessitated the establishment of early refugee settlements were fleeing

from the aggressive activities resulting from the liberation wars against colonial

forces in Angola, Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia, South West Africa and the

apartheid regime In South Africa. Kaunda pursued an open door policy for refugees.

It was probably a way of aiding in the liberation struggles of these people and

assisting the victims of colonialism.

The cultural factor also played a role in the establishment of refugee settlements like

Mayukwayukwa. In African culture, migrant strangers were guaranteed some degree

of hospitality so long as they could associate themselves to an existing local clan. It

38

was a custom among the Bantu ethnic groups to extend their hospitality to guests. The

Bantu whose origins can be traced to the Cameroon highlands have long evidenced

history of migrations into Central and Southern Africa. It was common for them

move to different places because of various reasons. Over time, their culture evolved

mechanisms to extend hospitality to strangers that were sometimes not related by

ethnic ties. Mechanisms like the clan ‘Mukowa’ system evolved whereby a man’s

clan totem could assure him of warm hospitality in faraway lands. Elizabeth Colson

referred to it as ‘clan hospitality’ in reference to the Tonga whom she says seemed to

be adept at relating themselves to some clan no matter where they went and could fit

strangers into their clan system.27

In this cultural system, one’s clan was as important as his ethnicity in the absence of

ethnic relations. When found in unfamiliar distant places, what was important was

one’s ability to perform a recital, invoking his clan which was normally a genealogy

linking the person to the clan’s leaders or founders. It then became the cultural

responsibility of the local people belonging to that clan to take care of their clansman

in terms of hospitality and social introductions.28

Some of the people that were fleeing

from Angola into western Zambia in 1966 belonged to ethnic groups that were also

found in Zambia like the Chokwe, Mbunda, Luvale, Luchazi, and Mashi. These were

given warm hospitality by the local communities because of ethnicity. Those that did

not have ethnic relations probably attempted to solicit for clan hospitality among the

locals. A lot of refugees settled among the Zambian villagers.29

39

The Government of the Republic of Zambia could not ignore this fact that persons

fleeing into or out of Zambia’s territory had always enjoyed some form of warm

hospitality. Moreover, even the colonial administration of the territories in the region

had tolerated the cross-border movements for various reasons like labour and to

increase the tax revenues. Among the Zambians, the refugees of the post-

independence years were seen as tribesmen or clansmen from across the border.

These borders were erected with the coming of colonial rule. The Zambian

government was bound to safeguard the wellbeing of these refugees as opposed to

leaving them to settle in the local villages. Refugee settlements were established by

the government very far from the border for the hosting of refugees in an orderly

manner. This was in pursuit of the policy of encampment by the Zambian

government.30

The UNHCR and its donor partners have often borne the brunt of accusations for

insisting on the encampment policy in which refugees are put in organised camps and

settlements. However, it is the host countries which ultimately decided whether to

settle refugees in organised settlements or to allow them to settle on their own among

the locals.31

The Zambian government policy was to settle of refugees in settlements.

It also determined the size and location of the settlements. The decisions concerning

the settlements were more often influenced by social, political, cultural, and

environmental considerations among others. Some African countries like Tanzania,

Botswana and Burundi pursued policies that allowed refugees to settle themselves

among the local communities.32

Unlike Zambia at that time, these countries viewed

40

naturalisation through the local integration of the refugees as a durable solution to the

refugee problem.

The organised refugee settlements were mostly preferred to keep track of the refugee

population’s demographics, movements and utilisation of local resources.

Additionally, organised refugee settlements were practical for effective service

delivery, accountability, identification of individuals, cost effectiveness of relief

operations and general monitoring.33

Security concerns also forced the state to move

the refugees away from the border areas where they could easily attract the attention

of the warring parties and therefore threaten the peace enjoyed by Zambians.34

The

settlement of refugees away from the border also ensured that no military groups

allied to the refugees could launch attacks from the Zambian territory.

The establishment of refugee settlements was also necessary if the State was to attract

the attention of the international humanitarian community to the problem of refugees.

The refugee problem became more visible when the refugees were put in organised

settlements. Refugees that were settled among the local villagers were difficult to

identify for assistance purposes. Visibility of refugees was important in that the host

nations benefitted from international assistance. International assistance helped to

reduce the burden of hosting refugees for the state. It was the hope in the early years

that the stay of the refugees in Zambia would be short and that the liberation wars

would soon come to an end, giving birth to independence and peace for the affected

nations. This would guarantee safety and security for the refugees to return to their

41

countries of origin. Thus, settling of refugees in organised settlements and camps was

implemented as a durable strategy by the Zambian state.

However, there were some refugees that were allowed to settle in areas outside of the

refugee settlements and camps. These were accommodated in urban centres. Most of

these were students and political asylum seekers from South Africa, Namibia and

Zimbabwe. These refugees benefitted from the assistance of their respective

liberation movements. They were also assisted by the efforts of bodies like the OAU

Coordinating Committee for the Liberation of Africa, the office of United Nations

Commissioner for Namibia, the International University Exchange Fund and the

Christian Council of Zambia.35

The period between 1966 and 2013 saw the establishment of five agricultural based

refugee settlements and three refugee camps in Zambia. The refugee settlements were

Nyimba, Lwatembo, Mayukwayukwa, Maheba and Ukwimi. The refugee camps were

Kala, Mwange and Nangweshi. All the refugee settlements were rural and agricultural

based. The refugees in the organised settlements were given farm plots to settle on

and were expected to produce food for themselves after some time. The refugees in

the camps on the other hand were provided with food supplies and where not

expected to become self sufficient in food production. This was because the refugees

in the camps were not provided with enough land to practice sustainable agriculture.

The agencies involved provided care and maintenance programmes to sustain the

refugees in camps in terms of food.

42

At inception in 1966, refugees in the early settlements in Zambia were given farming

plots to be worked on communally. Refugee households were not allowed to produce

crops individually but as a unit of many households whose proceeds were to be

shared equally among the households. This was similar to what was obtaining in most

other newly independent African states that were trying to come up with their own

interpretation of the Non-Aligned movement as opposed to Western capitalism or

Eastern communism. However, in 1970, the state reversed its position and allowed

each refugee household to utilise individual farm plots.36

This was necessitated by the

failure of the communal farming system. Both the Angolan and Mozambican refugees

in the settlements were not used to the communal system. They faced a lot of

challenges which resulted in poor harvests.37

The refugees in the agricultural settlement were assisted with agriculture implements

like tools, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides for two years with the aim of making them

self sufficient within that time. In addition, the refugees in the settlements were

provided with extension services from agriculture experts. Other services that were

provided to the refugees included education, health and security from the relevant

government agencies and Non-Governmental Organisations.

The first refugee settlement in Zambia was created in December 1965 at Nyimba. The

area for the settlement was bordered in the east by the Great East Road and Nyimba

Hospital in the west.38

Nyimba was part of Petauke District in Eastern Province of the

43

Republic of Zambia. The settlement at Nyimba was established to accommodate

refugees fleeing from the liberation struggles in Mozambique. The liberation war in

Mozambique was launched in September 1964 by the Frente de Libertacao de

Mozcambique (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique – FRELIMO) against

Portuguese forces.39

According to a Reuter Press release on 5th

January 1966:

Refugees from the Portuguese East African colony of Mozambique

began crossing the border into neighbouring Zambia about a month

ago, soon after disturbances at Zumbo when, it was reported, a number

of people were killed.

The 1,000 or so who fled their homes in the first few days have since

grown to an estimated 6,000, most of them old men, women and

children. Many have brought their own livestock – cattle, goats, sheep

and pigs – with them.

A new camp to accommodate many of the refugees is being

constructed at Nyimba, about 200 miles from east of Lusaka, the

capital, by the Zambian government.40

Initially, the refugees crossing into Zambia settled themselves among the local

communities where there existed ethnic ties and where cultural factors like clan

hospitality could be called upon. The government embarked on a campaign of

gathering the reluctant refugees from the villages to the settlement at Nyimba.41

The

government with the help of UNHCR and other partners like World Food Programme

(WFP) and Red Cross Society attended to the immediate needs of the refugees.

By the end of 1966, 150 hectares of the land given to the refugees at Nyimba was

under cultivation.42

This was after the refugees were assisted with farming

implements. The government made it compulsory at the settlement for refugees to

engage in communal farming.43

It was hoped that the refugees at the settlement would

become self-supporting by the middle of 1968.44

The infrastructure at the settlement

44

was improved by the construction of water towers and an access road from the main

highway to the settlement. Other improvements were the building of schools and

health facilities in the area.45

However, the settlement at Nyimba faced some challenges that delayed its attainment

of self sufficiency. A challenge was that refugees did not remain in the settlement

long enough to be self reliant. A lot of refugees continued to cross into eastern

Zambia while others repatriated back to Mozambique. For instance, of the estimated

5,000 Mozambican refugees at the beginning of 1966, 4,000 repatriated back to their

country while 1,000 new arrivals crossed over into Zambia.46

In 1969, the

government provided food rations for Mozambique refugees whose numbers

fluctuated between 1,300 and 2,000.47

The other challenge that arose was that the

refugees lacked familiarity with communal farming. This was despite the fact that

they had bumper maize harvests at the settlement as early as the first year there.48

They were used to the traditional farming system where households produced crops

on individual farm plots.

Security also proved to be a challenge at Nyimba because the settlement was too

close to the border. Moreover, the Nyimba refugees were actively in support of the

freedom struggle in Mozambique by supplying food and labour to the freedom

fighters.49

Zambian authorities were aware of the activities and movements of the

Mozambicans between Nyimba and the Mozambique border areas. Available

correspondence showed that there was a problem of security at Nyimba because of its

45

proximity to the border. In a letter written to the Commissioner for Refugees in 1972,

the District Secretary of Petauke, H. S. Lubinda, wrote that “the present camp at

Nyimba is a security risk and poses a danger to the administration of refugee relief

operations.”50

The solution to the security problem was to transfer the refugees at Nyimba to Sasare

Farms. This was a farm block that had been planned to house Watchtower refugees

from Malawi. At the end of 1972, some 20,000 refugees from the Malawi

Watchtower sect fled into Zambia’s Eastern Province in fear of persecution from the

Government of Malawi.51

The Zambian government prepared Sasare Farms for the

refugees. However, the refugees returned to Malawi the same year as a result of the

efforts by the Zambian government in obtaining guarantees from their Malawian

counterparts that the refugees could return and live peacefully.52

At the beginning of

1974, the government intensified its intentions to begin resettling Nyimba refugees to

Sasare Refugee Settlement after the rains. However, the planned settlement of

refugees at Sasare never transpired because peace and transfer of power was signed

between the Portuguese and FRELIMO in the September 1974 Lusaka Accord.53

Most of the Mozambique refugees repatriated voluntarily back to Mozambique by

1975 when that country gained its independence leading to the closure of the

settlement at Nyimba.

The second settlement was Lwatembo. It was established as a refugee settlement in

1966 to host refugees fleeing into Zambia from the liberation wars in Angola. It was

46

located in Zambezi District in North Western province. It was established on a piece

of land, about twenty kilometres east of Zambezi Boma and three kilometers north of

the M8 road.54

The agricultural based rural settlement was originally designed to

accommodate 2,000 refugees. However, by the end of 1966, the population of

Angolan refugees at the settlement was more than 3,300.55

This resulted in beginning

of problems at the settlement in the year of inception.

The immediate problem was that there was a shortage of arable land for agriculture

for a lot of the refugees.56

As a solution to the problem, the authorities transferred

1,750 of the refugees out of Lwatembo to the settlement at Mayukwayukwa.57

Mayukwayukwa which was designed for a population of 1,500 only had 500 refugees

accommodated there before the transfer of the refugees from Lwatembo.58

Another

problem which Lwatembo suffered was that the soil was not good enough to provide

a viable future for agriculture. This was a result of the fact that no proper soil surveys

were conducted before inception to ascertain the viability of the area as a refugee

settlement based on agriculture. A team of experts from the Food and Agriculture

Organisation that surveyed the early Zambian settlements at Nyimba, Lwatembo and

Mayukwayukwa in 1969 recommended that the government should allocate more

land to the refugees.59

They also suggested that the refugees must be allowed to

engage in individual farming. The refugees at Lwatembo, like those at

Mayukwayukwa and Nyimba, were not accustomed to the communal farming that

was imposed on them by the government.

47

In 1970, the government decided to change the agriculture policy for refugee

settlements from communal farming to individual holdings.60

It was expected that the

change in policy would provide greater motivation for the refugees to be more

productive. This did not change much at Lwatembo because the settlement was

earmarked for closure. The settlement was due to close because of unfavourable

conditions and poor quality soils. The settlement never attained the self sufficiency

that was originally envisioned for 1968. Lwatembo Refugee Settlement was closed

down in 1971 when all its refugees were transferred to Maheba Refugee Settlement

which became fully functional the same year.61

Maheba was the fourth agricultural refugee settlement to be established in Zambia.

The third refugee settlement to be established was Mayukwayukwa, in 1966. Maheba

was located in Solwezi District of North Western Province. It was situated some

seventy kilometres south west of Solwezi Boma. The land was rectangular in shape,

bounded in the west by the Meheba River. It extended up to the Protected Forest Area

No. 105 in the north. The boundary in the south and south-east was the Mwafwe

River. Maheba was established with an area of approximately 580 square

kilometres.62

Maheba Refugee Settlement became operational in 1971 to cater for Angolan

refugees following the closure of Lwatembo in the same year. Other than those that

were transferred from Lwatembo, already mentioned, the excess refugees at

Mayukwayukwa were also transferred to Maheba leaving only 1,500.63

Later arrivals

48

from Angola were taken to the settlement at Maheba. Maheba was established with

better preparation than Nyimba, Lwatembo and Mayukwayukwa. Proper surveys

were done to analyse the viability of establishing an agriculture-based refugee

settlement which was intended to accommodate 10,000 refugees. Proper site selection

was critical for future attainment of self-sufficiency. The three chief characteristics of

a suitable settlement site were good soils, adequate rainfall (or a source of irrigation

water), and sufficient drinking water.64

Maheba qualified based on positive results in

the above aspects. From inception, refugees at Maheba were given family plots of 5

hectares on which to grow crops.65

The refugee population of 6,250 at Meheba in 1972 was encouraged to seriously

engage in crop production. A variety of crops and vegetables were grown with good

results. Initiatives were started in other non-crop income generating activities like

poultry and fish farming. Improvement in food production at the settlement continued

until after1974 when prospects of Angolan independence seemed higher. The

repatriation of hundreds and the possibility of repatriation in the near future had an

unsettling effect at the settlement. This was evidenced by lack of enthusiasm among

the refugees for increasing agricultural output.66

The situation only improved after

1976 when the situation in Angola worsened again due to a civil war. This saw a new

influx of Angolan refugees at the settlement. Refugees realized that they would not

return home soon.

49

More land was cleared to equip the settlement for more agricultural activities.

Measures for self-sufficiency were put in place to assist the Maheba refugees whose

numbers had reached 12,700 in 1977.67

The measures included the provision of

agricultural equipment and fertilizers. The road network was also improved for

marketing purposes. A farmers’ cooperative was established to sell produce and assist

in acquiring of agriculture inputs like seeds, fertilizers, insecticides and even

equipment. In addition, there were improvements in terms of education and health.

Training was extended to the refugees in skills like carpentry, baking, home crafts

and sewing. The presence of considerable numbers of urban refugees among the new

arrivals necessitated the planning for more diversified activities such as light industry

and small businesses at the settlement.68

Maheba was declared as a self sufficient settlement by the UNHCR in April 1982.69

With this declaration, international assistance provided through UNHCR ceased and

the responsibility for further assistance to the refugees rested with the Zambian

government. This meant that refugees would receive services at the same level as the

nationals in the surrounding villages. The declaration of self sufficiency is normally

followed by the handover by the UNHCR to the host government of full

responsibility of the refugee settlement. In 2013 at the end of this study, Maheba

Refugee Settlement was hosting a total of 17,622 occupants from different countries.

These included the following refugees: 6,127 Congolese, 1,513 Rwandese, 703

Burundese, 307 Somalis; and 6,778 former Angolan refugees.70

50

Although the settlements at Nyimba, Lwatembo, and Mayukwayukwa began

performing their roles of hosting refugees earlier, their existence became legitimised

under the laws of Zambia by the Declaration of Reception Areas Order. This was

embodied in Statutory Instrument 133 of 1971 under the Refugee (Control) Act of

1970.71

This Instrument by the Minister determined the areas to be used for the

purpose of hosting refugees. When this Instrument came into being, Lwatembo was in

the process on being shut down and the opening of the settlement at Maheba was

underway. Maheba Refugee Settlement was also legalised by the same Instrument.

Ukwimi was the last agriculture-based refugee settlement that was established in

Zambia covered by the scope of the study. Ukwimi Refugee Settlement was,

probably, one of the best implemented agricultural settlement programmes for

refugees in Africa.72

The international humanitarian community widely promoted it

as a model for development assistance to refugees. It was created in 1987 by

Statutory Instrument 86 under the Refugee (Control) Act.73

Ukwimi was located in

Petauke District in Eastern Province. The rectangular 150 kilometre square area that

was prepared for the establishment of the settlement had the Lusandwa River and

Kisangani River as boundaries on the north and west respectively.74

Subsequent

extensions doubled the area to make it 300 kilometer squares.75

It was situated 62

kilometres from Petauke Boma.

Ukwimi Refugee Settlement was established to accommodate refugees fleeing from

the Mozambique civil war. The intensification of the internal conflict in Mozambique

51

in 1985 resulted in the influx of 3,000 Mozambican refugees in Zambia’s Eastern

Province. Most of these refugees were peasant farmers that fled from Tete Provinve

of Mozambique.76

This continued in 1986 and 1987 until 23,000 refugees were spread

along the border districts of Chadiza, Petauke and Katete.77

The Zambian government

together with UNHCR in 1987 decided to move the refugees from the border areas to

the newly formed Ukwimi Refugee Settlement. The Zambia Red Cross Society was

tasked to be in charge of the transportation of the refugees to the new settlement since

it had been responsible for the relief operations in the border areas.78

The planning of the settlement at Ukwimi was done well. Even the infrastructure was

of a higher standard compared to the earlier settlements.79

The challenges that had

been encountered at the other refugee settlements equipped the stakeholders at

Ukwimi to plan adequately. The settlement was set up in form of neatly demarcated

groups of villages in which house plots were separated from farming plots. The

refugee households were on arrival each allocated 2 hectares of land and a plot for a

family house. They were also provided a settlement start-up kit for the first two years.

At inception, the refugees at Ukwimi were expected to be self sufficient by the year

1990. The projected target year for self sufficiency was later pushed to 1991. This

was because of an initial low turnout of refugees at the settlement. For instance, only

3,000 refugees were settled at the settlement after a year of operation due to their

reluctance to move from the border.80

52

The refugees benefitted from extensive infrastructure investment and development

which included schools, clinics, markets, bore hole water points, grinding mills, a

police station, a guest house and staff houses. The settlement was furnished with road

infrastructure that was quickly done and of a good standard. A 67 kilometre road was

constructed to link the settlement to Petauke town. In addition, feeder roads spanning

a length of 290 kilometres were constructed to link villages with other units within

Ukwimi. This advantaged the refugees who had undergone skills training at the

settlement and especially the ones that had been introduced to some income

generating activities like piggery and poultry. These activities needed a good link to

the market. Most of the refugees underwent training in skills like sewing, weaving,

carpentry and brick.

Ukwimi was closed down as a refugee settlement in 1995 after the removal of all the

refugees there. The facility was subsequently handed to GRZ on 24th

March 1995.81

The closure and handover of the settlement followed a series of events that had

started with the repatriation of 2,500 refugees back to Mozambique on a trial basis

organised by UNHCR in 1993.82

In 1994, UNHCR in close coordination with GRZ

undertook a repatriation programme that saw the voluntary repatriation of 17,000

Mozambican refugees from Ukwimi back to their country of origin.83

The few non-

Mozambican refugees that were at Ukwimi were moved to Maheba Refugee

Settlement. The Government of Zambia in association with UNHCR decided to

reopen Ukwimi Refugee Settlement in 2001 for the relocation of Angolan refugees

that were actively involved in political and military activities in their country before

53

fleeing into Zambia.84

The settlement received refugees from other settlement and

camps that were deemed a security risk. By June 2002 the population at Ukwimi was

at 2,412 persons.85

Ukwimi was deactivated and closed down for the second time in

2008.

Kala and Mwange were refugee camps that had a lot in common and were often

referred to as a unit of two. The two camps were both established almost at the same

time in the northern Zambia to host refugees from the DRC. Mwange Refugee Camp

was situated in Mporokoso District in Northern Province. It was opened in May 1999

when refugees from the DRC began entering Zambia in March the same year. The

refugees were fleeing from the volatile security situation in their country. There was

intensified fighting between government troops and rebels in the DRC. Kala Refugee

Camp was opened on 19th

August 2000 to accommodate refugees from the DRC. The

opening of Kala was necessitated by the fact that Mwange Refugee Camp, which was

opened the year before, was full. The new camp was located in Kawambwa District

of Luapula Province and situated 201 kilometers from the DRC border. Kala Refugee

Camp was equipped to accommodate a refugee population of 25,000.86

At inception, Kala and Mwange Refugee Camps were tailor-made as care and

maintenance refugee camps to host refugees that were never expected to become self

sufficient in food production. This was mostly because there was not enough land

allocated to the refugees for sustainable agriculture. There were also no other

opportunities that were available to the refugees to guarantee self sufficiency. The

54

refugees depended on the humanitarian agencies for their basic sustenance supplies

like food, clothing, education and others. Refugees at both camps benefitted from

WFP food baskets of maize, beans, salt and vegetable oil. The food basket consisted

of 2,100 kilocalories per person per day which was considered enough.87

However,

the refugees showed efforts of attempting to supplement on what they received from

the refugee humanitarian agencies.

The Zambian government planned to convert Mwange Refugee Camp into an

agricultural settlement in 2000. Plans were made to allocate 10,800 hectares of land

to the refugees to enable them to engage in sustainable agricultural activities as a

means of achieving self reliance in food production.88

The aim was to reduce

dependency on WFP food rations. The refugees at Kala and Mwange engaged in

agriculture in an introduced gardening programme where land was available.

Mwange was never converted into an agricultural settlement but an additional 5,400

hectares of land was allocated to the refugees in 2002.89

Kala Refugee Camp, on the

other hand, was extended by the allocation of 1,457 hectares of land for agricultural

purposes in 2000. This land allocation benefitted 1,029 Kala refugee households.90

As

a result of these efforts, tangible strides were made in the production of food among

the refugees in both camps. For instance, in 2002 when WFP distributed only 50 per

cent of the programmed food rations for the refugees due to funding shortfalls, the

refugees at Mwange Refugee Camp sold 35 metric tons of beans.91

55

Both Kala and Mwange were vacated and closed down by the end of 2010. This was

due to successful repatriation of the refugee population. A total of 43,188 refugees

from the two camps were repatriated back to the DRC between 2007 and 2010.92

The

repatriation was facilitated by the government of Zambia, in collaboration with the

authorities in the DRC, UNHCR and International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The refugees that were not willing to return to their home country were relocated to

Meheba Refugee Settlement which was located some 1,500 kilometres away. In total,

2,087 Congolese refugees were relocated from the two camps to Maheba the same

year.93

Nangweshi Refugee Camp was created in January 2000 to host refugees fleeing from

Angola. The refugee camp was situated on the western bank of the Zambezi River in

Shangombo District in Western Province. It was located 120 kilometres from the

Angolan border.94

The original refugees that found themselves at Nangweshi were

mostly from the UNITA supporting Jamba area of Cuando Cubango Province. These

refugees fled after the 1999 MPLA offensive against UNITA that led to the eventual

fall of the UNITA head quarters in Jamba by 2000.95

The refugees that crossed into

the region at this time were guided to transit centres in Shangombo and Kalabo

Districts of western Zambia. Both these transit centres were at risk because they were

too close to the border. The Zambian authorities, UNHCR and IOM tried to settle the

refugees elsewhere quickly. This proved to be a difficult task because the road

conditions were bad and impassible in the rain season. The situation sometimes got so

56

bad that even airlifting of refugees from these areas was suspended because runways

became flooded.96

They were finally transported to the refugee camp at Nangweshi.

The first crop of refugees at the camp was estimated to be about 14,812 by mid

2001.97

This group of refugees was peculiar in that it was largely an urban population

with high levels of education. This group of refugees consisted of people who were

professionals, with a number that had served in the UNITA administration.98

The later

influx which began arriving around October 2001 was rural in nature and did not

comprise a lot of educated refugees.

The presence of refugees that were seen to have been too politically involved or were

former military personnel created tension at Nangweshi Refugee Camp. The

Government in agreement with UNHCR sent all those that were deemed too political

to Ukwimi Refugee Settlement which was reactivated in 2001 to specifically host

such refugees. The prospects at Ukwimi were better in terms of opportunities for the

refugees to produce food for themselves. This was because the refugees had more

access to land.

The operations at Nangweshi led to the opening of an office in Mongu, the provincial

head quarters of Western Province. This was aimed at decentralising its operations

and also for closer monitoring.99

The refugees at Nangweshi received food rations

from WFP and were not expected to become self sufficient due to the fact that there

was no land for them to grow enough for their sustenance. The refugees, however,

57

embarked on backyard gardening to supplement their food basket. Some engaged in

income generating activities such as poultry, sewing, knitting and basket weaving.100

The agencies involved in assistance of refugees at Nangweshi faced a lot of

challenges in the extension of care and maintenance operations because of the

location and access to the camp.

The Zambian government closed down Nangweshi Refugee Camp in November

2006. The reason was that the camp was located in an area that was too remote. This

generally caused a lot of difficulties in giving humanitarian assistance as a result of

bad terrain, seasonal floods and impassable roads.101

The refugees at the camp were

given the option to either repatriate to their homeland or to relocate to

Mayukwayukwa where they would receive land and better prospects for self reliance.

The task of moving the refugees regardless of their choice was taken up by the

Zambian authorities, UNHCR and IOM. In October 2006, out of the 15,000 Angolan

refugees at Nangweshi, 4971 were relocated to Mayukwayukwa, and 2,140 were

repatriated to Angola.102

The rest repatriated themselves on their own. The assets at

the camp were handed over to the Zambian government.103

These included several

office blocks, staff houses, a police station, a guest house, two clinics, eight primary

and two secondary schools, a mechanical workshop, water points and hammer

mills.104

In conclusion, it can be stated that the establishment of organised refugee settlements

in Zambia was necessitated by a number of factors which worked as a framework on

58

how the Zambian government accommodated the refugees flowing into its

boundaries. Mayukwayukwa existed as a product of many factors and was unique in

its own right. This is stated in light of the fact that the settlement was never modeled

by the tenets of international or national law, but by a blend of many factors that

came into play. The existence of other refugee settlements and camps that were

established in Zambia in the period under discussion lent some lessons to the

stakeholders on how best to host refugees. In the same vein, the refugee settlement at

Mayukwayukwa benefitted greatly from the experiences of the other refugee

settlements. The settlement went through many changes in and around Zambia but

continued to exist as others closed down. The experiences and existence of

Mayukwayukwa as a refugee settlement, discussed in the next chapter, did not occur

in isolation of other refugee hosting areas in Zambia.

59

ENDNOTES

1 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Convention and

Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, p.5

2 UNHCR, Convention and Protocol, p.5

3 UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/8012), 1st January 1971, para. 25.

4 United Nations (UN), Activities of the United Nations and its Family of

Agencies in Zambia, (Lusaka: United Nations Development Programme,

1967), p.40

5 UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A /5511Rev.1), 1st January 1964, para. 70.

6 A. Betts, G. Loescher, and J. Liner, The United Nations High Commissioner

for Refugees (UNHCR): The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection,

(New York: Routledge, 2008), p. 25.

7 Betts, et al, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, p. 26.

8 Betts, et al, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, p. 26.

9 UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A /6711), 1st January 1968, para. 86.

10

UN, Year Book of the United Nations (1966), p. 399.

11

UN, Year Book (1966), p. 403.

12

UN, Year Book (1966), p. 403.

13

J. Colombey, (ed), Collection of International Instruments and Other Legal

Texts Concerning Refugees and Displaced Persons, vol. 2, (Geneva:

UNHCR, 1995), p. 39.

14

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A /6311), 1st January 1966, para. 63.

15

UNHCR, Report, (A /6711), 1968, para. 73.

16

Colombey, Collection of International Instruments, vol. 2, p. 3.

60

17

Colombey, Collection of International Instruments, vol. 2, p. 3.

18

Colombey, Collection of International Instruments, vol. 2, p. 4.

19

UNHCR, Report, (A/8012), 1971, para. 25.

20

C. Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, (New York: Humanist Press, 1997),

pp. 33 – 36.

21

Lamont, The Philosophy, p. 33. 22

This study refers to it as Kaunda’s Humanism because Humanism was not

enshrined in the constitution of Zambia. Even the constitution of Kaunda’s

political party, United National Independence Party, referred to it as African

Socialism.

23

B. J. Olivier, ‘Kaunda’s Zambia’, Africa Insight, 11, 1 1981), p. 33.

24

K. D. Kaunda, Humanism in Zambia: and a Guide to its Implementation,

Part 1, (Lusaka: Zambia Information Services, [No publication year]), p. 5.

25

Kaunda, Humanism in Zambia, p. 5.

26

GRZ, Ministry of Development Planning and National Guidance, ‘Hand-Outs

on Humanism’, (Lusaka, November 1972), p. 9.

27

E. Colson, ‘The Plateau Tonga of Northern Rhodesia’, in E. Colson and M.

Gluckman, Seven Tribes of British Central Africa, (Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 1959), p. 131.

28

R. Papstein, ‘From Ethnic Identity to Tribalism: The Upper Zambezi Region of

Zambia, 1830 – 1981’, in L. Vail, (ed), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern

Africa, (Oxford: University of California Press, 1989), p. 373.

29

A. Hansen, 'Refugee Dynamics: Angolans in Zambia 1966 to 1972',

International Migration Review, 15, 12 (Spring – Summer, 1981), p. 175.

30

Republic of Zambia, Laws of Zambia, Chapter 120 Section 4(1)

31

Jeff Crisp and Karen Jacobsen, ‘Refugee Camps Reconsidered’ in Forced

Migration Review, 3 (December 1998), p. 28.

32

B. Stein, 'Refugee Integration and Older Refugee Settlements in Africa',

(American Anthropological Association, 28th

November 1990) @

www.msu.edu/course/pls/461/stein/FINAL.htm [Accessed 22/05/14. No page

numbers]

61

33

Richard Black, ‘Putting Refugees in Camps’ in Forced Migration Review, 2

(August 1998), p. 6.

34

Black, ‘Putting Refugees’, p. 6.

35

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/32/12), 2nd

September 1977, para. 162.

36

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/7612), 1st January 1970, para. 160.

37

UNHCR, Report, (A/8012), 1971, para. 137.

38

Chapter 120 Section 4(1) of the Laws of Zambia

39

P. Briggs, Mozambique, (Guilford: The Globe Pequot Press, 1997), p. 14.

40

Reuters, ‘Zambia: Refugees from Mozambique Flee to Zambia. Being

Rehoused by Government’, 5th

January 1966.

http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/RTV/1966/01/05BGY506020337/?5

[Accessed 12/03/14]

41

NAZ/EP 4/20/82, Frelimo File, Mbita, E. C., District Secretary, Katete, to Chief

Immigration Officer, Lusaka, 22nd

September 1971.

42

UNHCR, (A/6711), 1968, para. 167.

43

UNHCR, Report, (A/8012), 1971, para. 137.

44

UNHCR, Report, (A/6711), 1968, para. 167.

45

UNHCR, Report, (A/6711), 1968, para. 168.

46

UNHCR, Report, (A/6711), 1968, para. 165.

47

UNHCR, Report, (A/8012), 1971, para. 137.

48

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/7211), 1st January 1969, para. 176.

49

NAZ/EP 4/20/82, Frelimo File, V. M. Moonga, Immigration Officer in Charge,

Petauke, to Chief immigration Officer, Lusaka, 8th

October 1973.

50

NAZ/EP 4/20/82, Frelimo File, H. S. Lubinda, District Secretary, Petauke, to

62

the Commissioner for Refugees, Lusaka, 5th

March 1972

51

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/9012), 1st January 1973, para. 50.

52

UNHCR, (A/8412), 1972, para. 116.

53

Briggs, Mozambique, p. 15.

54

Republic of Zambia, Laws of Zambia, Chapter 120 Section 4(1)

55

UNHCR, Report, (A/6711), 1968, para. 163.

56

UNHCR, Report, (A/7211), 1969, para. 179.

57

UNHCR, Report, (A/7211), 1969, para. 179.

58

UNHCR, Report, (A/6711), 1968, para. 163.

59

UNHCR, Report, (A/7612), 1970, para. 186.

60

UNHCR, Report, (A/8412), 1972, para. 160.

61

UNHCR, Report, (A/8412), 1972, para. 161.

62

Republic of Zambia, Laws of Zambia, Chapter 120 Section 4(1)

63

UNHCR, Report, (A/8412), 1972, para. 160.

64

Stein, 'Refugee Integration', [No page number]

65

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/9012), 1st January 1973, para. 118.

66

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/31/12), 1st January 1976, para. 158.

67

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/33/12), 12th

September 1978, para. 156.

68

UNHCR, Report, (A/32/12), 1977, para. 159.

69

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/3812), 1st January 1983, para. 110.

63

70

UNHCR, ‘UNHCR Operation in Zambia: Fact Sheet’, (1st March 2014), p.1.

71

Republic of Zambia, Laws of Zambia, Chapter 120 Section 4(1)

72

R. Black, T. Mabwe, F. Shumba and K. Wilson, ‘Ukwimi Refugee Settlement:

Livelihood and Settlement Planning for Mozambicans in Zambia’, (unpublished

report, Oxford Refugee Studies Programme, 1990), p. 1.

73

Republic of Zambia, Laws of Zambia, Chapter 120 Section 4(3)

74

A. M. Gray, ‘Emplacing Displacement: Cultural Landscapes of Refugee –

hosting in Ukwimi, Zambia’, (PhD Thesis, University of Kansas, 2009), p. 181.

75

Black, et al, ‘Ukwimi Refugee Settlement’, p. 2.

76

Lassiailly-Jacob, V. ‘Refugee – Host Interactions: A Field Report from Ukwimi

Mozambican Refugee Settlement, Zambia’, Refuge, 13, 6 (October 1993), p.

24. 77

M. B. Anderson, Ukwimi Refugee Settlement: A Gender Case Study,

(UNHCR, 1991), p. 4.

78

Anderson, Ukwimi Refugee Settlement, p. 6.

79

Black, et al, ‘Ukwimi Refugee Settlement’, p. 6.

80

Anderson, Ukwimi Refugee Settlement, p. 4.

81

UN, ‘UNHCR Activities Financed by Voluntary Funds: Report for 1994 – 1995

and Proposed Programmes and Budget for 1996’, 12th

July 1995,

(A/AC.96/846/part1/23), para. 6.

82

UN, ‘UNHCR Activities Financed by Voluntary Funds: Report for 1993 – 1994

and Proposed Programmes and Budget for 1995’, 19th

August 1994,

(A/AC.96/825/part1/23), para. 6.

83

UN, ‘UNHCR Activities’, 12th

July 1995, para. 3.

84

UNHCR, Mid – Year, (2001), p. 129.

85

UNHCR, Mid – Year Progress Report, (2002), p. 130.

86

UNHCR, ‘Thousands of Angolan Refugees in Zambia Wait for Resettlement as

Camps Reach Capacity’, News Stories, 28th

January 2002.

87

UNHCR, Mid – Year Progress Report, (2001), p. 130.

64

88

UNHCR, Mid – Year Progress Report, (2000), p. 115.

89

UNHCR, Mid – Year, (2002), p. 131.

90

UNHCR, Mid – Year, (2001), p. 130.

91

UNHCR, Mid – Year, (2002), p. 131.

92

UNHCR, ‘Curtains Close on Mwange and Kala Refugee Camps’, UNHCR

Zambia Newsletter (2010), p. 9.

93

UNHCR, ‘Curtains Close’, p. 9. 94

Kris Janowski, ‘Zambia: Angolans Transferred Away from Border’, Briefing

Notes, 17th

March 2000 @ http://www.unhcr.org/3ae6b81c20.html [Accessed

16th June 2014]

95

Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), ‘Angola – Zambia: Security

Fears Among Refugees’, Humanitarian News and Analysis, 10th

August 2001

@ http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=24751 [accessed 28th

July

2014]

96

Janowski, ‘Zambia: Angolans Transferred Away from Border’.

97

UNHCR, Mid – Year, (2001), p. 129.

98

O. Bakewell, 'Review of the CORD Community Services for the Angolan

Refugees in Western Province of Zambia', (UNHCR, 2002), p. 13.

99

UNHCR, Mid – Year, (2000), p. 114.

100

UNHCR, Mid – Year, (2001), p. 129.

101

UNHCR, ‘Zambia’s Nangwesh Camp Closes After Last Group of Angolans

Move Out’, News Stories, 20th

November 2006 @

http://www.unhcr.org/4561d52b2html [Accessed 2nd March 2014]

102

UNHCR, ‘UNHCR Closes Refugee Camp, Gives Assets to Zambia’, News

Stories, 21st December 2006 @ http://www.unhcr.org/458aa75a4html [Accessed

10th January 2014]

103

Tikambenji Njovu Munkombwe, Program Assistant, UNHCR, Lusaka,

interviewed on 12th

January 2015.

104

UNHCR, ‘UNHCR Closes Refugee Camp’.

65

CHAPTER THREE

MAYUKWAYUKWA’S EXISTENCE IN CHANGING TIMES

Figure 1

Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement, whose entrance is shown in figure 1 above,

existed throughout the scope of this study. The chapter illustrates the existence and

experiences of the settlement at Mayukwayukwa in changing times between 1966 and

2013. These were changing times in that the political, ideological, economic,

conceptual policies and atmosphere changed in and around the host nation Zambia.

Since these policies and atmosphere were the core of the establishment of the

settlement, any changes affected its existence.

The settlement at Mayukwayukwa encountered a lot of challenges in the early years.

The initial challenge was that the refugees were reluctant to move to the new

settlement in 1966. This was evidenced by the fact that the settlement which was

66

tailored to host a total of 1,500 refugees only had 500 occupants by the end of 1966.1

Lwatembo Refugee Settlement on the other hand was overcrowded with 3,000 instead

of the envisioned 2,000 refugees. Refugees shunned going to Mayukwayukwa

probably because news of the hardships of the refugees at the earlier established

settlement at Lwatembo had spread. Lwatembo acquired a bad reputation regarding

bad conditions, health and deaths because ailing refugees were put in one place where

they could receive treatment. Once refugees entered the settlement, they could no

longer move out without permission from the authorities. As a result, overcrowding

and psychological stress in the new environment inevitably led to high death

frequency among new ailing refugees.2

The refugees that crossed over from Angolan territories that were further inside the

country were often malnourished and weak.3 This was because of the long distance

and hardships they endured on the journey to their refuge in Zambia. Among the

initial emergency relief services that were provided to the refugees at

Mayukwayukwa were the provision of medical aid and food rations. The relief

providers faced the challenge of poor transportation infrastructure. The lack of

passable roads connecting Mayukwayukwa to the rest of the country made

transporting of emergency relief goods and services very difficult.

The Zambia Red Cross provided the emergency medical services while World Food

Programme (WFP) provided the food rations that where distributed by Zambia

Christian Refugee Service (ZCRS).4 The organisation that was operating and

67

registered in Zambia as ZCRS was an international Christian faith based non-

governmental organisation that was internationally known as the Lutheran World

Federation (LWF). It acted as an implementing partner in the tripartite running of

Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement that included the Government of Zambia and

UNHCR. The government provided the necessary administrative staff and security

while UNHCR provided the technical personnel and funding.

The initial challenge of low numbers at Mayukwayukwa was overcome by the

transfer of excess refugees from Lwatembo to Mayukwayukwa. In the period between

April 1967 and March 1968, UNHCR and the government transferred a total of 1,750

refugees to Mayukwayukwa.5 This transfer solved the problems of low numbers at

Mayukwayukwa and the overcrowding at Lwatembo which was housing more than

3,650 refugees. The settlement at Mayukwayukwa was reorganised to accommodate

the transferred refugees by the clearing of more land for cultivation.6

From inception, the procedure at the settlement was that when refugees arrived, they

were taken to reception areas within the settlement where emergency relief services

were provided. After the vital demographic statistics were recorded, each refugee

household was given a plot to build family accommodation. Since the Angolan

refugees were rural in character and the fact that Mayukwayukwa was modeled as a

rural settlement, the refugees initially built mud, pole and thatch houses. The houses

were no different from the ones found in the surrounding host communities. These

68

houses were built using local materials that were available in the area. The refugees

were given start-up kits to establish homes.

The start-up kits included full food rations of maize, dried fish, beans, cooking oil,

salt and milk for the children.7 Also provided were kitchen utensils like pots, plates,

knives, spoons and buckets. Other items provided for new entrants and continuously

for the vulnerable refugees were clothing, blankets and soap. Land for agricultural

purposes was also provided to the refugees at Mayukwayukwa. Free farming tools

and inputs like hoes, seeds, fertilizer and even pesticides were provided for farming.

The strategy was to empower the refugees to become self reliant food crop producers

as soon as possible.

There was quick progress made at the settlement in the early years. For instance, the

1967/8 farming season saw about 26 hectares (64 acres) of land being cleared and

sown with crops by the refugees.8 There was a further improvement in the next

farming season where 81 hectares (200 acres) were planted with different crops like

maize, beans, cassava and groundnuts.9 Other improvements that included the

continued construction of infrastructure like houses for staff and teachers, a rural

health centre and schools. By the 1968, there were 430 refugee children in school.10

However, the Zambian policy concerning agriculture in refugee settlements in the

early years, as mentioned in previous chapters, favoured compulsory communal

agricultural production. This method of production proved to be a challenge to the

69

refugees. Refugee households were expected to work together in groups on

communal plots to produce their own food crops. Communal agricultural production

at the refugee settlement was part of the national programme in Zambia that was

aimed at ending the nation’s reliance on the small group of European farmers and

emergent African farmers that were dominating the food production sector at

independence and after. The programme of producer cooperatives and communal

production units was initiated in 1965 as a vehicle for bringing thousands of peasants

into the cash economy producing marketable surpluses.11

The refugees at Mayukwayukwa were not familiar with communal farming

practices.12

The problem was that the refugees were accustomed to the traditional

method of producing food as individual household units. In the period between April

1968 and March 1969, the government attempted to alleviate this problem by

agreeing to allocate individual household plots of land so that the refugee households

could grow crops of their choice.13

The plan was that the individual household plots

would be worked on in addition to the communal cultivation. This, however, did not

solve the problem because the allocated household plots were only quarter of an acre

in size. These pieces of land were too small for any meaningful agricultural

ventures.14

Among the early major changes at the settlement was the government’s decision to

reverse the land utilisation agricultural policy for refugee settlements in 1970.15

The

policy was changed from communal farming to which the refugees were

70

unaccustomed to individual household holdings. The development saw the allocation

of 5 hectare farm plots to individual households to cultivate as they pleased. These

changes were influenced by the hardships that were encountered by the refugees as a

result of the compulsory communal agricultural system at settlements like Lwatembo,

Mayukwayukwa and Nyimba.

Another significant development that occurred was with regards to the administration

of the refugee settlement. This was the enactment of the Refugee (Control) Act of

1970. A requirement of this law was that persons seeking refuge in Zambia should

obtain entry permits within seven days of arrival on Zambian soil. After the

acquisition of entry permits, refugees were then expected to proceed to designated

refugee areas. It was made law that refugees were to reside only in designated refugee

areas. The Act also legitimised the existence of Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement

as a designated refugee hosting area under the laws of Zambia.16

The administration

of each refugee settlement was under a Refugee Officer (RO).17

The RO was the most

senior representative of the government at the settlement and was appointed from the

office of the Commissioner for Refugees. This was a department of the Ministry of

Home Affairs that was responsible for refugee matters.

The major task of the RO was to ensure that settlement was administered in an

orderly and efficient manner. The control of the refugees at the settlement was also

cardinal in his duties. It was in his job description to ensure that there was good

reception, treatment, health and general well being of the refugees in the settlement.

71

He was even authorised to use his discretion to issue entry permits to refugees. All

activities at the settlement had to be sanctioned by him including projects, assemblies,

entries and departures of refugees and non refugees. The RO had authority over all

other Zambian government officials working in the settlement as well as the NGO

staff and of course the refugee leadership structure.

The top refugee leadership structure at Mayukwayukwa consisted of Village

Development Committees (VDCs). The settlement was demarcated into sectors which

were commonly known as villages or camps. Each village had a VDC comprising a

chairperson, a vice chair person and a secretary. The VDC was elected by the

refugees in routine elections that were observed by the RO’s office and UNHCR

representatives. The VDC chairperson was the head of the village and the point of

contact for the RO, UNHCR and NGOs working in the settlement area.18

Also present

at the settlement were Neighbourhood Watch Committtees to help maintain security

in the villages. These Neighbourhood Watch Committtees consisted of refugees and

had the support of the police.

A point to note is that the Zambian authorities avoided the recognition of traditional

leadership structures among the refugees at the settlement. For instance, in 2002,

there was a refugee who was a senior chief of the Mbundu at the settlement.19

He was

not allowed to carry out his duties as a chief because of the ethnic diversity of the

refugees at the settlement. This was to avoid ethnic divisions in the refugee villages.

72

Refugee villages at Mayukwayukwa were formed according to the arrival of refugee

groups as opposed to following ethnicity. The oldest villages were made by the early

caseloads of refugees that settled in the sixties and seventies. This caseload consisted

mainly of the Mbunda, Chokwe and Luchazi ethnic groups from Moxico Province OF

Angola. The arrivals of 1999 were mostly of Mbundu ethnicity from the inland

central highlands of Angola. These were placed in 20 new villages adjacent to the old

caseload while those that followed after 2000 were placed in an extension to the

settlement. The area was known as Shibanga. The extension was approximately 10km

from the administrative centre. Shibanga had 26 villages which brought the number

to 56 villages at Mayukwayukwa in 2002 when it hosted the biggest number of

refugees.20

Another development that had an effect on Mayukwayukwa was the establishment of

Maheba Refugee Settlement in Solwezi District in 1971. The new settlement was

created to accommodate 10,000 refugees. This development acted in favour of

Mayukwayukwa in that all the excess refugees were transferred to the new settlement

the same year. The transfer left only 1,500 refugees at Mayukwayukwa, a figure it

was initially planned for.21

Encouraging progress was also made with the remaining

refugees with regard to communal participation and cooperative schemes. It was

believed that these initiatives would prove advantageous to the refugees. At

Mayukwayukwa, these were spearheaded by Zambia Christian Refugee Services

(ZCRS) in the 1960s.

73

The cooperatives assisted the refugee communities to be more organised and better

placed to acquire farming inputs and effectively participate in crop marketing. Such

organisation also prepared them for economic independence and less dependence on

handouts from humanitarian organisations. The cooperatives’ structures and activities

were self sustaining ventures that incorporated the refugee communities into the

national development plans. Cooperatives were formed in activities like crop

production, poultry, bee keeping, knitting, weaving, handcrafts and later fish farming.

The development of cooperatives was in line with government directions for

economic, social and cultural purposes. In his second reading speech for the

Cooperative Societies Bill of 1970, Mr Kamanga, Minister of Rural Development

emphasised that cooperative societies were a means of:

Firstly, improving the economic situation of members;

Secondly, contributing to the economy an increased measure of

democratic control of economic activity. This is highly relevant in the

light of recent Mulungushi Reforms;

Thirdly, increasing incomes and employment by a fuller utilisation of

resources, including the bringing of new land into productive use, the

marketing and processing of agricultural and natural products, the

development of local industries and the processing of raw materials;

Fourthly, improving social and cultural conditions in housing, health

and education;

Lastly, raising the level of general and technical knowledge of

members of the societies.22

Although many challenges were encountered in running of these cooperatives, the

refugees at Mayukwayukwa were still actively involved in these activities to the very

end of this study.

74

A change that greatly affected the existence of the settlement was its declaration as a

self-reliant agricultural-based refugee settlement. The settlement was declared self-

reliant by UNHCR in 1973. This saw the complete hand over of full administrative

responsibility of the settlement to the Zambian government as of 1st July of the same

year.23

This was followed by reduced international assistance directed towards the

settlement through UNHCR. This meant the end of UNHCR financial assistance and

the beginning of full government responsibility for the financial and material needs of

the refugees.

Assistance to Mayukwayukwa in terms of food rations from WFP had already

drastically reduced in 1972. The reduction was mainly due to the transfer of surplus

refugee population to the settlement at Maheba the previous year. Moreover the

refugees at Mayukwayukwa had very good crop harvests the previous year despite the

unexpected drought in the area.24

The refugees also actively participated in various

cooperative ventures that added to their earnings and made them less reliant on the

relief food.

From the inception of the refugee settlement, increased attention was paid during

initial project planning to ensure that the objective of projects included elements of

self-sufficiency even within the care and maintenance programmes.25

After the

declaration of self sufficiency, the refugees at Mayukwayukwa were expected to

produce their own food from the land like the surrounding local communities. Only

the vulnerable refugees continued to receive food rations and occasional supplies like

75

blankets and soap from UNHCR. These included those with severe disabilities or

chronically ill, elderly people without support systems, single headed households,

child-headed households, children in foster arrangements, orphans and new arrivals.

The declaration of the settlement as self sustaining coincided with the worsening of

Zambia’s economic standing in the 1970s. This resulted in the straining of the ease

with which the State could render assistance to the refugee problem. Mwanza and

Seshamani pointed out that:

For nearly a decade since independence, Zambia was one of the most

prosperous countries south of the Sahara. The inflow of a few

thousand refugees hardly told [sic] on her economy. However, after

the ‘dual shock’ to which the economy was subjected (the oil shock

of 1973 and the copper shock of 1974), a declining trend set in and,

by the early 80s, the situation became critical. Despite a number of

attempts by the government to set the economic house in order,

including an IMF/IBRD suggested programme, the crisis only

deepened further and the country is still struggling to extricate itself

from it.26

The economic situation led to a decline in people’s living conditions in the mid-

1970s. This was coupled with declines in per capita incomes, currency devaluation,

food price controls and subsidy reductions. The economic situation made it obvious

that the refugees at Mayukwayukwa had to sustain themselves because it was

apparent that little would come from the State in terms of handouts. The refugees at

the settlement underwent the same economic conditions that were affecting the local

communities in Zambia during the most of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

The 1970s also saw the increased awareness among the stakeholders that the Angolan

refugee problem would not end with the attainment of independence as had earlier

76

been anticipated. At the inception of Mayukwayukwa, the majority of the refugees

were generated as a result of colonial rule and the liberation struggles. It was hoped

that the attainment of independence in Angola would bring peace and security that

would guarantee the repatriation of the refugees back to their land. However, this was

not so, as the independence of Angola was shortly followed by a civil war that lasted

up to 2002.

The liberation of Angola was secured in 1974 when the Portuguese African Empire

fell. According to the Alvor Agreement, the independence of Angola was supposed to

be followed by the formation of a tripartite government consisting of the MPLA,

FNLA and UNITA liberation movements.27

The proposed coalition government never

took off because the three parties differed on personality, ideological and ethnic

matters. The differences led the MPLA to use force to drive the FNLA and UNITA

out of the capital, Luanda, where the party remained and declared the Peoples

Republic of Angola on 11th

November 1975. The two sidelined parties waged a civil

war against the MPLA which quickly resulted in the decimation of FNLA in Angola.

The UNITA forces survived decimation by retreating into the bush from where they

continued to fight using guerrilla tactics of warfare with the support of present day

DRC, United States of America and South Africa.28

The MPLA successes during this

period were due to the heavy military support by the Cubans and Soviets.29

This development of the spoiled post-independence peace in Angola greatly affected

the existence of Mayukwayukwa in that it became apparent that the Angolans would

77

remain at the settlement as refugees. This was different from the case of the

Mozambicans at Nyimba Refugee Settlement who repatriated back to their country

after the attainment of independence the same year as the Angolans. As discussed in

the previous chapter, repatriations from Nyimba led to the closure of the settlement in

1975. Mayukwayukwa continued to host Angolan refugees because the civil war in

Angola continued producing refugees and made it unsuitable for repatriation.

The failure to attain peace after the liberation of Angola led to new influxes of

Angolan refugees into western Zambia especially in 1976.30

The continued inflow of

Angolans pushed the refugee population at Mayukwayukwa to 4,000, an average

figure that remained until 1999.31

Most of the Angolan refugees that crossed into

Zambia during this period were directed to the bigger Maheba Refugee Settlement.

1999 was a year that witnessed an escalation of fighting in Angola that forced

thousands more refugees into Zambia. The refugees fled after the 1999 MPLA

offensive against UNITA that led to the eventual fall of the UNITA head quarters in

Jamba by 2000.32

This pushed the population at the Mayukwayukwa to rise to 14,000

refugees by the end of the year. The refugee numbers reached 19,215 by June 2001.33

In 2002 when Zambia hosted its biggest refugee population, Mayukwayukwa was

accommodating 24,000 refugees.34

In a core document forming part of the report of

State parties submitted to the UN on 13th

July 2004, GRZ pegged the number of

refugees in Zambia at the end of 2002 at 267,020.35

78

Although the civil war continued to disrupt peace and security in Angola, attempts

were made for the repatriation of refugees back to Angola when the situation calmed.

For instance, the situation between the two warring parties in Angola calmed

significantly after the signing of two peace agreements in the 1990s and another one

in 2002. The belligerent forces both participated in the signing of peace agreements

like the Bicesse Accords, the Lusaka Protocol and the Luena Accords.

The Bicesse Accords were signed in May 1991 and included the signing of an interim

ceasefire agreement that went into effect on May 15, 1991.36

Also in the accords were

the institutionalisation of the democratic system, the establishment of government

administration over all of Angola and the formation of a national army.37

There was

nearly eighteen months of relative peace that ensued in Angola. The peace was so

promising that the country hosted its first ever multiparty presidential and

parliamentary elections in September 1992.38

The elections were organised and

monitored with the help of the United Nations Angola Verification Mission II

(UNAVEM II).39

The election results, confirmed the MPLA in power in Angola. The

UNITA leader, Jonas Savimbi, refused to accept that his party received fewer votes

than the MPLA under Jose Edwardo dos Santos. Savimbi’s rejection of the results of

the elections led to the resumption of armed conflict throughout the country between

his organisation and the Government of Angola in November 1992.40

The other period of calm followed the signing of the Lusaka Protocol in November

1994.41

The Protocol mandated a flexible demobilisation timeframe, provided for

79

power sharing and gave the UN sufficient muscle and money to implement the

accords.42

For four years, the two parties negotiated the demobilisation process and

the political participation of UNITA in Angola. However, war resumed in 1998 when

the MPLA government refused to continue with the negotiations.43

The peace agreements that finally ended 27 years of civil war and brought lasting

calm in Angola were the Luena Accords. These were signed between the MPLA – led

Angolan army and UNITA after the death of Jonas Savimbi in February 2002. This

was accompanied by the signing of a ceasefire agreement on 4th

April the same year.

The accords also provided for the implementation of the ceasefire through the

demilitarisation, quartering and demobilisation of UNITA forces.44

During the signing of the first two peace agreements, some refugees repatriated back

to Angola from Mayukwayukwa. These repatriations were organized by the refugees

themselves. UNHCR repatriation programmes of Angolan refugees from

Mayukwayukwa and Maheba back to their country were only organised from 1996 to

1998.45

The operations were suspended in June 1998 because the civil war intensified

again. The failure of peace agreements forced refugees to return to the settlement.

Some refugees that were found at Mayukwayukwa in December 2013 recounted how

refugees, especially those that were settled in the local villages, went back to Angola

during the election period.46

Most refugees were said to have came back to Zambia

because of the resumption of war.47

However, very few were said to have left the

settlement. A number of refugees had sold personal property and ceased self-

80

sufficiency activities in preparation for returning home.48

It became necessary for

UNHCR, Government, and the refugees to shift both the assistance programmes and

overall strategy back into the care and maintenance mode.49

The repatriations that

were successful were those that were organised after the Luena Accords.

After the signing of the Luena Accords ceasefire, some refugees began to repatriate

back to Angola in large numbers on their own. These were especially refugees that

had crossed into Zambia in the 2001-2002 period when there was a food shortage in

the organised refugee areas.50

The UNHCR organised voluntary repatriation in

Zambia started in 2003 under the tripartite agreement with the governments of

Angola and Zambia.51

The first group of refugees to be repatriated under this programme from

Mayukwayukwa consisted of 505 people on 4th

October 2003.52

The refugees were

taken on a four day trip, over 2,000 kilometres, to Cozombo in the Angolan province

of Moxico. Thousands more were helped back home. The repatriation of Angolan

refugees was so successful that it even led to the closure of Nangweshi Refugee

Camp in 2006. This resulted in the transfer of 4,900 refugees from Nangweshi to

Mayukwayukwa the same year because they did not wish to repatriate back to

Angola.53

These joined other refugees at Mayukwayukwa that were not yet ready to

repatriate. The reasons why some refugees refused to repatriate to Angola are

discussed in the next chapter.

81

Some refugees had to be given incentives for them to make the decision to repatriate.

For instance, those that repatriated back to Angola were provided with personal basic

assistance packages to start a new life. This included cooking equipment, seeds,

agricultural and house building tools. On a bigger scale, UNHCR provided major

incentives by making the receiving country more conducive for the returnees. This

was important considering that the country had gone through decades of war

destruction which was not very attractive to the refugees.

Between 2003 and 2006, UNHCR embarked on projects in Angola that saw the

establishment of more UNHCR offices and the repair of roads, bridges and airstrips.

A complex transport and logistics network for the repatriation programme was

quickly formulated. The projects also included the construction and rehabilitation of

over 220 wells and water points, 1,750 latrines, 75 health posts, and eight women’s

Empowerment Centres.54

Training was also provided in issues such as malaria, HIV-

AIDS, sexual and gender based violence and landmine awareness to the returning

refugees. These developments provided Angola’s refugees with both an incentive and

the confidence to repatriate. Having lived in UNHCR-administered camps for many

years, they knew and trusted the organisation and were inspired to return by the

knowledge that UNHCR would be waiting for them on the other side of the border.

Under the repatriation programme which ended in 2007, over 74,000 refugees were

helped home from the Zambian settlements to Angola.55

An additional 2,500 refugees

were assisted back to Angola after the cessation of the progamme between 2007 and

82

2010.56

From 2010 up to 2013, there was very little in terms of repatriation activities

out of Mayukwayukwa and Zambia as a whole.

The cessation of the refugee status for Angolans was another change that concerned

the existence of the settlement. Cessation of the refugee status for Angolans meant

that the people that had fled that country and remained outside its borders would no

longer be regarded as refugees by UNHCR and the host governments. The cessation

clause for Angolan refugees entered into force on 30th

June 2012.57

This was based on

the fact that Angola had enjoyed many years of peace and stability since 2002. The

decision was made by UNHCR to stop the group determination of Angolans out of

that country as refugees. Angolans had to make individ6ual claims as to why they

should be regarded as refugees because general peace and security had returned to

that country.58

The cessation saw the major constituents of Mayukwayukwa Refugee

Settlement cease to be regarded as persons of concern. There were 8,061 Angolans

out of 10,925 refugees at the settlement in mid 2012.59

Most of the remaining

Angolans at Mayukwayukwa were not ready to go back to Angola even after the

cessation of their refugee status.

At the time of the cessation, Mayukwayukwa was also hosting refugees from the

DRC, Somalia, Rwanda and Burundi. This was important to the existence of the

settlement in that the fate of the settlement was no longer determined by the outcome

of a single refugee nationality. This is in reference to Nyimba Refugee Settlement in

Zambia’s Eastern Province which was closed down in 1975 because Mozambican

83

refugees repatriated back to the home country after the attainment of independence

from the Portuguese. The presence of considerable numbers of refugees from other

countries at Mayukwayukwa meant that even if the Angolans repatriated, the

settlement would not close down.

To conclude, it can be reiterated that from 1966 to 2013, Mayukwaykwa Refugee

Settlement went through a lot of changes within and outside Zambia. The status of the

settlement as the oldest agricultural refugee settlement in Zambia and Africa is hard-

earned because the settlement has shown resilience and stamina to adapt to the

changes that occurred in the period under discussion. The resilience of the settlement

to perform its role was shown when some of the changes proved to be challenging to

its existence. Other settlements and camps in Zambia closed down under similar

circumstances but Mayukwayukwa continued to render a service to the refugees even

after the period under discussion. The perception that refugees were hosted by the

first president as a result of his cause to aid in the liberation of territories still under

colonial rule were dispelled when the consecutive Presidents of Zambia, namely

Frederick. T. J. Chiluba, Levy P. Mwanawasa, Rupiya B. Banda and Micheal C. Sata,

continued with the spirit of hosting refugees. The new regimes hosted refugees not for

the liberation cause but as acts of humanitarians.

84

ENDNOTES

1 UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/6711), 1st January 1968, para. 163.

2 A. Hansen, 'Once the Running Stops: The Socio-economic Resettlement of

Angolan Refugees (1966 – 1972) in Zambian Border Villages', (PhD Thesis,

Cornell University, 1977), p.32.

3 Hansen, 'Once the Running Stops', p.32.

4 UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/7211), 1st January 1969, para. 181.

5 UNHCR, Report (A/7211), 1969, para. 179.

6 UNHCR, Report (A/7211), 1969, para. 179.

7 A. Hansen, 'Refugee Dynamics: Angolans in Zambia 1966 to 1972',

International Migration Review, 15, 12 (Spring – Summer, 1981), p. 188.

8 UNHCR, Report (A/7211), 1969, para. 179.

9 UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/7612), 1st January 1970, para. 183.

10

UNHCR, Report (A/7612), 1970, para. 183.

11

R. Kleeper, ‘Zambian Agricultural Structure and Performance’, in Ben Turok

(ed), Development in Zambia: A Reader, (London: Zed Press, 1989), p. 140. 12

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/8012), 1st January 1971, para. 137.

13

UNHCR, Report (A/7612), 1970, para. 184.

14

UNHCR, Report (A/7612), 1970, para. 184. 15

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/9012), 1st January 1973, para. 118.

16

Republic of Zambia, Laws of Zambia, Chapter 120 Section 4(1) 17

Republic of Zambia, Laws of Zambia, Chapter 120 Section 13(2)

85

18

O. Bakewell, Review of the CORD Community Services for the

Angolan Refugees in Western Province of Zambia, (UNHCR

Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit, December 2002), p. 12.

19

Bakewell, 'Review of the CORD’, 2002, p. 12. 20

Bakewell, 'Review of the CORD’, 2002, p. 12. 21

UNHCR, Report (A/7612), 1970, para. 162

22

Hansard N0. 24, National Assembly of Zambia, 8 – 11th

December, 1970,

(Lusaka: Government Printers, 1970), p. 60.

23

UNHCR, Report (A/9012), 1973, para. 119.

24

UNHCR, Report (A/9012), 1973, para. 118.

25

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/41/12), 1st January 1986, para. 102

26

A. M. Mwanza and V. Seshamani, 'Refugees an Important Aspect of the Human

Dimension of Africa's Economic Crisis: Zambia Case Study', (Cambridge:

ASAUK Conference, 1988), p.10.

27

W. James III, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola: 1974 – 1990,

(New Jersey: Translation Publishers, 1992), P.7. 28

K. Shilington (ed), Encyclopedia of African History, Vol. 1, (NY: Taylor and

Francis group, 2006), p. 152.

29

James III, A Political History, P. 7. 30

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No.

12 (A/32/12), 1st January 1977, para. 158.

31

UNHCR, Mid – Year Progress Report, (2000), p. 115. 32

Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), ‘Angola – Zambia: Security

Fears Among Refugees’, Humanitarian News and Analysis, 10th

August 2001

@ http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=24751 [accessed 28th

July

2014]

33

UNHCR, Mid – Year Progress Report, (2001), p. 128. 34

UNHCR, Mid – Year Progress Report, (2002), p. 129.

86

35

UN International Human Rights Instruments, ‘Core Document Forming Part of

the Reports of States Parties: Zambia’, (HRI/CORE/1/Add.22/Rev.2, 21 March

2005), No page numbers @ http://www.refworld.org/docid/43f307362.html

[Accessed 12/11/14]

36

C. Knudsen, A. Mundt and I. W.Zartman, Peace Agreements: The Case of

Angola, (Report from the African Centre for Constructive Resolution of

Disputes, 23rd

October 2000), No page numbers @

http://www.reliefwed.int/report/angola/peace-agreements-case-angola.html

[Accessed 23/12/14]. 37

Knudsen, et al, Peace Agreements. 38

D. A. Bekoe, Implementing Peace Agreements: Lessons from Mozambique,

Angola and Liberia, (Washington D. C., Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) p.61. 39

UNHCR, ‘Current Situation in Angola, Eligibility of Angolan Asylum Seekers

and Treatment of Returnees’, (20th

May 1998), No page numbers @

http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b31f1c.html [Accessed 09/11/14].

40

UNHCR, ‘Current Situation in Angola’.

41

Bekoe, Implementing Peace, p. 61. 42

Knudsen, et al, Peace Agreements. 43

Bekoe, Implementing Peace, p. 61. 44

Human Rights Watch, ‘Angola: Struggling Through Peace: Return and

Resettlement in Angola’, (15th

August 2003, A1516) No page numbers @

http://www.refworld.org/docid/3f4f592c2.html [Accessed 09/02/15]

45

UNHCR, 2004 Country Operations Plan: Zambia, (UNHCR, 2004), p. 1.

46

Interview with Joao Costa, Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement, 29th

December

2014.

47

Interview with Gladys Catulo, Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement, 29th

December 2014.

48

Interview with Hadukoma Wanga, Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement, 29th

December 2014.

49

UNHCR, ‘Angolan Refugee Operation at a Glance’, in UNHCR Global

Report 1999, (UNHCR: Geneva, 1999), p. 178.

87

50

UNHCR, Mid – Year Progress Report, (2002), p. 128.

51

UNHCR, Zambia: Analysis of the Gaps in Protection of Refugees, (UNHCR,

September 2007), p.47. 52

UNHCR, ‘Organised Returns to Angola Reach 35,000, UNHCR Ups Pace

Before Rains’, UNHCR News Stories, 9th

October 2003 @

http://www.unhcr.org/3f8582f84.html [Accessed 18/11/14].

53

UNHCR, UNHCR Global Report 2006, Zambia, (June 2007), p. 307 @

http://www.refworld.org/docid/466d1a7e2.html [accessed 18 February 2014]

54

J. Crisp, J. Reira and R. Freitas, Evaluation of UNHCR’s Returnee

Reintegration Programme in Angola, (UNHCR Policy Development and

Evaluation Service Report, August 2008), P. 14.

55

UNHCR, Zambia: Analysis of the Gaps, p.47.

56

UNHCR, Zambia: Analysis of the Gaps, p.47. 57

UNHCR Spokesperson, A. Edwards, ‘End of Refugee Status for Angolan and

Liberian Exiles this Weekend’, Briefing Notes, 29th

June 2012 @

http://www.unhcr.org/4fed82459.html [Accessed 11/01/14].

58

UNHCR, Implementation of the Comprehensive Strategy for Angolan

Refugee Situation, including UNHCR’s Recommendation on the

Applicability of the “Ceased Circumstances” Cessation Clauses, (Geneva:

UNHCR, 15th

January 2012), p. 7. 59

Interview with Tikambenji Njovu Munkombwe, Program Assistant, UNHCR,

Lusaka, 12th

January 2015.

88

CHAPTER FOUR

MAYUKWAYUKWA AND THE ATTEMPTS AT LOCAL INTEGRATION

This chapter discusses the attempts that were made towards the local integration of

Angolan refugees in western Zambia in the period between 1966 and 2013. Local

integration, an important durable solution to the plight of refugees, was a legal,

economic, socio-economic and political process. In some countries, refugees had the

opportunity to integrate locally because the host country provided them with access to

land or the labour market, while in others they remained confined to camps where

they depended on assistance from the international community. Local integration

involved the settling of refugees in areas where they were expected to be assimilated

by the local host communities that welcomed them.

The refugee problem in Zambia from 1965 called for the employment of different

strategies to solve it. Host countries like Zambia worked hand in hand with the

UNHCR in finding solutions. UNHCR was mandated to facilitate the pursuit of three

solutions: voluntary repatriation of refugees; their integration within their host

countries; or their resettlement to third countries.1 All three solutions were employed

at Mayukwayukwa.2 Resettlement as a solution was dependant on the willingness of

third countries to accept the refugees. This was a burden sharing solution where

refugee problem was transferred from one asylum country to another. Moreover,

genuine cause had to exist to necessitate the moving of the refugees from the host

country to another.3 In the case of the refugee problem at Mayukwayukwa involving

89

Angolan refugees, the most practical solution was local integration. The most

preferred solution for most stakeholders was voluntary repatriation of refugees back

to their countries of origin. However, this was dependant on the establishment of a

peaceful environment in the refugee generating countries. As discussed in the

previous chapter, peace was elusive in Angola from the 1960s up to 2002.

From UNHCR’s point of view, the ideal situation with regards to refugee settlements

as a form of local integration consisted of three main phases. The first was the land

settlement phase which was followed by the second one known as the consolidation

phase. The last one was the integration phase. The land settlement phase involved

assisting of the refugees to settle on the allocated land and become self-supporting

while the consolidation phase aimed at the promotion of a sense of community among

the refugees. The integration phase involved the facilitation of the settlement into the

larger social, political and economic life of the host countries.4 From inception of the

refugee settlement at Mayukwayukwa, the government did not pursue this ideal

settlement situation to the integration phase.

Like in most African countries, Zambia did not view settlements as vehicles for

integration nor integration as a solution for the refugee problem. Settlements were

viewed as a temporal solution and that the refugees would soon or later repatriate

back to their countries of origin. This was probably because of the fact that the nation

was still young, and later, began to face economic difficulties. The country was not

ready to shoulder the full responsibility of accommodating the refugees once they

90

were integrated and naturalised as Zambian citizens. Only countries like Botswana,

Tanzania and Burundi employed local integration as a solution to the refugee problem

in the early decades of their independence.5 In the 1960s and 1970s for instance,

Tanzania allowed refugees to self settle themselves in rural areas where they were

offered land and integration services.6

The hesitancy of the host countries towards integration of settlement refugees

stemmed from an unresolved dispute regarding the responsibility for refugees that

divided low-income host countries from UNHCR and rich donor countries. These on

the other hand viewed settlements as a durable solution which resulted into the local

integration of the refugees and the termination of international assistance. In Zambia,

this ambiguous situation continued throughout the sixties, seventies, eighties and the

nineties. It was only after 2000 that the refugee policy direction began to change.

The change in policy was as a result of a situation at Mayukwayukwa where the

surrounding host communities became poorer than the refugees they were hosting.

This was because of continued international humanitarian assistance that was targeted

at the refugee settlement for decades. This assistance was in terms of things like

access to clean water, health services, education, opportunities and community

services. Refugees were perceived to have better socio-economic opportunities by the

locals. This perception was substantiated by the fact that refugee settlements were

stocked with relief supplies like food, equipment, tools, blankets, soap and tents.7

91

Some of these items found themselves on sale on the black market. To the locals, it

seemed as if the refugees had so much that they even had surplus for sale.

The refugee settlements also received a lot of infrastructure development spearheaded

by international humanitarian agencies. For instance, Kaoma District had the highest

number of hospital bed space in Western Province in 2000.8 It was second to Mongu

in terms of the number of hospitals in the province. To appreciate this better, one has

to bear in mind that Kaoma and Mongu had the largest population shares amounting

to 21% each of the provincial population.9

Although UNHCR declared Mayukwayukwa as a self sustaining settlement in 1973,

its presence and assistance was never completely withdrawn.10

This was because the

refugee movement in and out of Mayukwayukwa never stopped. The protracted

nature of the refugee problem in Western Province and the fact that the hosts were

poorer than the refugees led to the development of the Zambia Initiative (ZI). This

was a strategy aimed at developing the refugee-hosting areas to benefit both the

hosting locals and the refugees. The major ambition of ZI was poverty reduction in

the refugee hosting areas. The programme was initiated in three districts of Western

Province of Zambia, namely, Kaoma, Senanga and Shangombo. These districts were

chosen for initial implementation of the ZI for a number of reasons. According to

Central Statistics Organisation reports, the region was one the poorest parts of

Zambia and many refugees lived there.11

92

The area around Mayukwayukwa was targeted, together with the area around the

refugee camp at Nangweshi. In addition to those in organised refugee settlements,

many self settled refugees lived in the border areas around these districts. Self settled

refugees had been present in the province since the 1960s and earlier. These were

invisible to the refugee assistance policies and created an extra burden on the host

government’s efforts to provide for its people. Lastly, the province had hosted

refugees for a long time.

The ZI was based on the concept of development of local communities surrounding

refugee hosting areas. It was aimed at alleviating and mitigating the negative impact

of hosting refugees and the easing of tensions between the refugee population and the

hosting community. It was a strategy to address the immediate needs in the identified

districts which included food deficits, poor infrastructure, and limited access to public

services and other economic opportunities. The idea was to take development projects

in agriculture, education, health and infrastructure.12

These were aimed at benefiting

both the refugees and host communities. What was hoped for was the creation of an

improved and conducive situation for the refugees to become productive members of

the host communities. The ideal situation was that this would lead to social

integration, peace, security and stability in the region. It was hoped that once

development projects were implemented to benefit both the host and refugee

communities, it would be easier for the local integration of refugees.

93

The initiative was incorporated into the Zambia’s Fifth National Development Plan,

the Government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) and the Framework for

the United Nations Development Assistance Fund which supported the Common

Country Assessment (CCA) for Zambia.13

The initiative was also supported by

donors like Japan, European Union, Denmark, Sweden, and United States of America

(USA).14

In 2002, GRZ, with the support of UNHCR, invited representatives from

these donors to conduct a field mission in Zambia to identify priority areas in which

they could assist. The sectors of agriculture, education, health and infrastructure were

targeted for donor aid.

Agriculture was the main economic activity of the population in Western Zambia.

Focus was on improving the sector so as to improve the main source of income and

employment generation. The expected result was poverty reduction in the province.

Interventions were made towards improving animal production by tackling of animal

health problems. In crop production, measures were taken to improve productivity

through improved agriculture extension services and farming methods. Also targeted

were input provision, water control and plant protection. Even fish farming was

earmarked for support.

The health sector was targeted because the health of the people was a priority if their

living standards were to be improved in order to contribute to poverty reduction. The

ZI projects focused on improvement and extension of essential services, logistical

support to the referral system as well as health infrastructure, equipment and

94

provision of essential drugs. Both preventive and curative aspects of the sector were

targeted.

In the education sector, projects were aimed at improving the quality, access, and

equity of services to refugees and host communities. The objective was to promote

human development for improved productivity. The projects were aimed at

improving education infrastructure, provision of education materials, training of

teachers and the provision of a conducive environment. Incentives like housing and

access to clean water were given to teachers so that they remained in the rural areas.

Vocational training was taken into consideration as part of improving life sustenance

skills of both host and refugee communities. The ZI projects also aimed at improving

infrastructure like road networks, bridges and even the protection of the environment.

The ZI had the support of many stakeholders in Zambia. The support was pledged

when the ZI Donor Field Mission held consultative discussions with the major

stakeholders between 18th

and 28th

March 2002. Discussions were held with the

Litunga, the Barotse Royal Establishment and other traditional leaders in the

province.15

Further discussions were held with the government administration at

national, provincial and district levels. The government facilitated the Inter-

Ministerial Committee (IMC) in Lusaka and sector departments in the province to

present situational analyses and proposals to address the problems that were obtaining

in the refugee hosting areas.16

Host and refugee communities and the civil society

were also consulted and requested to offer full participation.

95

Community participation of both the hosts and the refugees was witnessed in the

formation of Local Development Committees (LDC). The LDCs were the basic

operating unit of the ZI in the field. Each LDC consisted of 8 – 10 villages which

made up one constituency.17

Where possible, LDCs consisted of six elected

representatives preferably from both the hosts and the refugee communities. By 2004,

there were a total of 22 LDCs in the province. Kaoma had 10 LDCs while Senanga

and Shangombo each had 10 LDCs. The LDCs were instrumental in identifying local

needs and the recipients of the projects. For instance, their influence helped in the

efficiency and return of loans under the ZI. The refinement of the planning and

preparatory processes of the ZI intensified in 2002 and continued in 2003 when the

programme was implemented. The framework for ZI existed for some years but the

actual implementation started in April 2003 when the funding for projects under the

same reached the province.18

The ZI was a model under the Development through Local Integration (DLI) which

was part of UNHCR’s Convention Plus initiatives.19

The DLI was a proactive

strategy aimed at showing how refugees should play positive roles in broader contexts

of local development. Alternative models to the traditional “Care and Maintenance”

and local settlement dated back to the 1960s when strategies like the Integrated Zonal

Development Approach (IZDA) were pursued.20

96

The 1980s witnessed the propagation of Refugee Aid and Development (RAD). This

was a strategy that stipulated that assistance should, right from the onset, be

development oriented, enhance refugee self-reliance and incorporate support to

refugee hosting areas. This strategy was applied in both the International Conferences

on Assistance to Refugees in Africa (ICARA I and ICARA II) of 1981 and 1984

respectively.21

The same approach was also employed by international NGOs in

South Africa to integrate Mozambican refugees.22

Both the IZDA and RAD approaches were later abandoned due to lack of funds and

the divergence of objectives between host countries and donors. Donors probably

withheld funding when their objectives of local integration were not supported by the

host countries. Attention to these strategies was diverted towards repatriation and

reintegration as durable solutions especially in the 1990s.23

In the early 2000s, UNHCR introduced new approaches known as Targeted

Development Assistance (TDA). The central characteristic was the focus on the needs

of both the refugees and host communities.24

During the same time, DLI and

Development Assistance and Refugees (DAR) were conceived. The DLI approach

was conceived to promote local integration while DAR promoted self sufficiency.

The DLI strategy was based on case study of the ZI which promoted local integration

of Angolan refugees in Zambia. The DAR strategy on the other hand was based on

the Ugandan Self Reliance Strategy (SRS) model.25

The ZI was not only important

97

for Zambia’s refugee situation, but was also as a pilot programme that informed other

protracted refugee situations where DLI was being considered.

At the end of 2003, significant progress was recorded. In the agricultural sector,

120,000 host and refugee farmers benefitted from the credit loans under the

programme in the 2003/4 farming season.26

A credit scheme was established that

expanded access to seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural tools in the ZI

areas.27

LDCs selected the borrowers and prepared loan contracts guaranteed by local

indunas.28

Repayment was in kind to the LDCs who would store the bags of produce

until the market price was right. Storage of produce was improved under the ZI

through the construction of brick silos in the LDCs. The money realised from the sale

of the produce became a revolving fund to benefit other farmers in the next farming

season.

The credit facility contributed to the increase in the average cultivated land area per

household from 2 hectares to 2.5 hectares.29

As a result of ZI inputs and improved

agriculture extension services in 2003, crop productivity doubled from 1.5 to 3.5

metric tons per hectare for the 2003 – 2004 farming season.30

In the same period, the

livestock campaign by the provincial and district veterinary services in Western

Province was reinforced with the acquisition of 36 motor cycles, 110 bicycles and 36

refrigerators using ZI funds.31

These items were used by the veterinary officers in the

effort to improve livestock farming in the region.

98

Under the ZI programme, some health facilities were established. For instance, a

health post and a HIV/AIDS drop-in-centre were constructed at Nangweshi.32

The

HIV/AIDS centre provided counseling and relevant health information and advice to

the communities. The programme also saw the establishment of two Mother and

Child Health (MCH) facilities, six tuberculosis laboratories and a reproductive health

facility at Shangombo and Senanga.33

Two ambulances were also secured for the

referral hospitals at Kaoma and Senanga Districts.34

In Senanga, an orphan day care

centre was also constructed.

In the education sector, ZI projects included the construction of brick classroom

blocks and renovation of existing ones. Major construction projects included

Mayukwayukwa High School in Kaoma, Senanga School for Orphans, a 1 by 3

classroom block at Senanga Orphan Day Care Centre, a new classroom block and the

renovation of teachers’ houses at Ngundi Basic School.35

A total of about 11

classrooms were completed by end of 2004 which benefitted about 1,500 pupils.36

Senanga Trades School was also rehabilitated with a new iron roof, including works

like water borne ablution blocks.

The ZI was initially a three year programme requiring USD 25 million. A total of

USD 14,051,112 in form of contributions and commitments was realised for the 2003

to 2005 projects from donors like Denmark, Japan, United States of America,

UNICEF/ECHO, and JICA.37

The donors pledged to put up the rest of the funding

once the legal environment in Zambia was conducive for the integration of refugees.

99

Zambia, as the host, put up in-kind contributions. The major contribution that was

expected from the Government of Zambia was the putting up of a legal framework or

environment that allowed refugees to qualify for permanent residency and the

possibility of citizenship. The initiative received a setback when the Zambian

Parliament failed to pass legislation granting citizenship to Angolan refugees who

were born in Zambia or had lived there for over ten years.38

At that time, there was no mechanism in place to guarantee the rights of long-term

residency or citizenship for refugees in Zambia. Although the Constitution and the

Citizenship Act of Zambia required 10 years of ‘ordinary residency’ before an

application for citizenship could be considered, refugees in Zambia were not

considered as ‘ordinary residents’ and were ineligible to apply. The amended

Citizenship Act of 1996 stated that:

4. (1) Every person who immediately before the commencement of

this constitution was a citizen of Zambia shall continue to be a citizen

of Zambia after the commencement of this Constitution. Citizens of

Zambia

(2) A person who was entitled to citizenship of Zambia before the

commencement of this Constitution subject to the performance of any

conditions following the happening of a future event, shall become a

citizen upon the performance of such conditions.

5. A person born in or outside Zambia after the commencement of this

Constitution shall become a citizen of Zambia at the date of his birth if

on that date at least one of his parents is a citizen of Zambia. Children

of citizens of Zambia

6. (1) Any person who-Persons entitled to apply to be registered as

citizens

(a) has attained the age of twenty-one years; and

(b) has been ordinarily resident in Zambia for a continuous period of

not less than ten years immediately preceding that person's application

for registration; shall be entitled to apply to the Citizenship Board, in

such manner as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament, to

be registered as a citizen of Zambia.39

100

The refugee guidelines enshrined in the laws of Zambia did not allow for the

naturalisation of refugees in Zambia. There was also no political will to facilitate for

the inclusion of refugees among the people who were qualified to commence the

application procedure for Zambian citizenship.

GRZ failed to come up with legislation or mechanisms that removed the legal

restraints on refugees’ freedom of movement, and access to the formal labour market.

Freedoms of movement, and access to the formal labour market were some of the

major tenets of the ZI that were supposed to be guaranteed by the Government. The

failure on the part of the Government was a major hindrance to the full

implementation of the ZI and the integration of the Angolan refugees.

What had promised to be the first major step towards the integration and

naturalisation of refugees in Zambia did not happen with the ZI. Progress in

programme stalled because the Government faced challenges in fulfilling its part of

the bargain. As a result, funding for the programme became a problem because

donors were no longer willing to continue releasing funds when the host government

did not provide the conducive legal environment. For instance, in 2006, few projects

under the ZI were implemented due to lack of funding.40

Many projects that had been

started could not be completed.

101

In December 2012, there was progress towards the naturalisation of refugees in

Zambia. The Zambian government allowed the naturalisation of former refugees to

become Zambian citizens. This was applied to the Angolans and Rwandese that

refused to go back to their countries of origin after the cessation of their refugee

status. This development meant that refugees were eligible to apply to become

citizens of Zambia.41

Some Angolan refugees had been at Mayukwayukwa for over four decades without

opportunities to become Zambian citizens. Some of the refugees who settled there for

long periods led exemplary lives in Zambia where they contributed positively to the

Mayukwayukwa refugee community. Although refugees actively participated in

various activities in Zambia, they could not be naturalised to become citizens before

the change in policy. This was regardless of the fact that a fundamental objective of

the UN international protection function was to help refugees cease to be such

through naturalisation. This was contained in the 1951 UN Convention that provided

that:

The contracting States shall, as far as possible, facilitate the

assimilation and naturalisation of refugees and shall in particular,

make every effort to expedite naturalisation proceedings. The office

continues to encourage national authourities to adopt administrative or

legal measures with a view to:

(a) Enabling refugees to qualify for naturalisation earlier than aliens

generally;

(b) Exempting refugees from the requirements of furnishing proof of

release from or loss of their former nationality;

(c) Exempting needy refugees from payment of fees normally payable

for naturalisation proceedings, or reduce such fees.42

102

Some refugees were even awarded with certificates of excellence for their

achievements. For instance, during the commemoration of World Refugee Day at

Mayukwayukwa in 2013, UNHCR, in the presence of top government officials, gave

awards to refugees who were outstanding at the settlement. Among the awarded

refugees was Mary Nsamba, an Angolan woman, who fled into Zambia with her

parents in 1966 when she was eight years old. Although she had little formal

education, she was involved in many activities within Mayukwayukwa Refugee

Settlement. She was a Section leader, also a member of the Camp Council where she

was involved in the resolving of community leadership problems.43

After 2012, she

was eligible to apply for permanent residency and even Zambian citizenship.

Another recipient of the 2013 awards who was also eligible for citizenship was

Mercha Coasta, a male refugee, who had also fled to the settlement in 1966. He had

also been involved in various productive activities at Mayukwayukwa. Other than

being a farmer who contributed to the national food basket, he was a bricklayer. He

had also been camp chairperson and councilor at the settlement.44

Not only former refugees with outstanding achievements were eligible to apply for

permanent residency and citizenship after 2012. Monde Mweemba, a girl of 18 years

and a grade 10 school dropout also qualified to apply.45

She was born at

Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement from an Angolan refugee mother and a Zambian

father from a nearby village. She never knew her father well because he never

married her mother but someone else. He also lived very far outside the settlement

103

which meant that she had to get a gate pass in order to see him. She lived all her life

in Zambia and had only heard of Angola from her mother and neighbours. Before

2012, she could not apply for citizenship because of the refugee status of her mother.

She was granted a permanent residency permit in 2013.

The change in policy began in 2011 when Government pledged to facilitate the local

integration of some 10,000 Angolan refugees in Zambia.46

This pledge was made at a

Ministerial meeting held to commemorate the 60th

anniversary of the 1951 UN

Convention. Using lessons from the ZI experience, the Government conceived more

solid management and oversight mechanisms among the different government

entities.47

To avoid a situation where there was an imbalance in the socio-economic

foundation of the local host communities, the Government requested for financial

support for socio-economic projects that would benefit both the refugee and the host

communities. This was followed by the implementation of the pledge by the granting

of permanent residence permits to the refugees by the Minister of Home Affairs in

2012.48

Jose Pinto, a refugee for 33 years, was the first refugee to receive the permanent

residence permit. Zambia's Minister of Home Affairs at the time, Edgar Lungu,

granted the first three residency permits to Pinto, his wife and their daughter Filipa in

a ceremony that was held in the capital, Lusaka, on 18 December 2012.49

The hand-

over of the documents marked the launch of issuing the local integration permits to up

to 10,000 former Angolan refugees who met the criteria under immigration laws. The

104

hand-over ceremony was witnessed by UNHCR and a delegation from the African

Union. The African Union supported the local integration process by donating

US$100,000.50

Figure 2: Zambia's Minister of Home Affairs, Edgar Lungu (right), presents a

Residency Permit to Filipa Pinto (centre), while her father, Jose Pinto and

UNHCR Representative, Joyce Mends-Cole, look on.

Source: UNHCR News Stories, 31 December 2012

The criteria and procedure for the local integration of the Angolan refugees were

premised on existing Zambian legislation, namely, the Constitution of Zambia, the

amended by Citizenship Act No. 18 of 1996, already mentioned and the Immigration

and Deportation Act No. 18 of 2010. What changed in 2012 was that Government

decided to allow former Angolan and Rwandan refugees to apply for permanent

residency. The Citizenship Act was complemented by the Immigration and

Deportation Act (No. 18 of 2010) which states that:

20. (1) A person shall apply to the Director-General of Immigration for

a residence permit in the prescribed manner and form.

(2) The Director-General of Immigration shall, upon receipt of an

application under subsection (1), issue the person with a residence

permit if the person—

(a) is not an illegal immigrant;

105

(b) has an adequate knowledge of any language commonly used by the

indigenous inhabitants of Zambia as may be prescribed, or of

English;

(c) intends to remain in Zambia for a period in excess of ten years;

(d) belongs to a class set out in the First Schedule;

(e) is a foreigner holding an investor's permit for a period exceeding

three years;

(f) is an established resident;

(g) is the spouse of a citizen who has held a spouse permit for a period

of not less than five years;

(h) is a child of a citizen, irrespective of the age of that child;

(i) is a child or dependant under the age of twenty-one years of an

established resident or person holding a valid residence permit.51

The Zambian government came up with a document outlining the criteria and

procedures for the local integration of former Angolan refugees in Zambia in July

2012. The policy document was important in that it guaranteed the inclusion of

former refugees still resident in Zambia an opportunity to apply for permanent

residency and citizenship after 10 years just like ordinary non Zambians.

Six categories were availed to the former refugees under which they could be

considered for permanent residency in Zambia. The first was of children born from a

refugee and a Zambian citizen. Article 5 of the Constitution of Zambia, Act No. 18 of

1996 made provision for children born in or outside Zambia to become citizens of

Zambia if at least, one parent was a citizen of Zambia. A child born from one

Zambian parent was eligible to apply for a Zambian national registration card upon

attaining the age of 16 years.52

This is similar to the case of Monde mentioned above.

The second was of persons married to Zambian nationals. All former refugees who fit

in this category were eligible to apply according to Section 23 of the Immigration and

Deportation Act, No. 18 of 2010. The Act provided for the issuance of a Spouse

106

Permit by the Director-General of Immigration to a spouse of a citizen or an

established resident. Former Angolan refugees married to Zambian spouses were

eligible to apply for this permit. The permit was issued initially for a two year period

after which, it was subject to renewal for 3 years. After 5 years, a holder of the

Spouse Permit qualified to apply for a residence permit in accordance with Section 20

(1) (g) of the Immigration and Deportation Act.53

The third covered former refugees that wanted an Investor Permit. In accordance with

Section 29 of the Immigration and Deportation Act, No 18 of 2010, any foreign

national could be issued with an Investors Permit by the Director-General of

Immigration if they intended to establish a business or invest in Zambia. The source

of the funds could be from within Zambia or outside Zambia. All family members

aged 18 years and below may be included in the permit. A holder of this type of

permit, operating a viable business for a period exceeding 3 years, was eligible to

apply for a Residence Permit. After 10 years on a Residence Permit, they qualified to

apply for citizenship.54

Former Angolan refugees could also acquire permanent residency by applying for an

Employment Permit. The legal basis for the criteria was lodged in section 28 of the

Immigration and Deportation Act. Refugees who had a professional qualification that

met the set standards could be considered for issuance of an employment permit. A

holder of an Employment Permit was eligible to apply for a Residence Permit after 10

107

years.55

After another 10 years, one was eligible to apply for citizenship. Family

members 18 years and below could be included in the permit.

Others applied for permanent residency based on their long stay or continuous

residence in Zambia. Former Angolan refugees, who arrived in Zambia between 1966

and 1986 and continuously lived in Zambia as well as their children, were all eligible

to apply for a Residence Permit. This permit was valid for 10 years. A holder of

Residence Permit was eligible to apply for citizenship after 10 years. Lastly, there

was the category of persons married to refugees of other nationalities. The logic

behind the consideration of this group was in support of the principle of family

unity.56

The issuance of residence permits by the Zambian authorities was on condition that

the former refugees presented valid identification in the form of Angolan national

registration cards and or passports. This would have normally proved difficult bearing

in mind that most refugees did not have proper identification papers. It was common

for refugees to enter countries of asylum with no identification at all. Some Angola

refugees had outdated identification cards from the colonial period while others were

born in Zambia. The common identification documents that the former Angolan

refugees at Mayukwayukwa had were the UNHCR refugee cards. These were not

valid as they expired after the cessation of the Angola refugee status on 30th

June

2012.

108

The problem of lack of proper identification for the Angolan refugees was quickly

rectified by the Government of the Republic of Angola (GRA) which expedited the

issuance of NRCs and passports to the refugees. The GRA also bore the full cost of

the issuance of the passports. By the end of 2013, a total of 1,500 Angolan identity

cards had been issued to former Angolan refugees in Mayukwayukwa.57

The cost of

the resident permits was split half-way between UNHCR and GRZ. The only cost that

the former refugees had to bear was of acquiring of Zambian alien cards that cost ZK

50.10 which was about USD 9.58

The alien cards allowed them to remain in Zambia

while they waited for the issuance of residence permits.

Table: Former Angolan Refugees Local Integration Statistics as of December 2013

Location Immigration

Applications

Beneficiary

Population

Meheba 2,994 4,016

Mayukwayukwa 1,183 1,537

Urban 25 35

Self-Settled 0 0

Totals 4,202 5,588 Source: GRZ, Strategic Framework, 2014

According to the statistics provided in Table 1, a total of 1,537 former refugees at

Mayukwayukwa benefited from the issuance of permits in 2013. There were 7,934

former Angolan refugees out of the total population of 11,532 persons of concern to

UNHCR at Mayukwayukwa.59

The recipients of the permits could move wherever

they wanted in Zambia without any restriction or need for permission. They could

also live anywhere they wanted in Zambia just like Zambian citizens.

109

In 2013, the Zambian Government was planning for the relocation of former refugees

who had been granted with permits from the refugee settlements. The plan was to

settle them in agricultural settlement schemes as a way of empowering them with

land. Ordinary Zambian citizens were also free to apply for land in the agricultural

schemes. Former Angolan refugees that did not qualify for permits were expected to

repatriate back to their countries. Both UNHCR and the government had not come up

with any decisions concerning former refugee that did not want to repatriate back.

However, these former refugees remained in the settlements as persons of concern.60

In conclusion, it can be said that it took Zambia almost fifty years to finally decide on

employing local integration as a solution to the problem of refugees from Angola.

Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement was very instrumental in the journey to arrive at

this decision to integrate the refugees. Having been established at the inception of

refugee settlements in Zambia in 1966 and being the longest operating refugee

settlement in 2013, it was used as a test area for the different approaches to the

refugee problem. Mayukwayukwa was the only settlement where all the attempts at

finding lasting solutions to the refugee problem were made between 1966 and 2013.

110

ENDNOTES

1 UNHCR, Update on Solutions, (6

th June 2014, EC/65/5C/CRP.15) no page

numbers @ http://www.refworld.org/docid/542cfe634.html [Accessed 17/01/15]

2 Interview with Kelvin Shimo, Pubic Information Associate, UNHCR, Lusaka,

1st December 2014.

3 Interview with Maureen Chimbala Namwanyi, Resettlement Associate,

UNHCR, Lusaka, 16th

December 2014.

4 B. Stein, 'Refugee Integration and Older Refugee Settlements in Africa',

(American Anthropological Association, 28th

November 1990), no page

numbers @ www.msu.edu/course/pls/461/stein/FINAL.htm [Accessed

22/05/14]

5 Stein, 'Refugee Integration and Older Refugee Settlements’, no page number.

6 A. Betts, ‘Development Assistance and Refugees: Towards a North – South

Grand Bargain?’, Forced Migration Briefing, (Refugee Studies Centre,

University of Oxford, June 2009), p.4.

7 K. Jacobsen, ‘Can Refugees Benefit the State? Refugee Sesources and African

Statebuilding’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 40, 4 (2002), p. 577.

8 Central Statistics Office (CSO), 2000 Census: Western Province, Vol.9,

(Lusaka: Central Statistics Office, 2004) p. xviii.

9 CSO, 2000 Census: Western Province, p. xvii

10

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assmbly, Supplement No. 12

(A/9012), 1st January 1973, para. 119.

11

Central Statistics Office, Living Conditions Report, 1993, p. 112.

12

UNHCR, Zambia Initiative: Refugee-Hosting Community Development

Programme, Donors Mission Report, (18 – 28 March 2002), p. 9.

13

T. Amara, ‘Zambia Initiative: Refugees Are Not a Burden But an Asset’,

Conflict Trends, 3 (2005), p. 35.

14

UNHCR, Donors Mission Report, p. 9.

15

UNHCR, Donors Mission Report, p. 2.

16

UNHCR, Donors Mission Report, p. 3.

111

17

J. Brosche and M. Nilsson, 'Zambian Refugee Policy: Security, Reparation and

Local Integration', Minor Field Study, (Uppsala University, 2004), p. 29.

18

Brosche and Nilsson, 'Zambian Refugee Policy’, p. 7.

19

M. Watabe, ‘The Zambia Initiative’, Forced Migration Review, 24 (November

2005), p. 69.

20

UNHCR, Handbook for Planning and Implementing Development

Assistance for Refugees (DAR) Programmes, (January 2005), p. 1.

21

Betts, ‘Development Assistance and Refugees’, p.1.

22

UNHCR, Handbook for Planning, p. 1.

23

UNHCR, Handbook for Planning, p. 1.

24

Betts, ‘Development Assistance and Refugees’, p.8.

25

Betts, ‘Development Assistance and Refugees’, p.6.

26

Amara, ‘Refugees are Not a Burden’, p. 36.

27

Watabe, ‘The Zambia Initiative’, p. 69.

28

UNHCR, The Zambia Initiative: In Pursuit of Sustainable Solutions for

Refugees in Zambia, Update as at May 2004, p. 13.

29

Watabe, ‘The Zambia Initiative’, p. 69.

30

Watabe, ‘The Zambia Initiative’, p. 69.

31

UNHCR, UNHCR Global Report 2003, Zambia, p. 287 @

http://www.unhcr.org/40c6d7770.html [accessed 11/01/15]

32

UNHCR, UNHCR Global Report 2004, Zambia, p. 305 @

http://www.unhcr.org/42ad4dbf0.html [accessed 13/11/14]

33

Amara, ‘Refugees are Not a Burden’, p. 37.

34

Amara, ‘Refugees are Not a Burden’, p. 37.

35

UNHCR, The Zambia Initiative: In Pursuit, p. 17-23.

112

36

Amara, ‘Refugees are Not a Burden’, p. 37.

37

UNHCR, The Zambia Initiative: In Pursuit, p. 3.

38

United States Committee for Refugees and Immigration, US Committee for

Refugees World Refugee Survey 2004 – Zambia, 25th

May 2004, No page

numbers, @ http://www.refworld.org/docid/40b4594b10.html.

39

Republic of Zambia, Laws of Zambia, (As amended by Act No. 18 of 1996),

Chapter 124, Part II, Articles 4 – 6.

40

UNHCR, UNHCR Global Report 2006, Zambia, (June 2007), p. 311 @

http://www.refworld.org/docid/466d1a7e2.html. [accessed 18 February 2014]

41

GRZ, Ministry of Home Affairs, Strategic Framework for the Local

Integration of Former Refugees in Zambia, (UNHCR, 2014), p. 11.

42

UNHCR, Report (A/3212), 1977, para. 61.

43

UNHCR, ‘Zambians and Refugees Awarded’, p. 14.

44

UNHCR, ‘Zambians and Refugees Awarded’, p. 14.

45

Interview with Monde Mweemba, Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement, 27th

December 2014.

46

GRZ, Strategic Framework, p. 8.

47

GRZ, Strategic Framework, p. 8.

48

UNHCR, ‘Zambia Begins Granting Angolan Refugees Permanent Residency’,

UNHCR News Stories, 31 December 2012 @

http://www.unhcr.org/50e162899.html [Accessed on 30/04/13]

49 UNHCR, ‘Zambia Begins Granting’, News Stories.

50 UNHCR, ‘Zambia Begins Granting’, News Stories.

51 Republic of Zambia, Laws of Zambia, (As amended by Act No. 18 of 2010)

Chapter 123 Section 20 (1 - 2).

52

GRZ, Ministry of Home Affairs, Office of the Commissioner for Refugees,

Criteria and Procedures for the Local Integration of Former Angolan

Refugees, July 2012, p. 2.

113

53

GRZ, Strategic Framework, p. 12.

54

GRZ, Criteria and Procedures, p. 4.

55

GRZ, Criteria and Procedures, p. 5.

56

UNHCR, Handbook and Guidelines on Procedures and Criteria for

Determining Refugee Status, (Geneva: UNHCR, 2011), p. 36.

57 UNHCR, UNHCR Operations in Zambia: Factsheet, 1

st March 2014, p. 2.

58

GRZ, Strategic Framework, p. 13.

59

UNHCR, UNHCR Operations in Zambia, p.1.

60

Interview with Katele Kalumba, Senior Legal Advisor, Office of the

Commissioner for Refugees, Lusaka, 12th

August 2014.

114

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION

The study has demonstrated how Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement performed its

role and function of hosting refugees in the period between 1966 and 2013. It has

shown how the settlement hosted refugees, initially from Angola, and later from other

African countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Namibia, Rwanda

and Burundi. The establishment of the settlement in 1966 was as a result of many

contributing factors. This study has shown that the establishment of the refugee

settlement at Mayukwayukwa, as a form of the encampment, was a policy not

dictated by international instruments or UNHCR but was a decision by Zambian

government which had the final say on what kind of policy to pursue.

What has also been demonstrated in the study is that although the existence of

Mayukwayukwa had a history of its own, it was not an isolated case. Other refugee

settlements and camps were established in Zambia at Nyimba, Lwatembo, Maheba,

Ukwimi, Kala, Mwange and Nangweshi. In view of the fact that Mayukwayukwa

existed longer than any of these, it must be appreciated that the experiences at these

settlements lent important lessons to the execution of the handling of refugees at the

settlement. Moreover, since Mayukwayukwa and Maheba remained the only

surviving refugee settlements in 2013, it could be said that they were the products of

Zambia’s combined experiences in refugee hosting.

115

The study has further shown that Mayukwayukwa existed in changing times in which

the political, economic and ideological environment was evolving within and outside

Zambia. These included the change from communal land use to individual family

plots, the enactment of the Refugee Control Act, the independence of Angola and the

failure of repatriation. The changes that took place necessitated the introduction of

new guidelines and practices by the stakeholders at Mayukwayukwa as a means of

adapting. The changes at the settlement made it possible for it to survive up to 2013

and after. This ability to adapt demonstrated its resilience towards its role and

function..

What has been shown is how and why Zambia, as a country faced with an influx of

Angolan refugees shortly after independence, established a temporal settlement at

Mayukwayukwa. The settlement in turn, began executing its role and function using

guidelines that were mostly conceived by the government to tackle problems and

situations as they arose. When Zambia finally came up with the Refugee Control Act

in 1970, it was evident that the legislation borrowed greatly from the guidelines that

had been pursued by the government until then. The experiences from

Mayukwayukwa and other refugee settlements that had existed since 1966 greatly

contributed to the need to enact the new legislation. What had been used as guidelines

at the settlement became enshrined in the laws of Zambia as part of the new refugee

policy. In view of this, Mayukwayukwa can be said to have influenced to the

establishment of Zambia’s refugee policy in 1970.

116

What can also been deduced from the study is that the repatriation of refugees from

Mayukwayukwa was for the most part of the period under discussion the most sought

after solution by the government. This was because it was the most practical solution

if one considered resettlement to other countries and local integration as the

alternatives. Resettlement for instance, was a solution that the host nation could not

initiate because it depended more on the second countries of asylum’s willingness to

share the burden by accepting refugees. If no country (mostly donors) was willing to

open its doors to resettle some refugees that year, it meant that the refugees were

stuck in first countries of asylum like Zambia. Local integration as a solution only

became possible in December 2012.

Repatriation was the most preferred by the Zambian government because of the

above-mentioned challenges with the other two solutions. However, it has been

shown that earlier attempts to repatriate Angolan refugees back to their country were

not successful because Angolan independence didn’t bring peace but a civil war in

that country which lasted for close to three decades. Attempts to repatriate Angolan

refugees during that time failed. Repatriation was only successful after a cease-fire

was signed following the death of Jonas Savimbi in 2002. The repatriation

programme after 2002 ran alongside attempts at the local integration of refugees in

Zambia.

The study has demonstrated that the attempts to change policy to begin allowing the

local integration of refugees in Zambia were piloted at Mayukwayukwa. The Zambia

117

Initiative, which was the first significant attempt at this which required government to

grant more freedoms to refugees like movement and access to the labour markets, was

focused in the area around Mayukwayukwa. Even though the ZI failed to compel the

Zambian government to change legislation at the time, it was used as a learning

experience towards the pursuit of local integration. It also showed that the settlement

was instrumental in the attempts to arrive at lasting solutions for the refugee problem

in Zambia.

It has been shown that in 2012 when the Zambian government finally changed the

refugee policy and began allowing the local integration, refugees in Mayukwayukwa

were targeted. This was because the settlement had thousands of refugees that

qualified to apply for residence permits in Zambia but could not do so earlier because

the law did not permit. This showed that the settlement continued to be instrumental

in the implementation of refugee policies in Zambia. The inclusion of refugees among

the foreigners that could apply for residence permits was a shift of political will on

the part of the Zambian authorities. It must be noted that the inclusion of refugees did

not require new laws but was based on the use of existing ones.

Finally the study has demonstrated how what started as a temporal role of hosting

Angolan refugees at Mayukwayukwa in 1966 turned out to be a protracted one which

left the settlement as Africa’s longest operating agricultural refugee settlement in

2013. The continuous hosting of refugees at Mayukwayukwa must be appreciated in

that it was not mandatory but a choice made by the host country, Zambia. Contrary to

118

Karen Jacobsen’s findings already mentioned in the first chapter that ‘the longer the

refugee situation persists, the more likely it is that the overall budget for the

programme shrinks, assistance reduces and the refugees become invisible to the

public eye’, Mayukwayukwa continued to attract significant attention after 47 years.

It shows that it was the nature of Zambians to be receptive to refugees. An important

role of the settlement was to show the receptive nature of Zambians to outsiders.

119

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Primary Source

(i) Interviews

Catulo, Gladys, Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement, interviewed on 26th

December

2014.

Costa, Joao, Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement, interviewed on 29th

December 2014.

Kalumba, Katele, Senior Legal Officer, Office of the Commissioner for Refugees,

Ministry of Home Affairs, on 12th

August 2014.

Munkombwe, Tikambenji Njovu, Program Assistant, UNHCR, Lusaka, on 2th

January

2015.

Mweemba, Monde, Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement, interviewed on 27th

December

2014.

Namwanyi, Maureen Chimbala, Resettlement Associate, UNHCR, Lusaka, on 16th

December 2014.

Shimo, Kelvin, Public Information Associate, UNHCR, Lusaka, on 1st December 2014.

Wanga, Hadukoma, Mayukwayukwa Refugee Settlement, interviewed on 29th

December

2014.

(ii) National Archives of Zambia

Hansard N0. 24, National Assembly of Zambia, 8 – 11th

December, 1970, Lusaka:

Government Printers, 1970

NAZ/EP 4/20/82, Frelimo File, Lubinda, H. S. District Secretary, Petauke, to the

Commissioner for Refugees, Lusaka, 5th

March 1972

NAZ/EP 4/20/82, Frelimo File, Mbita, E. C., District Secretary, Katete, to Chief

Immigration Officer, Lusaka, 22nd

September 1971.

NAZ/EP 4/20/82, Frelimo File, Moonga, V. M. Immigration Officer in Charge, Petauke,

to Chief immigration Officer, Lusaka, 8th

October 1973.

120

(iii) United Nations Reports

UN International Human Rights Instruments, ‘Core Document Forming Part of the

Reports of States Parties: Zambia’, HRI/CORE/1/Add.22/Rev.2, 21 March 2005, @

http://www.refworld.org/docid/43f307362.html [Accessed 12/11/14]

UN, ‘UNHCR Activities Financed by Voluntary Funds: Report for 1993 – 1994 and

Proposed Programmes and Budget for 1995’, 19th

August 1994,

A/AC.96/825/part1/23.

UN, ‘UNHCR Activities Financed by Voluntary Funds: Report for 1994 – 1995 and

Proposed Programmes and Budget for 1996’, 12th

July 1995,

(A/AC.96/846/part1/23),

UNHCR, Mid – Year Progress Report, Geneva: UNHCR, 2000

UNHCR, Mid – Year Progress Report, Geneva: UNHCR, 2001

UNHCR, Mid – Year Progress Report, Geneva: UNHCR, 2002

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/5511Rev.1), 1st January 1964.

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 11

(A/6311/Rev.1), 1st January 1966.

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/6711), 1st January 1968

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/7211), 1st January 1969

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/7612), 1st January 1970.

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/8012), 1st January 1971.

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/8412), 1st January 1972.

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/9012), 1st January 1973

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/9612), 1st January 1975.

121

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/31/12), 1st January 1976

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/32/12), 2nd

September 1977

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/33/12), 12th

September 1978

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/3812), 1st January 1983

UNHCR, Report of the UNHCR to the General Assembly, Supplement No. 12

(A/41/12), 1st January 1986

UNHCR, UNHCR Global Report 1999, Zambia, Geneva: UNHCR, 1999.

UNHCR, UNHCR Global Report 2003, Zambia, Geneva: UNHCR, 2003.

UNHCR, UNHCR Global Report 2004, Zambia, Geneva: UNHCR, 2004 @

http://www.unhcr.org/42ad4dbf0.html [accessed 13/11/14]

UNHCR, UNHCR Global Report 2006, Geneva: UNHCR, 2007, @

http://www.refworld.org/docid/466d1a7e2.html [accessed 18 February 2014]

UNHCR, UNHCR Global Report 2007, Geneva: UNHCR, 2007.

UNHCR, Zambia Initiative: Refugee-Hosting Community Development Programme,

Donors Mission Report, 18 – 28 March 2002.

B. Secondary Sources

(i) Articles

Amara, A. ‘Zambia Initiative: Refugees Are Not a Burden But an Asset’, Conflict

Trends, 3 (2005), 35 – 37.

Armstrong, A. ‘Refugee Wellbeing in Settlement Schemes’, Journal of Refugee Studies,

1, 1 (1988), pp. 57 – 73.

Black, R. ‘Putting Refugees in Camps’ in Forced Migration Review, 2 (August 1998),

pp. 4 – 7.

122

Crisp, J. and Jacobsen, k. ‘Refugee Camps Reconsidered’ in Forced Migration Review,

3 (December 1998), pp. 27 – 30.

Dick, S. 'Changing the Equation: Refugees as Valuable Sources Rather than Helpless

Victims', The Fleitcher Journal of International Development, 18, (2003), pp. 19

– 30.

Fleisch, A. 'Language History in S. E. Angola: The Ngangela – Nyembu Dialect Cluster',

Sprache und Geschichte in Afrik, 20, (2009), pp. 97 – 111.

Hansen, A. 'Refugee Dynamics: Angolans in Zambia 1966 to 1972', International

Migration Review, 15, 12, (Spring – Summer, 1981), pp. 175 – 194.

Lassiailly-Jacob, V. ‘Refugee – Host Interactions: A Field Report from Ukwimi

Mozambican Refugee Settlement, Zambia’, Refuge, 13, 6 (October 1993), pp. 23 –

26.

Jacobsen, A. ‘Can Refugees Benefit the State? Refugee Sesources and African

Statebuilding’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 40, 4 (2002), pp. 577 – 596.

Kaiser, T. ‘Between a Camp and a Hard Place: Rights, Livelihood and Experiences of the

Local Settlement System for Long-Term Refugees in Uganda,’ Journal of Modern

African Studies, 44, 4 (2006), pp. 597–621.

Musambachime, M. C. 'Escape From Tyranny: Flight Across the Rhodesia – Congo

Boundary 1900 – 1930', Trans-African Journal of History, l. 18 (1989), pp. 147 –

159.

Olivier, B. J. ‘Kaundas Zambia’, Africa Insight, 11, 1 (1981), pp. 33 – 39.

Watabe, M. ‘The Zambia Initiative’, Forced Migration Review, 24, (November 2005),

p. 69 – 69

(ii) Books

Agier, M. Managing Undesirables: Refugee Camps and Humanitarian

Governments, Cambridge: Policy Press, 2011.

Anderson, M. A. Ukwimi Refugee Settlement: A Gender Case Study, Geneva:

UNHCR, 1991.

Bakewell, O. Review of the CORD Community Services for the Angolan Refugees in

Western Province of Zambia, EPAU/2002/14, Geneva: UNHCR, 2002.

Bekoe, D. A. Implementing Peace Agreements: Lessons from Mozambique, Angola

123

and Liberia, Washington D. C., Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Betts, A. Loescher, G. and Liner, J. The United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees (UNHCR): The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection, New York:

Routledge, 2008.

Briggs, P. Mozambique, Guilford: The Globe Pequot Press, 1997.

Central Statistics Office (CSO), 2000 Census: Western Province, Vol.9, Lusaka: Central

Statistics Office, 2004.

Central Statistics Office, Living Conditions Report, Lusaka: Central Statistics Office

1993.

Cheke Cha Mbunda Cultural Writers Association, The History and Cultural Life of the

Mbunda Speaking Peoples, Lusaka: University of Zambia, 1994.

Colombey, J. (ed), Collection of International Instruments and Other Legal Texts

Concerning Refugees and Displaced Persons, 2 vols., Geneva: UNHCR, 1995.

Colson, E. ‘The Plateau Tonga of Northern Rhodesia’, in E. Colson and M. Gluckman,

Seven Tribes of British Central Africa, Manchester: Manchester University Press,

1959, pp. 94 - 102.

Gann, L. H. The Birth of a Plural Society: The Development of Northern Rhodesia

Under Colonial Rule, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958.

Hansen, A. and Oliver, A. Involuntary Migration and Resettlement: The Problems

and Responses of Dislocated People, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1982.

Holborn, L., Chartrand, P. and Chartrand, R. Refugees – A Problem of Our Time: The

Work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 1951 – 1972, 2

vols., Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1975.

Jacobsen, K. The Economic Survival in Refugee Camps, Bloomfield: Kumarian Press,

2005.

James III, W. A Political History of the Civil War in Angola: 1974 – 1990, New Jersey:

Translation Publishers, 1992.

Jansen, S. and Lofving, S. (eds), Struggles for Home: Violence, Hope and the

Movement of People, London: Berghahn Books, 2009.

Kaunda, K. D. Humanism in Zambia: and a Guide to its Implementation, Part 1,

Lusaka: Zambia Information Services, [No publication year].

124

Kleeper, K. ‘Zambian Agricultural Structure and Performance’, in Ben Turok (ed),

Development in Zambia: A Reader, London: Zed Press, 1989, pp. 137 – 148.

Lamont, C. The Philosophy of Humanism, New York: Humanist Press, 1997

Mainga, M. Bulozi Under the Luyana Kings: Political Evolution and State

Formation in Pre-colonial Zambia, Lusaka: Longman, 2010.

Marcum, J. A. The Angolan Revolution: Exile Politics and Guerrilla Warfare (1962 –

1976), vol. 2, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1978.

Papstein, R. ‘From Ethnic Identity to Tribalism: The Upper Zambezi Region of Zambia,

1830 – 1981’, in L. Vail, (ed), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa,

Oxford: University of California Press, 1989, pp. 372 - 394.

Shilington, K. (ed), Encyclopedia of African History, Vol. 1, New York: Taylor and

Francis group, 2006.

Starkey, P. and Simalenga, T. (eds) Animal Power for Weed Control: A Handbook,

Wageningen: Technical Control for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, 2000.

UN, Activities of the United Nations and its Family of Agencies in Zambia, Lusaka:

United Nations Development Programme, 1967.

UNHCR, Handbook and Guidelines on Procedures and Criteria for Determining

Refugee Status, Geneva: UNHCR, 2011.

UNHCR, Handbook for Planning and Implementing Development Assistance for

Refugees (DAR) Programmes, Geneva: UNHCR, 2005.

UNHCR, Handbook for the Repatriation and Reintegration Activities, Geneva:

UNHCR, 2004.

UNHCR, Implementation of the Comprehensive Strategy for Angolan Refugee

Situation, including UNHCR’s Recommendation on the Applicability of the

“Ceased Circumstances” Cessation Clauses, Geneva: UNHCR, 2012.

(iii) Dissertations and Theses

Bakewell, O. 'Repatriation: Angolan Refugees or Migrating Villagers?', PhD Thesis,

University of Barth, 1999.

Hansen, A. 'Once the Running Stops: The Socio-economic Resettlement of Angolan

Refugees (1966 – 1972) in Zambian Border Villages', PhD Thesis, Cornell

125

University, 1977.

Gray, A. M. ‘Emplacing Displacement: Cultural Landscapes of Refugee – hosting in

Ukwimi, Zambia’, PhD Thesis, University of Kansas, 2009.

Sapao, W. 'A Social and Economic History of Displaced People: The Maheba Refugee

Settlement Experience, 1971 – 1994', M.A. Dissertation, University of Zambia,

1996.

(iv) Published and Unpublished Papers and Reports

Berrett, M. ‘Social Landscapes and Moving People: The Mysterious Meaning of

Migration in Western Zambia’, New Issues in Refugee Studies, Working Paper No.

78, 2003.

Betts, A. ‘Development Assistance and Refugees: Towards a North – South Grand

Bargain?’ Forced Migration Briefing 2, Refugee Studies Centre, University of

Oxford, June 2009

Black, R. Mabwe, T. Shumba F. and Wilson, K. ‘Ukwimi Refugee Settlement: Livelihood

and Settlement Planning for Mozambicans in Zambia’, unpublished report, Oxford

Refugee Studies Programme, 1990.

Brosche, J. and M. Nilsson, 'Zambian Refugee Policy: Security, Reparation and Local

Integration', Minor Field Study, Uppsala University, 2004.

Crisp, J. Reira, J. and Freitas, R. Evaluation of UNHCR’s Returnee Reintegration

Rrogramme in Angola, UNHCR Policy Development and Evaluation Service

Report, August 2008.

GRZ, Ministry of Development Planning and National Guidance, ‘Hand-Outs on

Humanism’, Lusaka: November 1972.

GRZ, Ministry of Home Affairs, Office of the Commissioner for Refugees, Criteria and

Procedures for the Local Integration of Former Angolan Refugees, July 2012

GRZ, Ministry of Home Affairs, Strategic Framework for the Local Integration of

Former Refugees in Zambia, UNHCR, 2014.

Human Rights Watch, ‘Angola: Struggling Through Peace: Return and Resettlement in

Angola’, 15th

August 2003, A1516 @ http://www.refworld.org/docid/3f4f592c2.html

[Accessed 09/02/15]

Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), ‘Angola – Zambia: Security Fears

Among Refugees’, Humanitarian News and Analysis, 10th

August 2001 @

126

http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=24751 [Accessed 28th

July 2014]

Knudsen, C. Mundt, A and Zartman, I. W. Peace Agreements: The Case of Angola,

Report from the African Centre for Constructive Resolution of Disputes, 23rd

October 2000, @ http://www.reliefwed.int/report/angola/peace-agreements-case-

angola.html [Accessed 23/12/14].

Mwanza, A. M. and Seshamani, V. 'Refugees an Important Aspect of the Human

Dimension of Africa's Economic Crisis: Zambia Case Study', Working Paper for the

25th ASAUK Conference on 'The Refugee Situation in Africa', Cambridge, 14th

-

15th

September 1988.

Reuters, ‘Zambia: Refugees from Mozambique Flee to Zambia. Being Rehoused by

Government’, 5th

January 1966 @

http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/RTV/1966/01/05BGY506020337/?5 [Accessed

12/03/14]

UNHCR, Zambia: Analysis of the Gaps in Protection of Refugees, September 2007.

United States Committee for Refugees and Immigration, US Committee for Refugees

World Refugee Survey 2004 – Zambia, 25th

May 2004, No page numbers, @

http://www.refworld.org/docid/40b4594b10.html.

(v) United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Documents

UNHCR, ‘Organised Returns to Angola Reach 35,000, UNHCR Ups Pace Before Rains’,

UNHCR News Stories, 9th

October 2003 @ http://www.unhcr.org/3f8582f84.html

[Accessed 18/11/14].

UNHCR, ‘Zambia’s Nangweshi Camp Closes After Last Group of Angolans Move Out’,

News Stories, 20th

November 2006 @ http://www.unhcr.org/4561d52b2html

[Accessed 2nd March 2014]

UNHCR, ‘Zambia Begins Granting Angolan Refugees Permanent Residency’, UNHCR

News Stories, 31 December 2012 @ http://www.unhcr.org/50e162899.html

[Accessed on 30/04/13]

UNHCR, The Zambia Initiative: In Pursuit of Sustainable Solutions for Refugees in

Zambia, Update as at May 2004

UNHCR, 2004 Country Operations Plan: Zambia, UNHCR, 2004

UNHCR, ‘Curtains Close on Mwange and Kala Refugee Camps’, UNHCR Zambia

Newsletter, 2010.

127

UNHCR, ‘Thousands of Angolan Refugees in Zambia Wait for Resettlement as Camps

Reach Capacity’, UNHCR News Stories, 28th

January 2002.

UNHCR Spokesperson, A. Edwards, ‘End of Refugee Status for Angolan and Liberian

Exiles this Weekend’, Briefing Notes, 29th

June 2012 @

http://www.unhcr.org/4fed82459.html [Accessed 11/01/14].

UNHCR, UNHCR Zambia Newsletter, UNHCR, 2013.

UNHCR, Update on Solutions, 6th

June 2014, EC/65/5C/CRP.15 @

http://www.refworld.org/docid/542cfe634.html [Accessed 17/01/15]

UNHCR, UNHCR Operations in Zambia: Factsheet, 1st March 2014

UNHCR, ‘Current Situation in Angola, Eligibility of Angolan Asylum Seekers and

Treatment of Returnees’, 20th

May 1998, @

http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b31f1c.html [Accessed 09/11/14].