Anthony Kunda in Lusaka
ACCORDING to a witness in the Zambian Supreme Court case to decide whether President Frederick Chiluba was eligible to be elected last November, Chiluba was expelled from school in the equivalent of standard seven for smoking marijuana.
This was one of the details about his personal life that have so far emerged in the trial, in which 56 witnesses are to appear. Only a handful have testified so far.
Opposition parties are challenging Chiluba’s re-election, saying that his parents are not Zambian. According to the country’s new Constitution, a person of foreign parentage is not eligible to stand for president. Former president Kenneth Kaunda was not allowed to contest last year’s elections because his parents originally came from Malawi.
Among the things that have come out in evidence given by prosecution witnesses are that Chiluba was expelled from Kawambwa Secondary School in the northern Lupula Province. Thomas Ngosa, a cousin of Chiluba’s, said during the trial: ”He [Chiluba] went up to form two. They created some confusion with his friend Tom Musendeka because of dagga smoking and they were expelled.”
Chiluba finished his high school education via correspondence, passing his O levels and one A level in political science.
Ngosa also testified that Chiluba was born at the Chibambo Mission in Zaire, contrary to his claims of having been born in Kitwe, a mining town in northern Zambia. Last year Richard Sakala, presidential press assistant, produced a video – Search for the Truth – about Chiluba’s origins, in which he said Chibambo Mission didn’t exist in 1944, the year Chiluba was born. But Ngosa claimed in court it existed long before that date.
Luka Chabala, who has long claimed he is Chiluba’s real father, said in court he made Chiluba’s mother, Daina Kaimbe, pregnant outside wedlock. But her relatives would not allow him to marry her and harassed him. ”They could not allow me to marry her because I was short, jobless and poor. They threatened me, and I was forced to run away from Musangu village to Zaire,” Chabala said.
Chabala said he visited the village a few months after Chiluba was born, and Kaimbe secretly visited him so that he could see the baby. Kaimbe told him the child’s name was Titus Mpundu.
He didn’t see his child again until 1980, when Chiluba was a trade unionist heading the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions. Chabala said they met in his home village, Musangu, several times. He said Chiluba, during those meetings, admitted that he knew he was his father. Chabala has said he is ready to take a DNA test to prove his claim. Chiluba has so far refused to take a such a test, but the court may order him to do so.
After he had given evidence, Patrick Mvunga, one of the lawyers for the petitioners, asked Chabala to walk before the supreme court judges. Several people who were in the public gallery later said his gait and gestures were similar to Chiluba’s.
Other witnesses testified that Chiluba has provided variations of his name to Zambia’s authorities over the years. Charles Simufute, Zambia’s deputy registrar general, said his office has no records of Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba, which are the president’s official names. ”I do not have records in those names,” he said. Instead, the office only has the name Frederick Jacob Chiluba on record.
Barthlomew Tilase, supervising officer at the passport office and another witness, testified there were discrepancies in names on Chiluba’s application forms for a passport in 1970 and 1974. Tilase said under normal legal procedures, Chiluba should have made a statutory declaration to change names legally. ”According to the records there was no such a statutory declaration made,” he told the court.
Chiluba has said in the past that his father, whose name he claims was ”Jacob Nkonde Chiluba”, is now dead, and worked on the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines. But Eviristo Kambaila, president of the opposition National Congress Party and one of those to bring the petition against Chiluba, once worked as chief inspector for the company. He claims to have checked the mines records, and that the name ”Jacob Nkonde Chiluba” does not appear at all.