The assassination of Major Wezi Kaunda this week could have been a pre-emptive move to prevent an Angolan-backed coup d’tat in Zambia. Ivor Powell, Chris Gordon and Howard Barrell report
Zambia is a political powder keg following the murder on Wednesday night of Major Wezi Kaunda, son of former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda.
The Mail & Guardian has learned that the killing could be linked to moves aimed at ousting President Frederick Chiluba.
The alleged plot against Chiluba is believed to have been orchestrated by Angolan and Zimbabwean interests with Zambian malcontents as regional conflicts in Central African spill over into the Central African state.
South African intelligence agencies were carefully monitoring Lusaka after receiving information that a possible coup could be on the cards. Sources said reports had been received to the effect that Wezi Kaunda, a highly trained military man, had in recent months been involved in training guerrillas inside Angolan territory. These reports have not been confirmed.
Kaunda, a former army major, died in a Lusaka hospital early on Thursday morning, after four gunmen opened fired as he and his wife Didi returned home after visiting friends late on Wednesday night.
After shooting Kaunda, the gunmen fled in his luxury Land Cruiser, leaving his wife unharmed. The vehicle was later found abandoned and overturned by the side of a road. Latest reports indicate that police had arrested one suspect in the murder.
Earlier this year Angola publicly condemned the Chiluba regime at the United Nations for continuing to allow military assistance and logistical supplies to pass through Zambian territory into Unita-held country in the west of Angola.
This was in defiance of intensifying UN sanctions against Unita leader Jonas Savimbi’s rebels. Former ministers in the Chiluba regime have been personally named as key players in arms, food and supply deals in exchange for Unita diamonds.
Recent developments in the Angolan civil war have rendered the Zambian connection even more critical. Following the destruction of his headquarters, Bailondo and Andulo, by the Angolan army FAA, Savimbi and his troops moved east to Moxico province, on the border with Zambia.
FAA officer Lieutenant General Matias Lima Coelho has claimed that the Central Highlands offensive has been successful. Unita’s conventional warfare capacity has been broken. However, Unita’s capacity for guerrilla warfare is likely to be maintained unless FAA is able to achieve significant gains over the next few weeks.
According to the UN’s information service, renewed fighting is now concentrated in that region. Unita is attempting to rebuild the general staff of its destroyed military forces in the enclave of Cazombo, a major Unita base for many years, with a heavy-duty airstrip. Savimbi was said to be trapped in Moxico while trying to reach Zambia, where he had intended to take refuge.
The Angolan army now holds the nearby border town of Luau as part of a bid to prevent Unita regrouping in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Luau has a major road across the border. Government planes are thought to be making regular bombing runs on Cazombo out of Saurimo, the nearest military airport.
Although UN investigations have found no evidence of supplies to Unita via Zambia, regional security analysts and the Angolan government have long believed that this is Savimbi’s last major remaining supply line.
Zambia has also been a diamond trading centre for Unita for a considerable time, with systems in place for the certification of illicit stones from Angola, and buyers positioned on the borders.
There have been unconfirmed reports of diamonds-for-arms trades at N’dola airport, on behalf of Unita. The rebels’ method is to pay for support by a cut of its diamond trade, as was the case with former president Mobutu Sese Seko’s regime in Zaire.
Relations between Zambia and Angola came close to war earlier this year. Chiluba denied his government was aiding Unita. The Angolan government carried out illicit bombings in Lusaka early this year, to try to target Unita’s allies in Zambia, and coerce the Zambian government into co-operation.
Relations after that apparently improved, with the Angolan government reluctantly accepting, in public at least, Chiluba’s assurances that aid was not reaching Unita through Zambia.
Senior South African government officials said they were concerned about the effect the killing could have on the stability of Zambia and in the region. There are a number of possible explanations for the killing – from political to plain criminal motivations.
Zambia has witnessed a number of murders of prominent individuals in recent years. Some have been related to drug trafficking, some the result of armed robbery and one or two have evidently been political.
Kaunda’s murder bears uncomfortable similarities with an attempted assassination of his father, former president and now leader of Zambia’s opposition United National Independence Party in April.
Kenneth Kaunda’s Land Cruiser was also raked with gunfire. However, as advance intelligence had been received of the planned hit, Kaunda was not in the vehicle. Kaunda, president of Zambia for 27 years before standing down, has survived at least four other assassination attempts since re-entering politics in the mid- 1990s.
The assassination this week closely follows the visit to Chiluba by South African President Thabo Mbeki last month, which symbolised a warming of relations between the two countries. Relations between Mbeki and Angolan President Jos Eduardo dos Santos, on the other hand, have been strained, with Luanda calling for anti-South African sanctions on the basis that the Mbeki government was not doing enough to stop the arms flow to Unita.
Poor relations between Angola and South Africa were said to be improving, however, following the visit of Joao Loreno, special envoy from Dos Santos, who met Mbeki.
The South African government agreed it needed to institute sanctions against Unita more vigorously, and that aid was reaching Savimbi from South Africa. But the situation is complicated by personality politics. Mbeki, according to diplomats, has little affinity with his Angolan counterpart, Dos Santos.
During his state visit to Zambia, Mbeki expressed his support for Chiluba’s attempts to bring to an end the war in the Congo on behalf of the Southern African Development Community, and for the quality of Chiluba’s leadership.
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