Intervening in the Kariba Dam Project

Abstract

Despite the serious problems they encountered, British officers felt certain about one constant in the course of the resettlement: the loyalty of the Gwembe Tonga Native Authority (GTNA). Numerous reports hailed the steadfast co-operation of the seven Gwembe chiefs and the councillors,¹ who functioned as the ‘traditional’ representatives of the people in the colonial system and as such carried great responsibility for the resettlement. In particular, chief councillor Hezekiah Habanyama² seems to have been a perfect comprador, an obedient local agent of the colonial power, if one believes the British officers’ songs of praise. On closer inspection, however, a more complicated picture emerges. As a mediator between the Gwembe Tonga and the overburdened District Officers (DOs), the GTNA’s standing vis-à-vis the British administration was, on the one hand, significantly enhanced. On the other, the evictions undermined the Native Authority’s moral authority among the people, as Habanyama’s daughter remembers: ‘My father […] was the one who had to persuade the people to move. So that made him unpopular.’³ Moreover, as much as it was a salaried mouthpiece of the colonial government, the GTNA also used its position at the operational centre of indirect rule in order to leave its own mark upon the district’s transformation.⁴