The Five Colors

Most African nations have achieved their independence only to find themselves too broke to enjoy it. Not Zambia, the copper-rich state that changed its name from Northern Rhodesia at independence ceremonies last year. Riding a world copper boom that has brought $400 million into the country in the past year alone, President Kenneth Kaunda is in the enviable position of having more money than can be spent.

Not that he isn't trying. The government this year is pouring $60 million into new schools, hospitals and administration centers, and building contractors are so overloaded that they cannot begin to meet the demand for private housing. The tree-lined avenues of Lusaka, the nation's sprawling capital, reverberate to the clacking of hammers. A large government housing development is going up, and work is in progress on a Parliament building and a jet airport. Even more ambitious is a four-year national development program, which Kaunda hopes will give Zambia a solid base of cash crops and start a consumer-goods industry.

Supper at II. In his first year as President, Kaunda, 39, the teetotaling son of a Presbyterian minister, has proved himself one of Africa's most responsible leaders. No stem-winding demagogue, he speaks quietly, seldom utters a harsh word, yet holds almost magical sway over his people. Last year he broke the back of an uprising by the fanatical Lumpa sect of High Priestess Alice Lenshina simply by broadcasting a nationwide appeal for calm.

He lives with his wife Betty and their nine children in the former British Governor's residence, a vast colonial mansion whose 400-acre lawn is dotted with flowering gardens, a swimming pool and a duck pond. He rarely has time to enjoy it. An indefatigable worker, he is so busy that his appointment calendar is booked three weeks in advance and he often receives visitors at 7 a.m. over breakfast or 11 p.m. over supper. To remind his people that "the good things of life come only with hard labor," Kaunda and his ministers regularly show up wielding shovels at government road-building and construction projects.

The White Flagpole. Like many African leaders, Kaunda is a fervent advocate of nonalignment, and to keep Zambia out of the cold war, he refuses to accept large doses of either American or Russian aid. He is also a passionate African nationalist, and recently admitted that he stands at attention whenever he hears the national anthem--even if he has to climb out of bed. Yet he takes care to keep post-independence compulsions, such as changing the old colonial street names, within reasonable bounds. Last week, for example, the mining town of Broken Hill officially changed the name of Baden-Powell Street to something more symbolic: Chachacha Street.

Also symbolic are the four colors of Zambia's flag: green is for agriculture, orange for copper, red for the blood spilled in the struggle for freedom, and black for the people. "And what holds it up?" asks a cynical European. "A white flagpole." Such remarks are typical of many of Zambia's 77,000 whites, on whom the country depends to keep its copper mines humming and its commerce thriving. Some still resent a black government in a land so long under white rule. Kaunda shrugs off the attitude. Far from wanting to drive the whites out of Zambia, he is actively encouraging more to come in.

Strangulation. Zambia's future would look rosy indeed were it not for one overriding problem: its dependence on the white-ruled nations to the south.

Zambia imports more than 60% of its consumer goods from Rhodesia and South Africa, could not run its copper smelters without Rhodesian coal and can ship its vital copper exports to the sea only via a Rhodesian-operated railroad to ports in South Africa and Portuguese Mozambique.

It is an embarrassing situation for Kaunda, who must swallow enough of his African nationalist pride to stay on speaking terms with white-supremacist regimes that most other black Africans have boycotted. Kaunda's enforced moderation has fallen on deaf ears in Rhodesia, whose racist Premier Ian Smith seems bent on severing all ties with Zambia--including the rail line. "There's going to be a hell of a trouble unless the people down there can see sense quickly," says Zambian Vice President Reuben Kamanga.

The threat of economic strangulation has forced Kaunda to seek another outlet for his copper. Last month he met with Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere to talk over long-simmering plans for a 1,000-mile rail line eastward to Dar es Salaam. The railway would cost a staggering $200 million or so, but Nyerere seems as interested in pushing it through as is Kaunda. It would turn Dar es Salaam into East Africa's busiest port, open up a massive, uninhabited southern region that is known to contain valuable coal deposits. Besides, Nyerere would like to break his own dependence on the East African Common Market, now dominated by Kenya and Uganda. "We want to build this railway line," said Kaunda. "We do not only want to build it, we have decided to build it."

The question is how to pay for it. Britain has offered to underwrite at least half the cost of a $225,000 preliminary survey of the route, and Red China, not to be outdone, has already sent its own team of experts to survey the Tanzania end (Kaunda will not permit them to enter Zambia). As for the actual cost of construction, Kaunda hopes that will be taken care of by an international consortium of British, French, Canadian, American and Japanese entrepreneurs.

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