Maravi

(HERALD) Give us respect: Chiefs

Give us respect: Chiefs
Victoria Falls Correspondent

District administrators are suppressing traditional leaders, president of the Chiefs Council Chief Fortune Charumbira has said.

In a question-and-answer segment at the Service Delivery Conference for Local Government in Victoria Falls yesterday, Chief Charumbira said even Western countries give their traditional leaders more respect than that accorded Zimbabwean chiefs.

"The DA’s office is suppressing our institution as chiefs. The whiteman came and took away our powers and our land.

"But after independence, the powers were not restored. A culture of copy and paste was adopted thereby sidelining us but surprisingly, the very same white people who introduced this new culture of disrespecting traditional chiefs in the country give respect to their own traditional leaders.

"When David Cameron was elected Prime Minister in England and before he assumed office, he went to visit the Queen after which he told the country that he had been granted permission to become British Prime Minister.

"Those are values that we lost and we will fight as chiefs to have our powers restored because we were wounded by history," he said.

Chief Charumbira said traditional leaders were not against local government institutions such as DAs and provincial administrators, but simply wanted a model that recognises chiefs as the custodians of land and culture.

"There should be no conflict between the chief and the councillor or the chief and DA," he said.

Chief Charumbira also pointed out that traditional leaders were apolitical and do not want to be politicians either.

"Chiefs are now perceived as political because of some people who do not respect us. If you respect a chief, he will respect you. We are political in the sense that we protect those in our jurisdiction just like King Lobengula did in fighting the whites because they wanted to push him and his subjects off their land.

"So if one political party promises us land and the other is supporting people who want to take that land away from us, as chiefs we take a position and people will say we are political," he explained.

Labels: CHIEF FORTUNE CHARUMBIRA (ZIMBABWE), CHIEFS, CHIEFS COUNCIL (ZIMBABWE)

posted by MrK @ 5:42 AM