Zambians are ever so hospitable toward foreigners irrespective of their race and origin. The hospitality almost amounts to insanity when one considers the manner in which they tend to prostrate themselves just to please a foreigner to make them feel good about them as a people. It is true that the Zambian hospitality is not a make-believe type, it's true, and it's real. Therefore, foreigners coming to Zambia for tourism and business must therefore learn to appreciate Zambia's hospitality and that nowhere on the continent of Africa are they accorded the kind of respect and hospitality as in Zambia by Zambians.
Events of last week that took place at a Chinese-Owned mine in Sinazongwe, in Southern Province of Zambia were utterly unfortunate and repugnant and must not be allowed to happen again. Those two Chinese Managers that shot twelve Zambians acted with impunity and in total disregard of the laws of the land. However, one is made to think that they took the law in their own hands because they probably understand and assume that the legal system in Zambia is broken down and a far-cry. If this was their assumption and premise, they may have also drawn from recent miscarriage and travesty of justice in Zambia when innocent Zambians were wrongly sentenced while the criminals escaped Scot-free on account of interference from some quarters.
The shooting of innocent Zambians was not the first at Chinese run mines in the country. The first of such incidents happened in the recent past at a Chinese mine in Copperbelt and no one knows if Zambian authorities ever took legal action against the Chinese that fired shots. The action of the Chinese managers may be attributed to the Zambian leadership tendency to support foreign investors regardless of their wrong-doing. Their investment in Zambia is a symbiotic one. Therefore, the Chinese investors must not use their investments to hold the nation and its people to ransom. Laws of the land governing employment matters, if any, must be respected and followed to the letter.
If the law in the country is spineless or totally ineffective and does not and will not serve the interest of Zambians, then Zambians must start to act in self-defense against foreigners such as the Chinese mine Managers who are repeatedly displaying their propensity to act as hooligans. One wonders how long the perceived peace-loving Zambians will continue in this manner in the face of unwarranted aggression from the Chinese. Zambians who do not appear to have the leadership and the law on their side will have no choice but resort to taking the law in their own hands against Chinese hooliganism. Zambians can no longer continue acting nice against Chinese hooligans or any other investors who come to the country to reap from Zambia's natural wealth.
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