Interest in a Modern Zambia timeline?

In 2010, two protestors were shot and killed when police opened fire on a crowd in Mongu, a city in the West Province of Zambia (known as Barotseland by the Lozi-speaking locals). The crowd was protesting that the 1964 agreement which had bound Barotseland to Zambia had been abrogated years before--a position supported by Zambia's high court--and that as a result, Barotseland had reverted to its previous legal status as a protectorate of the United Kingdom (or at least not a part of Zambia). In 2011 and 2012, there were massive riots throughout West Province, ending with a sum total of at least four dead, several injured, and more than 150 arrested. Finally, in 2014, the Zambian government launched a sudden arrest of four higher-ups in the West Province government, including the Administrator General (essentially governor), claiming that they, along with "persons unknown", had collaborated to secede from Zambia. The prisoners have been in maximum incarceration since and have not yet seen trial.

I propose that this could have gone a different way; that had the shutdown of the protest in 2010 been much more violent, it could have set off a series of riots culminating in an armed revolt against the Zambian government. The timeline I'm thinking of writing would involve a collapse of central authority in West Province and the emergence of a rebel state most likely led by the Barotse Freedom Movement, which organized the initial protest.

Any interest?
 
Well, Zambia wouldn't be breaking up entirely along ethnic lines, but there would certainly be repercussions in Zimbabwe, Katanga, and Namibia.
 
One of Africa's first major secession wars in a while. But isn't the current international position not to allow secession in Africa? So international support against a powerful regional movement. Or is it time to change the Cold War-era status quo in Africa? What might Britain, France, and the US do? What might Russia and China do? Potentially massive for setting international relations in Africa, as well as at the very least the biggest thing to occur in the region since the Congo Wars.

If Zambia breaks up along ethnic lines I expect Zimbabwe to split along Shona-Ndebele lines too.

Might stir up Katanga just north of the border again too.

That's certainly a way to increase Congo-Kinshasa's headache massively.

If it spills over too much in Zimbabwe, and stress is so much for ol' Bob Mugabe that he drops dead of a stroke or heart attack, you have a nice regional inferno to deal with. What might South Africa do with the impending wave of refugees?
 
With the negotiations and political maneuvers going on about granting south sudans independence going on in the same time period this might have a very interesting effect. If the BFM could hold on long enough they might have been able to use the South Sudan break in precedent to open up the door to their own independence... with interesting repercussions. That said I don't know that much about Zambia, but this is going to have an effect on the 2011 elections...
 
Alright, cool, glad to see it. I should have the first bit written in a couple of weeks (currently finishing up my very last exams, but after that I'll have free time to research and write).
 
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