alternatehistory.com

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?
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