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Why Shire Valleans can’t relocate

Like all good citizens of this federal republic of Malawi, we, Sheikh Jean-Philippe LePoisson, Native Authority Mandela, Innocett Mawayawaya (the fake Lhomwe), Abiti Joyce Befu (MG 66) and I decided to leave our areas of comfort in the capital city of the Nyika Republic and drove down to the Lower Shire in a hired VW AMAILOKO to appreciate the situation for ourselves.

We have learnt some truths politicians, NGO leaders, UN managers, and others deliberately refuse to see and appreciate.

The people of the Lower Shire Valley are not fools. They have for a long time fallen victim to floods that not only sweep away their sources of livelihood but also kill a number of people. The pattern of suffering has become so predictable that as long as there is heavy rain in the Shire Highlands, Thyolo, Mulanje, and Mwanza areas, floods inundate the Lower Shire Valley. Some misinformed people now accuse the stoic sufferers, the flood victims, of deliberately positioning themselves near riverbanks so that they get aid from government and other well-wishers.

This view, though tantalising, is misguided and a result of ignorance about the Lower Shire Valley. Our people say madzi amvula amanka kuli khwawa. Yes, water will always flow towards low-lying areas. The Lower Shire is inevitably the drainage area, the big khwawa (hence Chikhwawa) for the Shire Highlands, the Thyolo escarpment and Mulanje, Mwanza and Malawi Hills.

As such, it sounds funny when people suggest that the people of the Lower Shire should move upland. Where to exactly? To Blantyre, Thyolo? Mozambique? Do they own land there? The chief who asked a similar question was even mocked as a puludzu, a thoughtless idiot. Essentially the people of the Lower Shire have nowhere to move to. According to the 2008 national census, Nsanje and Chikwawa host approximately 700 000 people. The total land mass for the two districts is 6 697 square kilometres or 669 700 hectares.

However, about 5 004 square kilometres are taken up wildlife reserves such as Majete, Mwabvi, Lengwe, Ndindi and Elephant marshes, forest reserves such as Matandwe and Kasenjere or Thyolo-Chikwawa escarpment (although half of it habitable) and Illovo sugar estates and Kasinthula Cane Growers.

Cumulatively, the area from which the people are forbidden to settle is larger than Blantyre, Chiradzulu and Mulanje combined (4 835 square km). Technically, the 700 000 valleans are supposed to live on and farm only 1 700 square kilometres of low lying flood-prone plains. The upland areas, Thyolo escarpment, Majete and Malawi Hills are government protected areas. So, where should the Valleans move to? Between the federal government and the valleans, who is puludzu?

Instead of blaming the people of Chikwawa and Nsanje for something they cannot change, the government should look at its wildlife-versus-people land policy. We feel would the government favours wildlife more than its own people. Hydro-environmental engineers need to visit and find a way of containing the waters from the Shire and other rivers. London is built around the Thames River; Paris is built around the Seine. The streets of Venice were designed in such way that they cater as canals as well as roads depending on the season. The Netherlands are essentially below sea level. However, a system of embankment, levies, dykes and other means of controlling river and ocean water, have made these areas habitable. Because of frequent cyclones and high tides, the USA built levies to prevent ocean water from inundating its coastal cities. The levies fail at times but they work most times. So, instead of blaming the victims of the floods, the federal government should help the people of the Lower Shire by containing the floods through reinforcing river banks, damming, tunnelling and creating diversion canals.

However, if the federal government insists on moving the Lower Shire people upland, let the experts devise a proper resettlement scheme, like Kudzigulira malo that the people of Thyolo, Mulanje and Machinga once enjoyed. This time around, the resettlement programme should use local funds. Yes, money the federal government has levied on fuel in the name of a disaster fund should be used to buy land elsewhere.

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