Zambia’s Ex-President Wounded at Rally

LUSAKA, Zambia — Former Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda was shot and slightly wounded Saturday during a police crackdown on supporters attending a political rally, officials said.

The circumstances of the shooting in Kabwe, 90 miles north of the capital, Lusaka, were unclear.

Police Inspector General Francis Ndhlovu confirmed that Kaunda, who ruled Zambia for 27 years, had been shot but would not comment further.

Officials at Kabwe General Hospital said Kaunda was not seriously injured.

Roger Chongwe, leader of the Liberal Progressive Front who joined Kaunda at the rally, was undergoing surgery after being shot in the neck.

Witnesses said police tear-gassed the national headquarters of Kaunda’s opposition United National Independence Party as he arrived to participate in the rally with Chongwe.

They said the assailants fled in their vehicle and that police riddled it with bullets.

Police claimed that Kaunda’s supporters did not obtain permission for the rally and sent several hundred paramilitary troops to Kabwe to break it up.

But Kaunda spokesman Muhabi Lungu told state radio that the party had obtained approval.

The troops arrested 21 Kaunda supporters, destroyed several temporary structures set up for the rally and virtually shut down the city, ordering residents to stay home.

The incident came 10 days after serious rioting in Lusaka, where street vendors were resisting a police crackdown. Seventy-five people were arrested and face charges of rioting, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in jail.

The government accused the opposition and Kaunda, who has been attempting a political comeback, of fomenting trouble. Kaunda’s party said it supported the vendors but denied it was behind the rioting.

Last year, Kaunda, the son of Malawian immigrants, was barred from contesting the presidential election won by Frederick Chiluba under a constitutional amendment restricting the presidency to Zambian-born children of parents born in Zambia. Chiluba defeated Kaunda in the first democratic multi-party elections in 1991.

The Zambian Supreme Court ruled last month that Chiluba need not take a DNA test to confirm his ancestry. The test would have determined whether Chiluba is the son of a Zairian immigrant and therefore ineligible to be president.

Kaunda, who ruled Zambia from independence in 1964 to 1991, has called for a nationwide civil disobedience campaign to force the constitutional amendment to be reversed.