Lusaka is the capital city of Zambia, a city of some 300,000 in a land-locked independent African state of 4½ million persons. It is a western-type city with its broad avenues lined with jacarandas and modern concrete and glass office blocks. Here in this fusion of African and [European cultures on the plateau of Central Africa, there is one unifying point: the South.

Over 50% of Zambia's borders are bounded by hostile regimes of the white minority powers of Southern African states: Rhodesia, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique. Under the legacies of colonial rule when Zambia was North Rhodesia, all its trade was orientated to the South through Rhodesia, South Africa and Mozambique. Since the border closure of early 1973 by Ian Smith, a new orientation of trade is taking place, and from late 1974 the eastern flow of goods along the Tanzam railway to Dar Es Salaam will radically alter the interdependence of Zambia with its neighbours.