Compilation issue with Maria DB Client Library on CentOS 3.9

MariaDB C Client Revision: 62
gcc version 3.2.3 20030502 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-59)
Kernel version - 2.4.21-50.ELsmp
Commands:
>cmake .
>make

Getting this error when I use make command:

[ 45%] Building C object libmariadb/CMakeFiles/libmariadb.dir/ma_secure.c.o
Linking C shared library libmariadb.so
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/local/lib/libz.a(compress.o): relocation R_X86_64_32 can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC
/usr/local/lib/libz.a: could not read symbols: Bad value
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [libmariadb/libmariadb.so.1] Error 1
make[1]: *** [libmariadb/CMakeFiles/libmariadb.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2

Yes, CentOS 3.9 is a very very old box. This version is important for us as we support our application running on older kernel versions.

Any thoughts to resolve the issue?