Maravi

We don't hate Chiluba, we hate his crimes

We don't hate Chiluba, we hate his crimes
By Editor
Wednesday May 23, 2007 [04:00]

It is true we have an agenda against Frederick Chiluba. But it is not an agenda against him as a human being; it is an agenda against his corruption, his thefts of public funds, his abuses of public resources. This is what we have an agenda against. From the inception of this newspaper, from the day this newspaper was launched on July 26, 1991 we have always had an agenda against corruption, against abuse of public resources and indeed against abuse of power.

It is a fact that cannot be denied by even Chiluba's best friends that he stole public funds, that he abused the Zambian taxpayers' money. And for some of the things Chiluba did, one wonders if this gentleman is normal.

Is it normal for a person of Chiluba's background to spend over a million dollars of public funds on personal clothes? Is it normal for a person of Chiluba's background to have such an uncontrollable desire to amass so many suits, shirts and shoes? He may not only be physically sick, he must be sick in the brain as well!

We have never encouraged Chiluba or anyone else to steal. Throughout the existence of this newspaper we have encouraged our people and their leaders to avoid stealing, to keep away from crime. We hate stealing, we hate crime but we didn't create it.

We have merely analysed it and despised it. Our editorial line doesn't cause or preach hatred against an individual. It isn't our editorial line that causes hatred but the existence of corruption, thefts of public funds and the injustices that arose from it that cause hatred.

What really causes hatred? It is social injustice, marginalisation and exploitation.

That, objectively, is what causes hatred - not the exposition and denunciation of corruption, of thefts and crime by a newspaper. What we have said is corruption causes instability and injustices in the nation and this can be a source of hatred. Ours is not a question of preaching hatred but of explaining a social reality, something that has happened and is happening in our country.

It isn't a call to hatred; rather, it is an explanation of the anger, the tension, the hatred that exists when people become aware that those who they have elected to govern their affairs are exploiting them, are stealing from them, they are bandits. Neither the political harassment nor the arrests and detentions that we had to endure at the hands of Chiluba have taught us to hate and let us ignore his humanity, since we cannot hate anyone. We have throughout the last 16 years of our existence preached the struggle for a more fair, just and humane society.

A society were leaders steal public funds and misuse them cannot be a society that is striving to be fair, just and humane. And throughout this period our experience shows that it is possible to preach the spirit of struggle against injustice and corruption without preaching hatred. We have never preached hatred as a philosophy, the philosophy of hatred.

This doesn't mean that we have any friendly feelings for corrupt practices or that we haven't struggled as hard as we can against it, but we think we have one supreme test, which is that we waged a battle against corruption and abuse of power; we have suffered from all kinds of acts of repression and wrongs from Chiluba's corrupt regime, yet we don't hate Chiluba and his corrupt friends. What we repudiate and hate is corruption, theft of public funds and abuse of power.

Our interpretation is that it is not a matter of hating individuals but of hating an iniquitous system of corruption, of abuses; it is not hatred of the individual. We encourage people to hate corruption and fight it, and many Zambians have done so with great courage and boldness. However, we don't speak of hatred of the individual.

What we are preaching is the repudiation, rejection, and hatred of corruption, of theft of public funds - hatred of injustice. We are not preaching hatred among men, because in the final analysis men are victims of the system. If we have to fight the system, we will fight the system. If we have to fight the men who represent the system we hate, we will do so.

We don't think if someone says " I hate crime" or " I hate corruption, theft, injustice and abuses," that person is preaching hatred. We don't think that denouncing and fighting against crime and pursuing the criminals and bringing them to book is preaching hatred.

In discussions about biblical history we used to be told that there were struggles in heaven, among the angels - and if there were struggles in heaven, how can we fail to understand that there may be struggles on earth? What's more, Jesus tells us we must love our enemies - He doesn't say we must not have enemies - and there is no greater love for a criminal, a thief than to prevent him from committing crime, or stopping him from stealing.

We were taught that there was a constant struggle between good and evil, and evil had to be punished. Well, we are not going to say we share that belief. We were taught that those who commit crimes and were responsible for injustice, evil, and all those other things that we are today fighting against would be punished in hell.

Could that be interpreted as an expression of hatred? We have never felt personal hatred for individuals. It is not that we love our enemies.

We don't; we haven't gotten that far. We understand why there are enemies and the extent to which this is due to history, to the laws of history, to the social status of individuals.

We understand how many factors predetermined their becoming enemies. There may be even genetic, or biological, explanations. Some individuals are born with hereditary defects or with illnesses. That too is a fact. We believe that many criminals are psychopaths. Chiluba must have been sick; we can't imagine him as sane.

We can't imagine him a sane person taking over a million dollars from his poor country's coffers and emptying it in a European boutique in exchange for designer suits, shirts and high heeled shoes. And he is doing so when in his country most hospitals are without medicines and large numbers of his people are dying of malaria, cholera and other preventable diseases!

Yes, we hate corruption. We hate abuse of power. We hate those despicable practices. We would even say that it is correct to punish those who are involved in corruption, in stealing public funds and those who abuse public resources.

They should be imprisoned wherever possible or necessary because they have inflicted terrible harm on their people. But when a person who has blood on his hands, who has stolen is punished, we don't think it is for the sake of revenge. There is no sense to revenge.

On whom are you taking revenge? History? The illness that must have induced those individuals to do terrible things? What are you avenging? So we are not taking any revenge on Chiluba or anybody else. We have struggled a lot over the last 16 years, yet we can't say that there was a feeling of hatred against individuals.

We have seen that the individual was often the result of a series of situations and circumstances and that a large proportion of his conduct was predetermined. We remember that when we were in school, we were taught the basics of philosophy, and one of the things we debated was whether the individual was predetermined to do certain things or whether he was fully aware of the seriousness of his actions and the harm he was doing - and consequently was entirely responsible for his deeds.

There was a lot of discussion about individual responsibility. We believe that often it's a combination of the two: an important factor predetermines people's conduct, and there are also factors of responsibility and guilt in man - except for some cases of mental illness, for some people who are mentally ill kill or take anything that is not theirs and which they may not need. It is very difficult to hold those people responsible for their actions.

For us when it comes to thefts or crimes committed by individuals who are sound of mind or whom we suppose to be of sound mind, we have called for their punishment not in a spirit of hatred or revenge but out of the need to defend our society, to ensure the survival of our people.

That's how we view this problem raised by Chiluba through his agent. And this lies at the heart of our political thinking. We will continue the call for Chiluba to be punished and stripped off of all the privileges that are at the expense of the Zambian people from whom he has stolen millions of dollars. We will struggle to see to it that justice is done and Chiluba goes in for his crimes.

It shouldn't be forgotten that when we took on Chiluba over his thefts he was in power and could easily mobilise state police and other agencies to deal with us; he had many supporters who were parasitic on him and they would from time to time be given television and radio time and state media newspaper space to denounce us. This didn't bother us because we knew that ours was a just cause and we will triumph over Chiluba and his evil deeds.

Today Chiluba appears to be helpless and deserted. And his friends, those who ate with him and used to speak openly for him today can't do so. They are not fools. They can read the situation and they know how far they can go defending that which is clearly wrong; they know their friend stole and he has been caught. The most they can do is to offer him solidarity in private.

But those who supported our calls did so openly even when he was in power and they are still doing so today. Why? It's because they know that it will never be an embarrassing issue to denounce crime while Chiluba's friends and supporters cannot speak for him openly because they know that it is embarrassing to defend or glorify crime.

Labels: CHILUBA, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 8:14 PM