Maravi

Time will tell!

Time will tell!
By Editor
Saturday September 06, 2008 [04:00]

THE MMD National Executive Committee (NEC) has found it expedient to adopt Rupiah Banda as its candidate in the forthcoming presidential by-election. We say expedient because this is what they themselves have been giving as the reason for choosing Rupiah. They have been saying it would be expedient to let him continue and if they had their way, they would have let him become President without an election.

Actually, they had even attempted to have him adopted without any election at all. They have advanced unity and continuity as the reasons for their support for Rupiah. But we know that unity – important and necessary as it may be – is not a principle.

Unity is an expedience in the quest for power. Thus, in choosing Rupiah, they made expedience take precedence over principles. And they wanted everybody, including ourselves, to do so.

If expedience had been our guide, where would we be today? Who wouldn’t we have gone to bed with? How many wrong things would we have been part of?

When it was expedient for most of our people to go with Frederick Chiluba and his wrong-doings, we refused to do so.

We decided to oppose Chiluba and his doings. We were victims of constant arrests. We were being accused of all sorts of things by those who were eating with him and stealing with him.

We were made to really look bad. For ten years they had us on the ropes, but not down. We endured a lot of hardships when many people we knew were enjoying themselves. There are people we know who have enjoyed the best of every regime in this country. There are people who are good at jumping out and jumping in at the right time.

How else can one explain the presence of the likes of Vernon Mwaanga around Rupiah when one looks where they are coming from, where they have been and what they have done?

The record of Rupiah, which even the people we thought were honest are today trying to launder, is well-known by most of our people. Rupiah was in the UNIP government for many years and he served in many capacities.

Who doesn’t know how Rupiah conducted himself at NAMBOARD, in the diplomatic service, at Lusaka City Council? It is clear that opportunism and expedience can sometimes blind even some of our honest people.

It is difficult for us to give a general approval, to give unqualified support to a person like Rupiah when we know fully well the record of this man. It seems in this country the background of someone is not an issue. And this is not the first time we are sacrificing principles for expedience.

In 1991 the MMD, out of expedience, picked Chiluba instead of Arthur Wina, Edward Shamwana and Humphrey Mulemba. In terms of principles, Chiluba was the worst of them all, he was the least honest. And his record was there for us to see.

Dr Kenneth Kaunda and UNIP warned the nation against Chiluba and other characters in his group. They were ignored and ridiculed. Today, with hindsight, who can ignore or dispute what these decent people said? It didn’t take long for the true colours of Chiluba to start shining.

And today Chiluba is in court for stealing public money, for dishonesty and deceit. Chiluba is lucky not to be prosecuted for human rights violations, over the attempted assassination of Dr Rodger Chongwe and Dr Kaunda in Kabwe.

He is also lucky not to be questioned about the deaths of many other prominent political figures in our country like Richard Ngenda, Major Wezi Kaunda, Paul Tembo, Ronald Penza, among many others, who were brutally assassinated under his regime.

Zambians paid a high price for this type of political expedience.
Again, Mwaanga was one of the key sponsors of Chiluba and defended his regime to the end. And today this same Mwaanga is in the forefront of the Rupiah campaign.

Mwaanga used to denounce us for our criticisms, opposition of Chiluba and his regime. We lost many friends during the Chiluba era, some of them very honest people, who became part of his government or circles.

As an old refrain says, humans are the only animal who stub their toe on the same stone twice.

We are again seeing history repeat itself. But men must follow the dictates of their conscience irrespective of the consequences which might overtake them.

Politically, we have probably suffered more than any Zambian has had to endure over the last seventeen years. We have been victims of every regime.

Even our late brother, Levy Mwanawasa, went for us, arrested us, attacked us and accused us of all sorts of things, including of aspiring to stand as presidential candidates in the 2006 elections.

If we were hateful people, vengeful people, there are very few politicians in the country we would be talking to today.

But when it comes to hatred – we really think a newspaper that has devoted its entire existence, its whole life to fighting injustice, oppression of every kind, to serving others, to fighting for others, to preaching and practising solidarity; we think all that is totally incompatible with hatred. Vengeance can find no place in an honest person’s heart. You can fight with all the determination and strength of will in the world, but you can’t do it out of hate.

What we have done, what we are doing, can’t be done except on the basis of principles, on the basis of ideas, on the basis on ethics. It’s the only way. It can never be done on the basis of expedience.

We believe in the human being, in his ability to acquire ethics, a conscience, in his ability to make great sacrifices, sacrifices even for a bad cause, because in the First World War, for example, you see the battlefields of the Marne, Verdun, where even day-labourers went off to fight because of the French national anthem, which is really beautiful, and the French flag.

Men have gone off to die en masse for symbols, believing that those were things to give their lives for, when in fact, they were defending the interests of the empire, the great capitalists, the great colonial powers in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world.

Throughout history, one sees men die for honour, values that they can hold dear. Somebody inculcated those values in them. We say, inculcate the best values from the human point of view, from the point of view of justice, fraternity.

We consider ourselves fortunate to have been aware that hatred and prejudice are not political weapons. In addition, we have the experience to know that principles are the best possible political weapon.

We also know that ignorance is the root of many ills. Knowledge must be the fundamental ally of nations that aspire, despite all their tragedies and problems, to become truly emancipated, to build a better society.

The ideals for which this newspaper has struggled over the last seventeen years of its existence cannot be extinguished, cannot be defeated, cannot die, and they will live on for a very long, long time.

It has also been proved that those like us, willing to fight for a just cause, can suffer setbacks, but can never be defeated by anyone. And those who are today celebrating, saying we have been defeated by the adoption of Rupiah, are fools cheating themselves.

There are few disadvantages, or even misfortunes, in this world that you cannot turn into a personal triumph if you have the iron will and the necessary skill. As long as you have an iron will, you can turn misfortune into advantage.

We are what we are, both as a result of people who have supported us and helped us, and of those who did not support us and treated us badly.


There are men and women chosen to bring happiness in the hearts of people – those are the real winners, heroes. A winner, a hero, to us, is one who lives in a way that respects and enhances the lives of others. And only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can a better society be created in our country.

We are involved in a war against vices. In this war, there will be no quarter given anyone. We are going to call a spade a spade, we are going to appeal to the honour of every citizen of goodwill.

In the end, those who refuse to understand are going to self-correct, but in another way; yes, they are going to be smeared with their own offal. One thing we are sure of: in every human being there is a high sense of shame. And an honest person’s first duty is to be extremely harsh with himself.

We are going to fight this war, and use the highest calibre weapon we have.
Public office doesn’t exist so that people can obtain privileges; it shouldn’t be a source of privileges, of corruption, and a source of abuse of power.

We have dealt with corrupt, dishonest and deceitful politicians for a long time now and we know them well. Corrupt and dishonest politicians can be more subtle than the serpent and sometimes worse than rats.

Rats anaesthise their victims as they gnaw on them, and they are able to pull off a chunk of a person’s flesh in the middle of the night. That’s the way corrupt and dishonest politicians gradually anaesthise the nation and pull off chunks of its flesh.

We have been on the scene long enough to know who is who in Zambian politics. We know who the crooks are, we know who the opportunists are and we know those who are honest. It is easy for people to forget what has been done but we have a record.

We know where each one of these politicians stood when Chiluba was reshaping this country to what it is today – a country where dishonesty and corruption become the norm. We are seeing how these same characters – some of them totally bankrupt and destitute - are congregating around Rupiah, using whatever argument they can find. Again, time – and time alone – will tell.

Let them celebrate their victory but it won’t be for long because this is a hollow victory, which means nothing. It will only mean something if it is used for noble purposes; to fight corruption, abuse of office or power, to fight poverty and all its offshoots.

But given Rupiah’s own background, his character and the large numbers of crooked and corrupt characters who today surround him, we have sorious difficulties seeing or understanding how he will fight corruption.

If Levy, who was much cleaner and more resolved, confessed having had serious difficulties fighting vice, how will Rupiah do it? If he succeeds, we will be the first ones to recognise that and give him credit because we will always be too near to those fighting corruption, injustice.

In doing whatever we are doing we are not seeking any glory, any applaud from anyone - we leave that for Rupiah and his supporters. We don’t do anything for applause.

Labels: MMD, NEC

posted by MrK @ 7:12 AM