Fr Bwalya narrates his arrest, detention and eventual release

Fr Bwalya narrates his arrest, detention and eventual release
Written by Mutuna Chanda in Kitwe
Sunday, November 23, 2008 10:26:36 AM

RADIO Icengelo station manager Fr Frank Bwalya says change as is being demanded by the people in Zambia would come and be delivered at a much cheaper and reasonable price.

Fr Bwalya in an interview describes his overnight detention at Kalulushi Police Station last week as part of the price that he has to pay for improving the situation in Zambia.

He says while in detention on Thursday morning last week, he wrote a letter to Zambians that he was a prisoner for justice.

Fr Bwalya says he believes that the price that Zambians have to pay for a just electoral system among others can come cheaper than having to shed blood.

He also says he is not bitter at what he terms as his "illegal detention."

Fr Bwalya was charged with publishing articles intended to cause divisions between communities between November 1 and 12, 2008 following the post-election radio programmes that he hosted on Radio Icengelo.

His detention sparked riots in Kitwe on Thursday last week bringing the city to a virtual standstill.

Below is the interview that the Copperbelt Post conducted with Fr Bwalya at his office after being released from police detention.

Q: Before Wednesday's detention had you ever been detained in police cells?

A: No, I had never been detained in police cells before. This was my first time.

Q: How was it being detained overnight and being in police for the very first time?

A: Of course as a priest I was going to prison to visit prisoners. When we were in Kabwe still training as priests, we used to go to Mukobeko Maximum Prison. We even used to visit those condemned prisoners, those on death row and it always gave me this fear; you know the prison walls and it instilled in me a certain fear of death that I should do everything possible in my life to avoid going to prison. Later on when I became a priest I used to go to prison to visit certain convicts who could not be brought to where everyone was, you had to go inside to see them and so on. As a priest sometimes you have to go and be present when they are doing post mortem in the mortuary and things like that. So as a priest you get prepared to confront situations that certain people who have not been schooled as such may not be able to handle. After growing up and with a little experience that I have had in priesthood I must say that although I had never been arrested before or indeed detained by police for questioning, it was not something that I feared.

Q: When did you do your priesthood training?

A: I trained from 1989 to 1996.

Q: What was going through your mind when the police picked you up?

A: From here [Radio Icengelo], when the police came they sent a note that I stop the programme and that they wanted to talk to me. If you listened to that programme, I refused to stop the programme because I thought I wasn't breaking any law by what I said on the programme and I had just started the programme and you know when you are starting a programme you are not yet into the heart of the matter you are doing those preliminary comments and so on. So at that stage I had not said anything that should have warranted the stop of the programme. So when I was informed that the police wanted me to stop the programme so that I go and speak to them I thought that that was a very big violation of my freedom of expression as well as media freedom, so I refused to do that and I finished the programme.

When I finished the programme, I knew that these police officers were not just going to talk to me and leave it at that. I knew that they were going to pick me up and take me with them to the police. So when they asked me to accompany them, I gladly did and handed over the keys; I gave a few instructions of the things that needed to be done at the station and I accompanied them. I did not insist at that stage that my lawyer should be present or for them to do that. So when we went to the police station they informed me that the programme that I was doing, some people were not happy about it and I said 'does that mean what I have been saying is wrong or have I been breaking the law because some people are not happy with what I have been saying?' We were in agreement that it's not always when people don't like what someone is saying or get aggrieved that that somebody is saying something wrong. Sometimes people get aggrieved when you tell them that they are naked; when they are not wearing any clothes; they can get aggrieved and these are emotions. It's difficult to tell somebody how they should feel.

So we agreed and then they said to me 'we are not going to arrest you, we want you to stop those programmes because some people are aggrieved'. So I said I am not going to stop those programmes because I don't think I am breaking the law so I will go back and continue those programmes that's when they said to me that they were going to record a warn and caution statement but I think after communicating with some people from somewhere I am not too sure, they finally decided that they should detain me and charge me with conduct likely to cause breach of peace. So that's when we had to go to Kalulushi. When they said that, I don't know I just believed that God was strengthening me that the Holy Spirit was there to guide me. For the first time in my life, I think I had never felt so at home, so peaceful in my mind; so peaceful in my heart, I had never been so convinced in my life that I was doing the right thing. My voice was not cracking as I talked I was so sober that I said to myself that this probably is a fulfilment of the prophecy in the bible that when they take you before these kings, when they take you before evil men, do not worry about what you will say because the Holy Spirit will tell you, will inspire you what to say and do not fear them.

So now when we got to Kalulushi of course there was a fracas there. Some members of staff of Radio Icengelo and some members of the public, the media wanted to make sure they knew where they were taking me. And I think it was for security reasons because they thought that police were going to mistreat me, that maybe they were going to beat me up perhaps even kill me and so on which would have been very unfortunate of course. So there was that fracas with the media, with Radio Icengelo employees so they drove me to central police probably trying to detain me there, then they changed their minds or it was just a plan until we got to Kalulushi. When we were going again I actually relaxed. When we got there, they said to me 'we'll lock you up Father' in a very polite manner. They never mistreated me; they never said any harsh words to me even in their faces I didn't see anger towards me. Their faces looked like they regretted that they had to do this to me. That is how I read their faces and I was forced to think that they were doing their jobs and even the reporters from Radio Icengelo who wanted to insist to come after us I said to them 'go home, these people are doing their job; they may not be doing it in the manner you want it to be done but they are doing their job'. So they asked me to take off my shoes.

I took off my shoes. They asked me to take off my belt and to remove everything that I had in my pockets, we counted the little money that I had, the phones and everything and I asked if they could allow me to go to the toilet before going into the cells. So they allowed me to do that. As I went to the toilet it was dawning upon me that they were going to lock me up and the only thing that I was worried about was whether there would be light in the cells throughout. That was my only worry. For a simple reason that if there would be no light in the cells maybe the guys inside decided to beat me up that would be a terrible thing. Not only that, I just had never been in a cell. I knew the conditions but it just gave me this fear of the unknown you know but at the same time my voice was relaxed. I was not sweating out of fear and so on because I knew that this is a temporary thing. It was going to be a temporary thing, their detention was illegal, they shouldn't have detained me for such a simple case - conduct likely to breach peace. I was not drunk in which case they should have just made me pay a fine and allowed me to go away. So somehow I knew that they were doing that to punish me probably thinking that if I go into the cells the following day I will be

broken and I would finish you know and perhaps even change the tone of my voice and the critical things that I have been saying and I said to myself 'don't allow your spirit to be broken'. And you know for a few weeks now people have been sending me several messages encouraging me to be strong and to be brave and some of those people who have been sending me these text messages are people that I continue to wonder that they would send such kind of encouraging messages and I realised that I would be failing myself if I showed any fear; I would be failing all these people who were looking up to me as their voice - the voice for the poor.

Q: When you looked at the police officers who detained you what really struck you?

A: What struck me was the relationship between what they were doing and what we read about as having happened to Jesus. We know what happened when Jesus was crucified. There were people who were made to do things that they did not believe in and that's why when Jesus was killed one of the soldiers said that 'this was truly the son of God'. It was the plot of the chief priests, the Pharisees and the Seduces to kill this man; it was their plot and they needed the system, they needed the people to agitate for his crucifixion. So I was very conscious of that and that is what struck me. It also struck me that they were so friendly and full of respect for me. And none of them said, as sometimes they do to people, 'nomba ba Father why are you doing this? Why are you causing problems?' None of them said anything like that to me and I think they tried as much as possible not to engage into any talk with me concerning what had happened. If I engaged them on

something just ordinary like if we hit a pot-hole and we started talking about that you know they would really come out and we'd say 'oh it's bad', that and so on. It was clear that they wanted to avoid the subject for a simple reason in my view that they wanted to be seen as acting professionally in terms of following commands and what probably the law demands that they do in such a situation. That struck me a lot; the respect that they seemed to have for me.

Q: When you were finally in the police cells what dawned upon you?

A: Finally when they opened the gate to the cells, the police officers introduced me. They said 'oh we have brought Fr Bwalya to join you guys' and those guys were ready to receive this guy who had come because they have their own way of treating people who come after them. They want to know what you have done. They want to know if you have been drinking or causing problems to police officers. But those guys said to me afterwards because when they were told this was Fr Bwalya, two of them recognised me. They were 16 of them including myself 17. So two of them recognised me and when these two guys who recognised me said to the others aba eba Fr Frank Bwalya Naba Pa Lwendo' meaning this is Fr Frank Bwalya who presents the programme on radio Naba Pa Lwendo, everyone stood up as if to salute me. And they were saying 'oh so this is Fr Bwalya' they had heard about me.

So they were able to also feel proud that finally the voice that has been speaking for them was there. And when I spoke they said 'yes that is what the voice sounds like on the radio'. I felt completely at home. I felt completely at home and I started going round shaking their hands and I was very much at home. I looked around and saw the toilet and I said 'I don't know what it is going to be like in the night if I have to go to the loo' and I looked at them they were all wearing their trousers inside out because they have to sleep on the floor and so they use that technique to prevent their trousers from getting dirty. And I said to myself these guys would like it if I turned my trousers inside out then they will know that I’m just a simple guy who is one of them. So immediately they made room for me. There was a reed mat there and they said 'no ba Father epo mwala lala apa' meaning that is where I was going to sleep and they started creating special conditions for me. And I think it's not because I am special in any way but it was because those guys recognised that I was a priest and as a priest I had given my life to serve the people including themselves. These guys had heard my voice on the radio. They knew what I had been talking about and I think they had no doubt in their minds that I was championing their cause.

Q: Did you turn your trousers inside out?

A: I didn't do that because they gave me a reed mat and afterwards something was made available to me to sleep more comfortable than themselves. So they asked me to explain how I had found myself there but before I started explaining they wanted to make it look like they were not putting me on the spot so the captain who was there, somebody who claimed to have been a hardcore criminal his name was Sir Joe.

So he said 'I am going to begin Father. I will explain how I found myself here and then Father you can explain'. So he explained what had happened to him. So when I explained what had happened to me those guys started chanting slogans 'pa maka! pa maka!' saying that they want change. They said they wanted Mr Sata to be (Republican) President. It was not me who was saying those things, it was those guys. But I explained to them I was doing an election programme and I was arrested and they immediately started chanting this 'pa maka! we want change! No no no ubu ubuteko tabuli bwino (this government is not good)!' and things like that. Then I settled and they wanted to know more about what I do and so on. They were so friendly. They were looking at me like a movie that has just been released and you are there intent looking at every detail because maybe you have to do a movie review as part of your exam and things like that. Their eyes were fixed on me. They were following like trying to get every word that I was speaking and this touched me a lot.

Q: While you were in cells and probably through the night what did you think would happen to you the following day?

A: People who probably know the law better than me had assured me; police officers had assured me. I had police officers coming from as far as Ndola in plain clothes who had heard that I was detained in Kalulushi, coming to whisper into my ear 'Fr everything will be fine'. They asked me 'what charge have they laid?' and I said to them they are charging me for issuing statements likely to breach peace and so on and they were saying 'it's a simple offence Fr, don't worry you'll just pay a fine and you'll go back. Please speak for us.' These are police officers and they went. So this gave me a lot of encouragement. The lawyer also came in the night. He explained to me 'Fr tomorrow these are your rights. If they ask you to do this, if you want you can respond in this manner, if you don't want you can respond in this manner but if you want do not to say anything until I come.' And the lawyer gave me his card.

Some priests came in the night to see me. Some were coming around 23:00 hours, some around 24:00 hours of course some I didn't see them until the following day. So as I lay down there thinking about what would happen to me the following day, I didn't worry because I knew that they were trying to embarrass me; they were trying to punish me in that manner thinking that the following day when they ask me to go [after being released] I would sober up. You see what I mean. But I remembered what had happened to Paul and his colleagues when they were one time arrested and flogged and told 'don't preach in the name of this man anymore' meaning Jesus. They came out of prison and started rejoicing. They were very happy that they had been flogged because then they realised that the life and experiences of Jesus was beginning to be their own experience in reality and Jesus told them, the bible tells us that you should be more embarrassed when you are beaten for doing something wrong but if you are beaten for doing something right, rejoice. So that was the feeling that I had.

Q: When you were in the cells the following morning, I understand you had a prayer, what were you praying about?

A: When I was in the cells I was thinking about Zambia. And I was mourning for Zambia and in the morning I asked for a pen and for a piece of paper. But again because I had never been in the cells or in prison before I didn't realise that by writing these things openly there was going to be a problem. Not that it would land me into problems but that it was going to be a problem. So I openly sat down somewhere and started writing a prayer. It was actually a letter that I wrote to all Zambians. I had to write this letter to all Zambians because I remembered that when Paul was in prison he wrote letters and these letters that he wrote they encouraged the communities that he had been to preach the gospel that they soldier on; that they should not be broken. Some of the people who came to see me were crying as if I had died and I said to them 'to spend a night in the cells in these circumstances is better than to pend a night at a funeral because at a funeral somebody has died but in the cells no one has died, you are all there. It's not a funeral.' So I remembered those things that Paul wrote from the prison and he used to say 'I am writing this as a prisoner of the gospel' so I wrote a letter to Zambians as a prisoner of justice.

The police later on confiscated that letter but luckily enough I was given a copy. But I have been advised that at the moment I should not publish that letter for a very simple reason that we need to read the mood of what is happening in the country and I have no intention, whatsoever, to incite anyone to resort to violence or anything in that manner. So the lawyers advised me that I should hold on to that letter. It has to go at one time because I wrote it to them, I am sure at the right time I should allow that letter to be published. In the meantime, I have put it in my diary. I write something everyday in my diary some kind of a reflection of what I think the day would be like or what I think are the feelings coming into my heart as I wake up in the morning.

Q: When you came, out there was such a huge crowd waiting for you outside the police station in Kalulushi and you obviously saw the reaction of the people from Kalulushi right through to Kitwe. How did it strike you that people came out the way they did?

A: I just didn't believe the whole thing. It seemed like a dream. That kind of thing was happening to me for the first time. I have been in big crowds where people are excited and happy with me because I had been ordained or because I was master of ceremonies at some beautiful occasion and things like that but that was my first time to experience something like that. Those people were not motivated by gospel values so to speak. They were just motivated by a kind of social concern and those people were not in my view mobilised by anyone. They only heard that Fr Bwalya Naba pa lwendo is in the cells and they voluntarily came. That is why it was difficult to control the situation because there was no one in charge who could give instructions to say 'as we agreed, let us do ABC', there was no one who was in charge of the situation. So anyone who seemed to be in front and doing something in a certain way, everyone followed. So I was really struck and I remember when they lifted me shoulder high, I made sure that one of my hands was holding on to my wallet thinking that these guys would steal my wallet and so on.

I had phones in my pockets and keys and so on but none of that was tampered with and no one attempted to reach for my pocket - which clearly shows that these people's hearts were focused on something else not the little money I had in my wallet, not the poor phone I had. Their hearts were focused on something else and you must have seen yourself if you were there that their hearts were focused and are still focused on change. They want change for the better. They want their lives improved, they want our laws strengthened. The bad ones removed and replaced with good laws. They want to have an election that they can be proud of. At the moment, whether we like it or not, the election we had very few people are proud of that election and government will not stop people from saying that they are not proud of that election.

You can't stop people from feeling a certain way. If that is how they feel, that is how they feel. If they use words that border on criminality on breaking the law, that is another thing. But people are going to feel the way they feel because of certain elements, because of certain things.

Q: In going ahead, what do you hope to see for Zambia?

A: One thing we need to agree as Zambians is that we are one of the few African countries that has been having real elections after 1996. The elections in 1991 were not real elections because it was just like a popular movement and walked over UNIP. All of us supported the MMD and we walked over UNIP; that was not election. It was just a transfer of power. It was a landslide victory meaning therefore that even some of the issues that could have come up in terms of electoral malpractices people didn't even bother about those things at the end of the day. People who felt that they should have won, won that election. But in 2001, we had a real election and when you have a real election issues come up. These issues have to be addressed in order for our country to refine its system. And in certain cases, it's not a question of refining because you may refine something that is already good. In certain situations, it's a question of refining - it's a question of establishing some kind of good order, which is non-existent. We had that petition [presidential election] in 2001 and probably between that time and 2006 there were some strides that were made there. Desirable strides but not to bring us to a level where we can be happy with our electoral system. In 2006 there were problems. The repeat of riots like in 2001 didn't last because Zambian people are generally peace loving. So what I expect to happen is that the signal to government has never been stronger than now.

We have a repeat of all town dwellers who should understand economics; who should understand issues of poverty and what causes it; people who should understand why companies close; people who should understand the issues of inflation and how it relates to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and how it relates to imports and exports; how it relates to issues and problems of revenue collection on the part of government; people who we want to believe the majority of them working are in the civil service, they all live in these towns. Even in terms of the population the concentration is along the line of rail. Now if the majority of these people are the ones who do not vote for the President that is why I am saying that the signal has never been stronger than it has been this time around and to avoid any future problem, we as Zambians need to swallow our pride, we need to come back to our senses and realise that we need to put in place a system that can inspire confidence on the part of the people. It is only such kind of a just system that inspires confidence that is going to avert all these problems that we have had during elections.

Q: What kind of system is that?

A: First and foremost we need to deal with the constitution. We need a constitution that can be acceptable to the majority of our people through a process that can build consensus, that can widen participation especially to include stakeholders who should be regarded as important. So it is my hope that if the President is really serious about governing a country that is not divided, he will deal with those issues that do not divide our country and one of those issues is the constitution and the constitution-making process.

It is also my hope that the President will seriously look at strengthening institutional capacity especially those institutions that have to deal with issues of law and order, regulating conduct on various issues such as the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Drug Enforcement Commission, the Auditor General's Office and overhauling the Electoral Commission of Zambia; all these issues, he needs to look at them. And I remember in one of my programmes when people kept calling and saying 'we do not accept these elections' and saying 'the elections were rigged' and all these things and that they did not accept Mr. Rupiah Banda as their President, I said 'look you need to realise that God works in different ways. You may be surprised two-three years from now to discover to learn that Mr. Rupiah Banda turns out to be the best President we ever had.' You may just come to realise that he turns out to be the person who delivers all these that you have been talking about. It's possible but such a thing can only happen when there is that real and genuine commitment to meet these issues; to confront them head on and say these are the things that we need to do as Zambians.

Q: Are there any additions you would like to make?

A: What I can say is that I am not bitter about that illegal detention. I am not bitter that I slept in the cells. As a matter of fact, I think that I am no longer the same. The knowledge that I got from those people that look rejected in society, who were in that police cell by speaking to them; the common wisdom that you get from people like that; some of them were asking me what they should say when they go to court and I want to believe they were being honest with me. They were explaining what they did. That they had stolen and that they had done ABC and they were asking what they should say when they go to court and I said to them 'say the truth because the truth will liberate you'.

And none of them said 'ahh the truth?' They just listened to me. So this is something that is preparing this country; that is preparing me to brace for actually paying the price of transforming a situation because there is a price for change. There is a price for transforming a situation. People have to put in their time. People have to put in their money. People have to put in their sweat and sometimes inevitably people have to pledged their blood. But it is my prayer and hope that change, as is being demanded by the people in Zambia would come and be delivered at a much cheaper and reasonable price. The kind of price that we had for change in 1990-1991 because it's possible as Zambians for us to deal with the issues that confront us and change things for the better without having to shed blood. It's very, very possible and I call upon responsible people and institutions to cooperate with the movement of the spirit so that this change can come about and we can define, we create a better future for our children.

Author: Thank you very much.

Fr Bwalya: You are welcome.