The usual nonsense of Chiluba
The usual nonsense of ChilubaWritten by Editor
FREDERICK Chiluba is accusing The Post and the Task Force on Corruption of conniving to push propaganda to cause public hostility against him.Chiluba claims this is all in a bid to protect the Task Force’s collapsed image. This is the usual nonsense of Chiluba.
Unlike him, we have no problem telling the truth. Chiluba is trying to misrepresent facts on the appeal by Meer Care and Desai. He claims that in his view, the London judgment obtained by the Attorney General of Zambia on behalf of the Zambian people collapsed following a successful appeal by Meer Care and Desai who have won this case with costs. And he goes on to say that judge Peter Smith who handed down the London High Court judgment was severely criticised by the House of Lords concerning the manner he conducted the matter. Again, this is the usual nonsense and lies of Chiluba.
What Chiluba should explain, in this case, is why Attan Shansonga was denied leave of appeal against the London High Court judgment. The truth of the matter is that the appeal of Meer Care and Desai had nothing to do with Chiluba and the other Zambian corrupt elements he was dealing with who were sued by the Zambian government in the London High Court. The court only allowed Meer’s appeal because it found that he had been tricked by Xavier Chungu. The court actually called Meer a fool and not a dishonest man who was tricked by Chungu and his crooked friends. And the rest of the issues of the judgment that found Chiluba and his tandem of thieves to have defrauded the Zambian government and its people remain unchanged. That is the truth of the matter. And this is how things stand in regard to the London case against Chiluba and his crooked and corrupt friends. We challenge Chiluba to bring facts to the contrary.
And Chiluba goes on to try and play down the consent judgment of his Swiss tailor, Antonio Basile, in which this man was tricked or misled and accepted to be used by Chiluba and his friends to steal US$ 1.2 million from the Zambian people and use it on very expensive tailor-made personal suits, shirts, pyjamas and shoes. He says: “I recognise the fresh judgment published today [in The Post ] is a consent judgment and I will be pleased to understand the circumstances under which it was obtained as consent judgments are agreement judgments.” What is Chiluba trying to say? Is he trying to say a consent judgment is not a judgment of the court? Does he know how a consent judgment is obtained and what its legal status is? A consent judgment is as good as any other judgment made by the court. Basile told a number of lies about his dealings with Chiluba. He tried to falsify the truth and protect himself and Chiluba from liability. Basile even went as far as forging receipts and other documents. When all these attempts to falsify things were exposed in court, Basile had no other defence and instead of wasting court’s time, opted for a consent judgment. He showed remorse for his actions and broke down in court several times. We know it is very difficult for Chiluba and his friends to do the same because they are hardcore thieves. To this very day, Chiluba has not accepted any wrongdoing over his thefts and abuse of public resources despite overwhelming evidence against him.
And today, because of this lack of contrition on his part, Chiluba is going round smearing innocent people with all sorts of filth. It is not The Post that sent Chiluba to steal. The Post never connived with Chiluba in his stealing and there is no reason for The Post to connive with anybody over litigation against him to recover what he stole from the people of Zambia and probably send him to jail for doing so. We started fighting Chiluba’s corruption long before the Task Force was even conceived. If Chiluba had listened to our advice, he wouldn’t be in the mess he is in today. Instead of heeding our advice on corruption, Chiluba tried to silence us in all sorts of ways, including jailing us. It is not the Task Force that sent Chiluba and his friends to steal. The Task Force was only created to help investigate and prosecute his complicated web of corruption that would have been otherwise difficult to investigate and prosecute. And it’s not true that the Task Force collapsed with Meer’s appeal in London. How? This is a very stupid argument that can only come from a very desperate soul with an empty but evil mind. Whatever ill-will Chiluba may harbour for the Task Force, it will not help him. Even if the Task Force was to be dissolved today the cases against Chiluba and his friends will not be affected in any way. And so far, any honest person will admit that the Task Force has done a commendable job. Every accused person has been given a fair trial and the due process of the law has been respected. Even Kashiwa Bulaya has had a very fair trial all the way up to the Supreme Court despite many gimmicks, political and otherwise, to get him off the hook. Today, Bulaya is serving a five-year jail sentence handed to him by our Supreme Court. What has Chiluba got to say about this?
Chiluba should stop engaging in self-deception and face the truth. And the truth is he stole; he is a thief. And the London High Court has justly found him to be a thief, a fraudster, a crook that has robbed the Zambian people of their meagre financial resources.
As for us, the things we are saying about Chiluba today, we said them even when he was in power. We called him a thief when he was in State House. And at that time, what is known about his deeds was unknown to the great majority of our people. We have no other better words to describe Chiluba’s misdeeds other than the words we are using. What alternative words can we use for a man who has stolen public funds? What better words can one have for a man who takes US$ 1.2 million from a very poor country he is elected to govern and goes and spends it on very expensive 206 suits, shirts, pyjamas and shoes? To us, such a man, no matter how much we may like him or how closely he may be related to us, is a fool; he is an idiot, a rat. If saying this is insulting Chiluba, let him go to court and sue us on Monday. We will be more than ready to justify whatever we have called him because it is based on facts, on truth.
Chiluba says he has human rights, integrity and dignity and these would not be stripped away by The Post or the Task Force on Corruption. Truly, Chiluba has human rights and these can never be stripped away by The Post or the Task Force. But he has no integrity and dignity and this has not been stripped away by The Post or the Task Force. They have been stripped away by his corruption, his abuse of public funds, his crookedness. We have always said that even the criminals in our prisons have human rights which should be defended and protected because even criminals are human beings. But they still remain criminals and that’s why they are in jail. And there is nothing wrong to call them criminals because that is what they are. We will always defend Chiluba’s human rights not because we think he is innocent or is a nice man. But simply because human rights don’t need to be earned by good conduct - they are God-given to all human beings, be they bad or good, be they crooks, thieves or decent human beings.
Probably Chiluba should talk to his friend Basile and follow his example and accept wrongdoing.
We are concerned about all these things not because we hate Chiluba or anyone else for that matter. It is simply because we believe that a country begins its decline when its politicians and leaders begin to lose respect for integrity, competence, performance of duty and serving people. These are issues that can break down any country. No country can survive without integrity of its leaders. No nation would survive when its leaders do not have lasting commitment for serving the people and creating conditions in which the masses feel that their leaders are in an honest way trying to get their lives better and better everyday instead of raping them, of stealing from them. No nation can survive if stealing public funds and abusing public office becomes the routine of the day with a sense of impunity in those who do so.
It cannot be denied that Chiluba came to power with grace and he has gone in disgrace. Chiluba might have come into power with people thinking he had dignity but he has gone out with most of our people believing he doesn’t have any dignity.
We hope and pray that our leaders will try to maintain personal integrity and stay away from corruption or face the full consequences of the law at the end of their term of office. What the Zambian people need is a clean, incorruptible, efficient, people-oriented and trustworthy government which wants to hear the truth from the people. We should give top priority to integrity, making clear that the masses of our people will not tolerate or protect the corrupt and the indolent. Our politicians, especially those in government, should be corruption-free with no conflict of interest with business ventures to promote a clean, trustworthy and efficient government. They should be exemplars of an integrity administration by proactively promoting a culture of political integrity with zero-tolerance for corruption.
Labels: CHILUBA, TASK FORCE, THE POST
posted by MrK @ 1:10 PM
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