Maravi

The lawlessness of Rupiah’s cadres

The lawlessness of Rupiah’s cadres
Written by chama

The attack by Rupiah Banda’s cadres on Thomas Nsama, a photojournalist with The Post, in Chipata yesterday is barbaric. As we have stated before, no doctrine, no principle or proclaimed political position and no political differences can justify atrocious acts such as the physical assault of Thomas. No crime should be committed in the name of politics, in the name of supporting Rupiah.

The sad part of it is that this happened in full view of the law enforcement agencies, of the police and of senior government and ruling MMD leaders. But it was condoned. And those who did it, although known, have been let scot-free. It seems in this country if you are Rupiah’s supporter, you can commit any crime and you will get away with it, you will be defended by all sorts of people – including Rupiah himself.

It is said that violence begets violence and that those who live by violence will die by it. This is because no one has the monopoly of violence. This violence can only do one thing, and that is to breed counter violence. The behaviour of Rupiah’s cadres is no better than that of animals. And we hope other MMD leaders will realise that the use of violence against anyone is something that puts them next to animals.

We are not surprised that Thomas was attacked yesterday. We say this because the behaviour of Rupiah last Thursday when he addressed his cadres at State House was as close as a head of state gets to violence. His behaviour was not normal. The anger that Rupiah exhibited was a clear indication that he is frustrated with The Post and wants something done about it or its employees. Rupiah did not stop at embarrassing himself by exhibiting the temper tantrum; he was also issuing coded instructions for violence against The Post. The subscript in everything that he said was that The Post needed to be crushed, needed to be taught a lesson.

Rupiah’s call for vigilance should not be left without analysis. What did he mean? What was he calling for? We have not forgotten what vigilantes did in this country. Vigilantes were used to identify so-called enemies of the state, imaginary or otherwise – and more often than not, imaginary. And when they declared an innocent citizen an enemy, they were to sort them out. These are some of the unfortunate failings of UNIP, Rupiah’s party. Violence accompanied the so-called vigilance. Rupiah is today calling for violence upon The Post.

No one should feel satisfied or happy that one of our hardworking journalists has been physically molested and think that this will deter The Post. We shall continue to work and to expose corruption. Beating our reporters is certainly not a way to teach us a lesson. The best way to teach The Post a lesson is to do the right things, avoid corruption and stop the rot. This is the only way to silence The Post when it comes to such issues.

An attack on a journalist, not just a Post journalist, is an attack on the whole society. Rupiah wants to create fear – what he is calling discipline. He wants to cow everyone into submission. He is afraid of criticism, hard criticism because he is not a true democrat. He was unfortunately left in the politics of the UNIP era. He seems shocked that anyone can challenge him and demand accountability. Rupiah had better wake up very quickly before he destroys himself and in the process, the nation.

And it cannot be denied that this attack on The Post was started by Rupiah himself on Thursday. The code of violence in the words that Rupiah unleashed on The Post was an order for physical violence against The Post. And there is no way Rupiah today can turn around and claim he is not part of this violence against The Post today. He started it. We cannot call others to virtues which we ourselves do not make an effort to practice. If you unleash a process where your party cadres start to see journalists from The Post as enemies of the nation, that process is very dangerous. And this is the process Rupiah has unleashed. We say this because you can’t lead anyone further than you have gone yourself.

Today it is a Post journalist that is being attacked, tomorrow it will be Rupiah’s opponents within the MMD. The way of Rupiah is so easily predictable. Things will not be easy within the MMD.

We have a duty to continue to speak fearlessly and forthrightly about what is going on in our country. if Rupiah thought that becoming president of Zambia was equivalent to being chief procurement officer or senior commissioned agent, he got things wrong. Zambia has tested the bitter pill of the kind of politics and economic management that Rupiah wants to take us back to.

When Chiluba and his tandem of thieves took control of government and felt confident to do whatever they wished, one of the first things they did was to destroy government procedures and processes. They did this to allow themselves freedom to steal and loot government resources. Almost no government work was ever done without corruption. We are not saying that corruption has ever been eradicated in this country or will ever be eradicated, but the systems that stop corruption need to be built. The media is one such institution. Corrupt elements can never like a free press.

We are not surprised that we are hated by some. In fact, we will be surprised if the opposite was to prevail. There is no way corrupt elements and their sympathisers can like us. Our work threatens the only means of livelihood which they know – corruption. We are not in the business of wanting to be liked. We leave that to others. We try to tell the truth in the hope that this will help our country. We are not fools. We know the dangers and the risks that we bring upon ourselves and those who work with us. But we believe that the price is worth paying. We know that Zambia is a better place today because the likes of Thomas have been prepared to risk leg or limb to keep their country informed and in the process expose wrongdoing.

We should never lose heart as a nation. We should never give in to intimidation. We should be ready to stand and tell the truth whenever we have the opportunity.

We know that we are a pain to Rupiah, we are an irritation, a deadly annoyance, but if this helps Rupiah to keep away from doing wrong, we would have helped our country.

We know that the tribunal that is starting tomorrow is part of the reason Rupiah is so angry with us. We have exposed his government’s propensity for corruption and now the whole nation is going to get a chance to see how the affairs are being governed. We say this because if we were not exposing corruption, if we were not hard on the wrong things that are going on in Rupiah’s government, Rupiah would have been our good friend today. But friendship or good relations based on lies are not worth having. We would rather be called names and maligned as long as we know we are telling the truth.

Some people thought Chiluba was their friend because they were doing wrong things together. They were prepared to conceive his wrongs. Where has it landed them today? They would have been better friends if they had told Chiluba that what he was doing was wrong. We don’t keep any friendship or association that is not based on truth. We don’t support any action regardless of who does it which is not based on truth.

Some people have even accused us of having been soft on Levy Mwanawasa and his government and that somehow, this won us some favours. But only liars can propagate such nonsense because all those that are honest in our country will remember that when Levy did wrong, we exposed him and the minions that were supporting him, including George Kunda. When they behaved like minions, we called them minions. When they did something good, we praised it and exalted them.

The day Rupiah shows that he believes in accountability and will fight for it not for cheap political purposes, we will praise him. As the tribunal begins, those who think are Rupiah’s friends will protect him by telling the truth. And in telling the truth, they will be speaking in defence of the 12 million Zambians who expect honest representation from those they have put in office.

It is because we are concerned about the 12 million Zambians that we believe Thomas’ sacrifice is worth it. But it is also time that the majority of our people begun to voice their disgust with wrongdoing. We cannot and should never remain silent as people become bold in doing wrong. This is what we saw from Rupiah on Thursday. If we don’t stand, they will continue to be bold in doing wrong.

The other week, Rupiah was complaining about lawlessness over leakage of government documents. But what can be worse lawlessness than the beating of an innocent journalist in the full view of the police and senior government and ruling MMD officials. The rule of law doesn’t allow this type of thing. Where there is no lawlessness, it is recognised, accepted and respected that every man or woman should have an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he or she pleases before the public; to stop this through violent acts is to destroy the freedom of the press; but if he or she publishes what is improper, mischievous or illegal, he or she must take the consequences of his or her own temerity. And all this has to be done through the courts of law. If our work has offended anyone, the solution is not to start physically attacking our reporters but to go to court and seek legal redress. This is what the rule of law demands. It’s barbaric to start physically attacking journalists.

Labels: CADRES, RUPIAH BANDA, THE POST, THOMAS NSAMA

posted by MrK @ 11:46 AM