Maravi

Magande Tribunal

Magande Tribunal
Written by Editor

We maintain that no one is, or should be, above the law. And if Ng’andu Magande has committed a crime, let him be prosecuted for his crime. But we know that Magande has not committed any crime contrary to Rupiah Banda’s claim that he had documents showing that Magande was corruptly trying to forgive Zambian Airways of its liabilities to state institutions.

The truth is that neither Rupiah nor anyone else has any document showing that Magande attempted or wanted to corruptly forgive Zambian Airways of its debts. If there was such evidence, it wouldn’t have taken such a long time for them to arrest and prosecute Magande. The only letter or correspondence that was ever issued by Magande on this matter is the letter that was released to the media by Michael Sata. And there is no reasonable police, Anti-Corruption Commission, Drug Enforcement Commission officer who can arrest Magande for corruption on the basis of that letter. There is no reasonable prosecutor who can be prepared to appear before a court and argue on the basis of that letter that Magande committed a crime. There is also no reasonable Director of Public Prosecutions who can sanction the prosecution of Magande on the basis of that letter. And indeed, there is no reasonable court that can find Magande with a prima facie case of corruption or abuse of office on the basis of that letter and put him on his defence.
If ever Magande was arrested and taken to court on the basis of that letter, this would be a serious case of abuse of the judicial process on the part of Rupiah and all those involved. And we think by now, Rupiah and his friends know very well that they have no case of corruption or abuse of office by Magande. We also have no doubt that all fair-minded Zambians who have read that letter and other stories published and broadcast in the media are today in no doubt that Magande did nothing wrong, he is an innocent man who is just being victimised, harassed for the political decision he took to try and get adopted as the MMD presidential candidate in last year’s presidential election against Rupiah. This is the only crime Magande has committed. Our judges read newspapers, listen to the radio and watch television and are following what is being said on this issue. And they can clearly see that there is no case of corruption against Magande.

And on deep reflection, we think that the Chief Justice will have great difficulties justifying the setting up of a tribunal to investigate allegations of corruption or abuse of office by Magande. We say this because everyone can see that there is no corruption or abuse of office here to be investigated; all that is there is simply dirty politics on the part of Rupiah and his friends. There is no legal issue here; what is there is just a case of bad and evil politics. Yes, they have tried everything dirty, filthy and defamatory to tarnish Magande’s incorruptible image. If ever the tribunal were set up for Magande, it would not be founded on the belief by the Chief Justice that Magande might have done something wrong, might have abused his office. It would simply be founded on a desire by the Chief Justice to clear Magande’s good name that these shameless liars have tried to tarnish. For this reason, we would be very surprised if the Chief Justice agreed to devote public resources and the valuable time of Supreme Court and High Court judges to a matter that is clearly political.

Painful as it may be to Magande, he has no choice but to go through the normal civil courts and seek redress for libel and slander. Of course, Rupiah has immunity from legal proceedings in our courts of law. But George Kunda, Ronnie Shikapwasha and Dickson Jere and his Executive Issues have no such immunity, and Magande is at liberty to sue them for defamation. The process takes time to conclude but it will be concluded, the truth will eventually come out and his name will be cleared. There are no shortcuts. That’s how things stand.

But this calls to mind the need for very high levels of integrity on the part of individuals who seek to become or are elected presidents in our country. It is not fair for a man with such high levels of immunity from legal action to go around defaming other citizens recklessly and without any due care. Rupiah is abusing his presidential immunity to character-assassinate others because he knows that he will get away with it. This is not right. This is wrong and he must stop it. Those who have immunity need to take a lot of care because that protection was not given to them for abuse but for a legitimate cause, to help them perform their duties without fear of personal legal action. It was not meant for abuse, for them to use to tell lies and slander fellow citizens. Actually, it’s immoral, unethical for the president to go around telling lies about an innocent citizen. If Rupiah had evidence of Magande’s wrongdoing, Magande would have been behind bars by now. These gentlemen don’t have that type of patience when it comes to their enemies or political opponents.

Those who occupy high political office in our country must be ready at all times to advance the truth, to stand up for the truth, because truth is in the interest of the people; they must be ready at all times to correct their mistakes, because mistakes are against the interest of the people.

And as we have advised before, it is always better to fight using the truth. There is no better tactic, no better strategy than to fight with clean hands, to fight with the truth. These are the only weapons that inspire confidence, that inspire faith, that inspire dignity. Lies are weapons that help no serious leader, and no serious leader ever needs to resort to a lie. Their weapon is reason, morality and truth.

And as we have stated before, crime must be fought, corruption must be exposed, denounced and prosecuted but this must be done with truth. If it is done with lies, it will be of no use because a liar is no whit better than a corrupt person, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander, he may be worse than most corrupt elements. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth, with lies and malicious propaganda. Indiscriminate assault upon character does not good to the fight against corruption, but very great harm. As we can see from the response, the excitement of Frederick Chiluba and his tandem of thieves towards the issue of Magande and Zambian Airways, the soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man like Magande is accused of corruption. We cannot fight corruption with lies, with malice and in an untruthful fashion because to do so does more damage to the public mind than the crime itself.

But probably we are asking or we are expecting too much from these friends of ours because there is no other way for them to fight their political opponents except with lies, baseness. How can they survive if not with lies? How can they explain their abuses if not with lies and calumny, trying to discredit those who oppose them, those who are different from them?

But whatever they do, whatever they say, it’s just a matter of time, the truth will come out. Truth cannot be destroyed, defeated. It will always triumph in the end, no matter how long it takes. It is said that no matter how hard its adversary – falsehood – may try to overwhelm it, truth refuses to yield. Of course, we know that these liars are not interested in what happens tomorrow, they live only for today. They don’t care whether the truth will be known tomorrow, they are only interested in the present because tomorrow owes them nothing.

Labels: MAGANDE, RUPIAH BANDA, ZAMBIAN AIRWAYS

posted by MrK @ 6:20 AM