Rupiah, show us Magande’s crime!

Rupiah, show us Magande’s crime!
Written by Editor

In all we do as human beings, and especially more so as leaders of our communities, of our nation, there is need for fairness, justice and humaneness.

And as we had stated the other week, we do not believe in the law of hate. We may not be true to our ideals always, but we believe in the law of love, and we believe you can do nothing with hatred.

And we would like to see a time when our people, when our leaders love their political opponents and do to them as they would like them to do unto them. We will never be civilised until that time comes.

The other week, we also stated that there are, in our body politic, economic and social, many and grave ills, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man whether politician or businessman, every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life.

We hail as benefactors everyone who with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful. The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander, he may be worse than most thieves.

It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon character does not good, but very great harm. The soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is assailed, or even when a scoundrel is untruthfully assailed.

Our plea is, not for immunity but for the most unsparing exposure of the politician who betrays his trust, of the businessman who engages in corrupt ways. There should be a resolute effort to hunt every such man out of the position he has disgraced. Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurid and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself. It is because we feel that there should be no rest in the endless war against the forces of evil that we ask that the war be conducted with sanity, honesty as well as with resolution. This, in part, is what we had said the other week in our editorial comment. We have gone back to it today in light of the letter that Michael Sata has released to the press concerning the claims, attacks of Rupiah Banda against Ng’andu Magande.

Over two weeks ago, Rupiah made very serious allegations against his one-time cabinet colleague, Magande. In a highly charged address to MMD cadres at State House, Rupiah told the nation that The Post was attacking him because Magande had promised to write off the debts of Zambian Airways. In a frenzy, Rupiah told the nation that he had a letter in which Magande was promising to forgive the debt. And according to Rupiah, this is why he fired Magande because he could not condone such corruption.

“They [The Post] started attacking me even before I became presidential candidate for the MMD, and when I became candidate for the MMD, they continued attacking me up to now. I decided to fire Magande, who was their preferred candidate and you rejected him [Magande], because I have documents that he [Magande] wanted them [The Post] to go scot-free with the money they owe the Zambian people, that’s why I fired Magande,” a charged Rupiah ranted at State House.

Today, Sata has released the letter that Rupiah was referring to. And to any honest reader, there is nothing in that letter that is corrupt or anywhere near forgiving Zambian Airways’ debts. And also interestingly, that letter was written on June 26, 2008. At this time, no one knew that Levy Mwanawasa would collapse in Egypt and eventually die in France. There was no issue of succession. Even the issue of a preferred candidate could not arise at that time because Levy was well and in charge.

It is evident that Rupiah, in an attempt to smear us and attack his political opponent Magande, deliberately told lies about what was contained in Magande’s letter. We are not surprised because this is not the only time that Rupiah attacked us with lies, untruthfully. More recently when he addressed students at State House, Rupiah charged that we had pocketed US $30 million and he will make sure that we pay back that money to the state institutions we have stolen it from.

But Rupiah is not the only one in his government attacking innocent people untruthfully. When we exposed Dora Siliya’s misdeeds on the RP Capital memorandum of understanding and the Selex radar agreement, she attacked us in Parliament, claiming that we were attacking her because she had denied us a cell phone licence. Dora said this knowing very well that she had never denied us any cell phone licence or for that matter denied anybody because the matter was bogged down in a court case involving Enoch Kavindele and Vodacom Zambia, making it impossible for the Communications Authority, or indeed the government itself, to issue or deny anyone a cell phone licence.

It is not only Dora and Rupiah who are attacking people untruthfully. George Kunda accused the directors and managers of Zambian Airways of money laundering, racketeering and theft without any basis or justification. The only motivation was malice, hatred, envy and a desire to humiliate and destroy the standing or reputations of all those involved in that undertaking.

It is clear that George knew these allegations to be lies. We say this because for instance, he accused the directors of Zambian Airways of being engaged in racketeering, an offence that does not exist in this country. The only discernible reason he used it was to help him tell his lies, throw as much mud as possible and sway public opinion against them.

This level of desperation is worrying because it is involving the top-most leadership of our country – the President of the Republic and his Vice-President. One could understand and forgive such malice, such lies, falsehoods, calumny if it was coming from some low-level ruling MMD and government officials.

It is extremely dangerous for the President of this country and other top government leaders to make the kinds of false statements they have been making. The problem with lies is that one who depends on them to get along eventually gets wedded to them. They will start to pile one upon another and the whole process becomes endless. But while this is happening, their lies will be exposed and denounced as the truth emerges. The greatest danger of lies, especially for those in government, is that they undermine the credibility not only of those running government but of the entire government itself. And in this way, people start to lose faith and respect in their leaders.

The top-most leadership of our country has accused us of stealing US $30 million. They have told the nation that we have pocketed this money – it is in our pockets. The problem with telling such lies is that sooner or later, they catch up with you. What will Rupiah and George do when they discover to their horror that we have not even taken a cent? Do they have the humility and honesty to tell the nation that they were wrong? Nobody stole any money! This is how injustices are perpetrated. This is not different from accusing an innocent person of treason, of having killed someone when they have not done so.

It is clear that Rupiah has raised the stakes so high that even the investigators will not be able to think clearly. They are under extreme pressure to prove what their boss has already concluded.

Well, in the case of Magande, the letter is out. Magande is accused of corruption on the basis of that letter – for trying to do his job. We have never denied that Zambian Airways had problems. Even our going in was to help Zambian Airways deal with the financing problems that it faced. If they had no such problems, we wouldn’t have gone in. This is normal business. There is nothing criminal about what Magande tried to do.

Magande realised that although there was an apparent economic boom in Zambia, a global crisis was looming. He pointed out that the price of fuel was crippling. This is not a problem that was peculiar to Zambian Airways. The mines also felt the same pressure and asked the government to import their own fuel for them to survive. That was not the only time that the mines were assisted by the government. Even in the last budget, the government has not deferred the windfall tax which was imposed on mining activities, it has removed it altogether. To date, some of the mining companies have not complied with the new tax regime that was effected last April. They owe the government millions of dollars or billions of kwacha. But they have not been dealt with the way we are being treated. They were actually being defended as having gone through difficult times. Only a dishonest person will not agree with Magande’s analysis. The year 2008 was a very difficult year for the global aviation industry. Over 50 airlines went under on account of financial difficulties arising from high fuel prices. Many airlines failed to meet their financial obligations and many are still struggling to do so despite the fuel prices having gone down. This is because the losses, the deficits that were accumulated over a short period were too high to wipe out in a few weeks or months. Even the world’s giant airlines like British Airways are today feeling the pressure. We are not seeking a mitigation. We are merely stating facts. And we are also not saying all the deficiencies or inadequacies or indeed problems of Zambian Airways are solely attributable to the fuel crisis. We had many problems that had very little, if not nothing, to do with high fuel prices. But without the fuel crisis, these would have been much easier to correct or overcome.

Now that it is clear that Magande did not promise to forgive Zambian Airways any debt or as Rupiah put it, did not promise The Post that it could get away with what it owed the Zambian people, what are these friends of ours going to say? Will they continue insulting an innocent Magande? Or will they have the rare humility to apologise to him? But this is expecting too much of Rupiah and his friends.

Whatever our faults – and there are many – we try to fight with the truth. We have never helped to assail an innocent person. The mistakes we have made have never been deliberate or driven by malice. Those like Rupiah who have vowed to fight us would do well to learn an early lesson that fighting us using lies will not help. They will only have themselves to blame for their humiliation. And in an attempt to save themselves from the impending humiliation, they may start to engage in crimes against us that will later haunt them or end some of them in Zambian jails or at The Hague.

Their drive to bring us down at all costs and by any means is dangerous for leaders of government because it blinds them from seeing certain realities that they will later live to regret and pay for extremely highly. Ask Frederick Chiluba! Power without restraint is extremely dangerous. That is why we have always urged them to consistently exercise maximum restraint and self-limitation in what they do. Their power is very temporal. Real power, permanent power lies, and will always lie, only with the people.