Chiluba has been acquitted by govt, not court – Nyirenda

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Chiluba has been acquitted by govt, not court – Nyirenda

Chiluba has been acquitted by govt, not court – Nyirenda
Written by Christopher Miti in Chipata
Saturday, October 03, 2009 5:40:56 PM

FORMER Kasenengwa UNIP member of parliament Timothy Nyirenda has said the government wants to regulate the media to punish newspapers that are critical on issues. And Nyirenda said former president Frederick Chiluba was acquitted by the government and not the court.

Nyirenda, who is also UNIP Revival Forum vice national chairperson, said the media should not be regulated.

“You cannot regulate the media. Let them prepare their own regulation and give them enough time because if you do… knowing well how the government works, they will prepare regulation in such a way to suit them to punish newspapers that are very critical about issues. Tomorrow when they will be going to opposition, they will be the same people who will start fighting for unregulated media," Nyirenda said.

He said the government wanted to regulate the media because they were not happy with the private media.

“Even television stations very soon they will be cracking on them just because they just want to protect themselves before 2011 so that they put rules and regulation on how the media can operate… so that it suits them for campaign. But I’m hoping that Zambians will not allow that to happen, including those who think well in the ruling party,” Nyirenda said. “They should not forget some of these things they pass. Honourable Michael Sata was in the forefront of passing a law so that when people steal motor vehicles they are not bailed. He was one of the first victims, I’m sure now he has learnt that you cannot pass a law to punish the people. Now these who are in power, they have a lot of power. They can do what they want but they should know that tomorrow they will not be there. The same law they are passing now, it will be the same law that will haunt them tomorrow.

“So they should not pass the law to punish others. They should pass the law to protect and serve the society. They should not pass a law to protect themselves. For how long are they going to pass such laws? Chances are 99.9 per cent that in 2011 come June, because now elections have to be held early because of the change in the budget cycle, they will be leaving so they should not regulate the media. They should allow the media to regulate themselves.”

He urged the media not to be selective in their coverage.

And Nyirenda said it was unfortunate that Chiluba's case had been surrounded by politics.

"If the politicians were quiet and the acquittal happens genuinely, one would have said okay they would appeal. But they have refused to appeal. Now one has it that the government actually are the ones that acquitted Chiluba, not the courts. The courts just rubberstamped and it’s unfortunate that if we stop trusting in the courts there will be chaos in this country because right now no politician will trust the court. So the court has got to clean itself. …It’s unfortunate and now this has tainted the whole Judiciary because the Judiciary has got to be really very clean," said Nyirenda. "I will tell you a typical example where the Judiciary went wrong. They had allowed UDA [United Democratic Alliance] at one point, the Chief Justice confirmed that UDA is an illegal organisation but ‘we will allow them to participate in an election’. The Chief Justice allowed that, then later on UDA disintegrated the same Chief Justice allowed the MPs under UDA to sit in Parliament. Clearly all those were terrible mistakes by the Judiciary because there are no MPs for UPND, UNIP or FDD, all MPs are UDA. But the Chief Justice has kept quiet knowing well enough that the same organisation was illegal, was bad and now he has made another one. UDA is not there but the MPs are still there.

“All these are mistakes that even the Chief Justice can’t be trusted. I don't know whether there are a lot of people who trust him. I, personally, I don't think I trust them. So they really have to clean themselves."

Labels: CHILUBA, TIMOTHY NYIRENDA, UNIP NATIONAL REVIVAL FORUM