Maravi

Civil society and the acquittal of Chiluba

Civil society and the acquittal of Chiluba
Written by Editor

All is not well or as it should be in our country today. And those who want to deceive themselves or want to be deceived that all is well should take a leaf from the position taken by civil society organisations on the acquittal of Frederick Chiluba and other issues pertaining to his corruption.

It is a good reminder of where we are coming from as a nation. Whenever there are problems in Zambia, it has always been the ordinary people having the final say. It was the ordinary people who chased Rupiah Banda and his friends in the UNIP government from power in 1991 after the formation of the Movement for Multi-party Democracy in July the previous year.

They should not also forget that it was the ordinary Zambians, through their civil society organisations, that stopped Chiluba’s criminal third term scheme. And it was these same people who, through their activism, mobilisation and militant actions, compelled our politicians to remove Chiluba’s immunity and open him for prosecution.
Rupiah and his friends may today dismiss and trivialise what civil society organisations have embarked on. But they will do so at their own peril. The great lesson of our time is that no regime can survive if it acts above the heads of the ordinary citizens of the country.

It is important for our politicians to mull over things and consider the feelings of the people over these issues. Rupiah and his friends should not cheat themselves that what they have done and are doing has been accepted by the Zambian people and will go unchallenged. Rupiah appealed to the Zambian people to accept Chiluba’s acquittal and in that regard, his government went further to remove an appeal against his acquittal that was filed by the Task Force on corruption. And since then, abusing the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Rupiah and his friends have gone on a campaign of lies to justify their criminal scheme to let Chiluba go scot-free. George Kunda, in connivance with Director of Public Prosecutions Chalwe Mchenga, has gone on to claim that there are no solid grounds of appeal. This is something that even the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ), in its apparent politically compromised position, has failed to back because there are solid grounds of appeal in this matter. Rupiah and his friends should try to listen to their friends in LAZ. These are not their enemies, they are their friends. And when they say there are good grounds for appeal in the matter, they are not telling them lies. And today they are making their friends in LAZ look stupid, they are torn between trying to stay in good terms with them and at the same time appear to be realistic in the eyes of the public. As a result, they are unable to take clear positions on important national issues which the LAZ Act requires them to champion. We understand their predicament, but neither Rupiah nor his friends in LAZ hold the future of this country in their hands. It is embarrassing today to see LAZ join an appeal trying to remove Chief Justice Ernest Sakala from office, but the same LAZ failing to join the Zambian people in ensuring that Rupiah’s criminal scheme to allow Chiluba to go scot-free is stopped. It seems it’s more important for LAZ to join Faustin Kabwe and Aaron Chungu in their action against the Chief Justice than to stop the criminal decision and action that led to Chiluba’s acquittal and the decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions to stop the Task Force’s appeal against an acquittal they themselves have also found to be seriously wanting. This is what happens when principles are traded on the altar of opportunism and political expedience; this is what happens when values are lost. They are free to do what they want but they will simply be left behind because the future does not depend on them.

As we have repeatedly pointed out, no section of the community has all the virtues, neither does any have all the vices. We are quite sure that most people try to do their jobs as best as they can, even if the result is not always entirely successful. It is said that he who has never failed to reach perfection has a right to be the harshest critic. There can be no doubt, of course, that criticism is good for people and institutions that are part of public life. No institution – the Magistrate’s Court, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the presidency – should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support, not to mention those who don’t. But we are all part of the same fabric of our national society and that scrutiny, by one part of another, should not be looked at as enmity, as something subversive. What is going on in our country today is sad. But the reaction that it is giving rise to, the initiatives that are being taken by civil society organisations, should be highly welcomed by all men and women of goodwill in this country. What these men and women in civil society are demonstrating to us is that it is possible to remain effective and dynamic without losing those indefinable qualities that make us what we are or what we want to be seen as. We only have to look at the pictures taken from that civil society press conference yesterday to see the truth of that. We are glad we have had the chance to witness, and to take part in, many dramatic changes in life in this country. For all those who are trying in their own way to stand up and challenge the wrong things that are being done in our names by those in government, we give them our support wherever they may be, and our most humble thanks. We sincerely believe that what they are doing is rooted in a straightforward view of society; in the understanding that the individual does best in a strong and decent community of people with principles and standards and common aims and values. It was good to see old and new faces at that press conference; to see old fighters like Simon Zukas and others and new recruits. In this life, we get nothing good save by effort.

Even this democracy that we sloganeer about every day, by itself guarantees us nothing. It offers instead the opportunity to succeed as well as the risk of failure. It is then both a promise and a challenge. It is a promise in the sense that as free human beings, working together, we can govern ourselves in a manner that will serve our aspirations for social justice, economic opportunity and personal freedom. It is a challenge because the success of this whole enterprise rests upon our shoulders as citizens of this country and no one else. We shouldn’t forget that government of and by the people simply means that the citizens of a nation share in its benefits and in its burdens. By accepting the task of self-government, one generation seeks to preserve the hard-won legacy of the rule of law, of social justice for the next. It is said that a free man or woman, when he or she fails, blames nobody. It is true as well for the citizens of a country who, finally, must take responsibility for the fate of the society in which they themselves have chosen to live. In the end, we get the government we deserve. What we are trying to say is that a country is not only governed by politicians or those we say are in power. A viable society has many voices and these include of course those of the government itself, its political supporters and opposition. But there are joined by the voices of civil society organisations and individuals who should be free to raise their voices and participate in the democratic political process. In this way, democratic politics acts as a filter through which the vocal demands of a diverse populace pass on the way to becoming public policy.

We hope Rupiah and his friends will not continue to be stiff-necked and will read the signs of the times correctly and do what needs to be done. We hope they will realise that democracy is in many ways nothing more than a set of rules for managing conflict. And that at the same time, this conflict must be managed within certain limits and result in compromises, consensus or other agreements that all sides accept as legitimate. An over-emphasis on their absolute sole mandate to govern can threaten the entire undertaking. A democratic society needs the commitment of citizens who accept the inevitability of conflict as well as the necessity for tolerance.

And from a tactical point of view, it will be very naïve for Rupiah to go into next year with a united civil society against him. Even the LAZ support he is enjoying today, as a result of his friends occupying executive positions in that organisation, will not last long. At the rate things are going, they will have difficulties retaining their positions at the next LAZ AGM. Their own way of surviving is to change course and do the right thing. And the right thing for LAZ will mean taking clear positions on issues that distance them from the establishment, from Rupiah’s criminal schemes. In short, Rupiah is helping mobilise forces against himself by his corrupt decision to save Chiluba from going to jail. And these forces are not going to reduce – they will grow bigger and bigger, stronger and stronger. And if Rupiah is not careful, his chances of holding on to power in 2011 will evaporate like morning dew. The only way to stop all this is to ask their minion Mchenga to do the needful, to restore the appeal against Chiluba’s acquittal.

Labels: CHILUBA, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 12:13 AM