Kunda: a true chameleon

Kunda: a true chameleon
By The Post
Sat 13 Mar. 2010, 04:20 CAT

It is said that when defending oneself, one can inadvertently say something that implicates him or her. In his quest to keep his ever-threatened job, a job he holds at the pleasure of Rupiah Banda, George Kunda is saying a lot of things that only implicate him rather than those he wants to implicate.

It is interesting to note that George is today one of the ardent defenders of Frederick Chiluba’s theft and plunder of national resources.

Today George is busy glorifying Chiluba, forgetting that only yesterday he was in the forefront as Attorney General and Minister of Justice, on behalf of the Zambian people, demanding that Chiluba pays back the millions of dollars he had stolen from them.

George has thrown to the wind everything that the late Levy Mwanawasa stood for in as far as the fight against corruption and the promotion of good governance are concerned. He is the biggest betrayer of Levy and his legacy.

On Thursday, George had the audacity to stand in Parliament and say that Chiluba has been a subject of ridicule since 2001. Who has been ridiculing Chiluba since 2001? Is it the media, the Zambian people? Or was it Levy and those who believed in the fight against plunder of national resources?

If Chiluba was indeed ridiculed, what was the reason for the ridicule? Let’s go back in time and examine Chiluba’s behaviour from 2001. Zambians have not forgotten that in that year, Chiluba attempted to mutilate the Constitution in order to facilitate his third term in office.

Through the Oasis Forum, Zambians rejected this manoeuvre by Chiluba and did everything in their power to stop it. They succeeded.

George recognises and acknowledges the role the Oasis Forum played in stopping Chiluba’s evil attempt to give himself a third term. On September 16, 2007, George, as Minister of Justice, castigated the Oasis Forum for criticising the government on the constitution-making process. In his view, the Oasis Forum was formed only to fight Chiluba’s “machinations to go for an unconstitutional third term” and not any other business.

Today, the same George is complaining that Chiluba has been exposed to ridicule since 2001. Did he expect Chiluba to be praised or revered for attempting to break the Constitution to accommodate his unbridled greediness for power? If Chiluba was ridiculed in 2001, he deserved the ridicule because he did not do anything to earn him any praise.

At the beginning of 2002, Levy succeeded Chiluba and immediately cracked the whip against him for stealing from our people when he served as president. As Minister of Justice and Attorney General, George was one of Levy’s lieutenants in this mission.

Throughout that period leading to Levy’s death, almost two years ago, George supported Levy’s stance against Chiluba’s thefts and corruption. He issued so many statements denouncing Chiluba.

On September 16, 2007 when he addressed a press briefing, George said Zambia was facing a constitutional crisis as a result of Chiluba’s bad governance.

He accused The Post, the Oasis Forum, Michael Sata and Brigadier General Miyanda of forming an alliance with Chiluba to bring Levy’s government down.

George said: “The contradictions in the Oasis Forum are amazing. It appears the common thread in this grouping is the hatred for President Mwanawasa and the new deal government.

For how do you explain the new alliance between the Oasis Forum and people like Dr Chiluba, General Godfrey Miyanda and Mr Sata? These are the main architects of the problems we are now facing…and yet they are being glorified.

How do you explain The Post newspaper’s glorifying of these people? Is it not a contradiction that Mr Fred M’membe and the Press Freedom Committee of The Post wittingly or unwittingly should be working with Dr Chiluba?...

It would appear that The Post charts the Oasis Forum agenda. Why should the Oasis Forum form an alliance with Dr Chiluba? The Oasis Forum was conceived to fight Dr Chiluba’s machinations to go for an unconstitutional third term.”

From the above, it is clear that George has always been a hypocrite who can even “worship the devil” in order to keep a job. He says and does things he doesn’t believe in just to keep a job. At that time, it was fashionable for him to attack Chiluba in defence of Levy because he had a job to keep from Levy.

And today George has a job to keep from Rupiah so he has to praise Chiluba to keep that job because he realises that Chiluba is in a marriage of convenience with his boss. What a life to live! What won’t George say, do or lick to keep his job?

And George can today, at least, accuse Zambians or Levy, at most, of pouring scorn or poking fun at Chiluba! How does he expect Zambians to treat a former president who has stolen from them? How does he expect Zambians to treat a former president who has breached his fiduciary duty to them? How does George expect Zambians to treat a former president who has plundered?

In 2006, George swore an affidavit as Attorney General, demanding US $2.2 million from Chiluba, which money George stated that Chiluba misappropriated through the Zamtrop account.

This was in a matter in which George took a legal suit in the London High Court, on behalf of the Zambian government, to recover from Meer Care & Desai and 19 others a sum of 13.5 million British Pounds.

George stated that the Zamtrop account was operated by Xavier Chungu on Chiluba’s instructions to disburse funds to himself, his family and associates.

He said the methods used to get money from the Zamtrop account included false accounting and false contracts and might have routed such funds via solicitors’ accounts and vehicle companies. George was asking Chiluba to pay back the money for breach of fiduciary duty.

In other words, George was saying Chiluba is a thief, a plunderer. He had stolen and he needed to pay back that money to the Zambian people.

Could this be rightly said to be ridicule against Chiluba? Not at all because George was right in calling Chiluba a thief and the London High Court found in his favour, in the Zambians’ favour.

But suddenly, because Rupiah has now declared Chiluba innocent, George has conveniently forgotten what evidence he had provided the London High Court to obtain that judgment against Chiluba, which they are now not willing to register in our High Court for execution. He has also declared Chiluba a “dam good president”, an honest and sincere man who ruled Zambia with integrity and must be spared of any ridicule.

This is sheer opportunism at its best, this is crass dishonesty. But we are not surprised by George’s behaviour because that is the George we know.

We have always known him as someone who is very short on principles. George can sacrifice anyone and anything just to keep his job. And like Wynter Kabimba says, George can worship the devil and eat his own vomit if doing so will help him keep his job.

However, George’s activities are not going unnoticed. Our people cannot be fooled by his opportunism. They still remember how he was fighting private lawyers to take charge or control of Chiluba’s prosecution just to endear himself with Levy.

And after Levy’s death, our people have seen how George has been the biggest betrayer of Levy and his legacy in the fight against corruption.

In his quest to keep a job from Rupiah, George has behaved in a manner that has seriously reduced the dignity of the Office of the Vice-President in a way that is unprecedented.

Zambia has had a number of vice-presidents whose appointments were questioned. Nevers Mumba’s appointment was highly questioned but he still had some respect in some quarters and his office was respected by many.

The same can be said about Lupando Mwape. Rupiah Banda was not a super vice-president. In fact, people paid very little attention to him as vice-president but had a lot of respect for the office he occupied. It was treated with dignity.

This is not the case with George. He has been a disaster of a Vice-President. He has cheapened himself to the point that not even members in the ruling party and government have respect for him.

A lot of them even question what Rupiah saw in him to appoint him to that office. But Rupiah might not appreciate this because for him, any government official being denounced or criticised by The Post is loyal while those praised are rebels.

It will be too late by the time Rupiah is realising that George has not been an asset but a liability to his government. Probably both of them are of the same ilk – opportunists. And therefore, no one is letting the other down – they are birds of the same feather.