Does Rupiah want to be a warlord?

Does Rupiah want to be a warlord?
By The Post
Mon 27 Sep. 2010, 04:00 CAT

When people start to admit that they are doing wrong things without fearing or expecting any reprisal, then we are slipping into anarchy.

The admission by Evans Chibanda, the MMD Copperbelt youth chairman that they have a militia or crack squad, as he calls it, is reckless exhibition of Rupiah Banda’s desperation to cling on to power at any cost.

This is because Chibanda is a second middle-ranking but very well-placed MMD official to publicly confirm that their party has a militia which they can unleash on anyone that they view as being disrespectful to Rupiah Banda. Their justification for forming this militia is that they should be in a position to enforce respect for Rupiah by means of violence if they see it fit to do so.

A few days ago, it was Chiko Chibale, Chibanda’s publicity secretary who audaciously announced that the MMD militia of which he is the Copperbelt commander would go to Western Province and deal decisively with Paul Duffy, the Roman Catholic Church Mongu diocese Bishop. The courage that Chibanda and Chibale are showing in making these treasonable pronouncements shows that they are not working alone.

These chaps obviously have protection and blessings from the highest powers within MMD, including Rupiah himself. It is abnormal for a party in government to keep quiet or fail to fully distance itself from such a grave pronouncement. Chibanda and Chibale are telling the nation that the MMD is getting ready to unleash violence as one of its tools in the campaign process and yet Rupiah finds it reasonable to keep quiet in the light of such serious revelations.

Rupiah and his friends are very quick to threaten their opponents with the visitation of the full might of the law when it suits them. This tendency of using the law wrongly and selectively is a danger to our peace and stability as a nation.

If the governing party, which despite controlling all the defence and security forces and agencies does not enjoy wide popularity, continues to threaten its people by creating things such as militias, they should not be surprised when their opponents decide to take their own measures to protect themselves.

We say this because there is no one who has the monopoly of violence. The violence of the MMD can only do one thing, and that is to breed counter violence. If that happens, where will it leave our country? Are we going to accept to have another Somalia governed by militias and warlords simply because Rupiah believes that he deserves to have another term of office by any means?

The silence of Rupiah and his senior cabinet and MMD colleagues in the wake of the announcement of the existence of MMD militias is a danger to Rupiah himself. It is said that those who live by the sword die by the sword; they will die the way they have lived – by violence.

This is why even when we train children we teach them to abhor violence. But this is not Rupiah’s approach. Rupiah behaves like one of those parents who if they found their son fighting with a friend, they would hold the other’s hands and let their son pound him whilst pretending to be stopping the fight.

This is what Rupiah has been doing. In public he pretends to have a stance against violence, and yet it is a well known fact that the MMD’s merchants of fury such as William Banda operate under the guidance and protection of Rupiah himself. It is Rupiah who resources them and ensures that they are able to go to their operational areas as and when they want to. Chibanda has told us that all the political parties have militias.

But as we said, he is forced to recognise that violence only breeds violence. This shameless brut has the audacity to say UPND is more violent than the MMD. What he is not denying is that the MMD is violent. His only defence is that he would like us to know that there are others who are more violent than him.

What kind of nonsense is this? Who, between the MMD and the UPND has the duty to maintain public order and security? The last time we checked, MMD was bragging that they are the government, they are ‘boma’. Accusing the UPND of being more violent does not take away the criminal announcement that the MMD has created a national militia that has regional commanders such as Chibale.

Rupiah swore to uphold the Constitution of our country. As imperfect as this document might be, it is still the supreme law of our land which must be respected by all, including Rupiah himself.

The folly of the over-concentration of power in one person is that such people reach a point where they rarely meet people who treat them as mere human beings. The power that the President has almost unavoidably leads him to surround himself with minions.

And minions, being what they are, cannot be anyone’s good adviser. They are simply what is sometimes called “his master’s voice”. They only say what they think the boss wants them to say. This leaves people like Rupiah who naturally lack humility and do not possess the highest levels of patriotic dedication, to believe that they are above the law, they are the law unto themselves.

This is why it is now common for the executive to decide who is going to be prosecuted for a crime and who is not, who is going to be convicted and who is going to be acquitted. These decisions that they make have nothing to do with the law but all to do with their whims and ability to flex their muscles as they please. In this way, Rupiah and others who govern like him are not very different from the warlords in Somalia.

The law of Somalia is very simple; it is defined by the notion that might is right and he who has the biggest barrel controls the terrain. The issue in Somalia, where militias rule, is how many militiamen one has under his command. When people have a difference, their concern is not about who is right or wrong; it's about who has more militiamen.
Someone might say we are being unfair by comparing Rupiah to a Somali warlord. But look at the way Rupiah behaves.

It is clear that if he had his way, he would have all his enemies in some dungeon regardless of whether they have done wrong or not. But all those who are in good books with him can do no wrong. What we are seeing are the symptoms of the lawlessness that has afflicted our continent and reduced some countries into failed states where no law is observed. Their problems did not happen overnight. Somalia did not become a failed state overnight; it took time. But look where they are today!

When you have a country where there is a law for friends, family and supporters of the President and another law for everybody else, you are sowing seeds of destruction. And as the Bible tells us, we should not be deceived, God is not mocked; we reap what we sow. If we plant peace, we harvest tranquillity; if we plant violence, we reap disaster.

This is what Rupiah should understand. These militias that they are beginning to glorify and brag about are a dangerous phenomenon whose capacity for destruction has left at least one former head of state languishing in a prison cell at the International Criminal Court.
It is irresponsible for the MMD and Rupiah in particular to remain quiet when its members are announcing the formation of organisations whose only discernible purpose is to breed violence and mayhem in our country.

We do not want them to say we never warned them. We are warning them now and we will continue to warn them for as long as they continue to be as irresponsible as they have shown themselves to be. If that is the only thing we are able to do for our country, so be it. We will never stand by whilst Rupiah and his minions conspire to turn our country into a failed state run by warlords.

As for Chibanda and Chibale, these two young men may not necessarily be violent by nature or character. This violence that they are preaching is foisted on them because they are rewarded by Rupiah and the MMD for being or seen to be violent against those who question the decisions and actions of their bosses. They are brutish because it pays to be brutish. They are today threatening and insulting Bishop Duffy because it is beneficial for them to do so.

The rewards for their being violent against Rupiah’s real or perceived political opponents are huge. But this is not the way to govern a nation. This is a sure way of destroying a nation and Rupiah, if not stopped, will drive this nation to destruction.