Maravi

Violations of human rights in Mongu

Violations of human rights in Mongu
By The Post
Wed 16 Feb. 2011, 04:00 CAT

Respect and promotion of all human rights is essential for human development. And the roots of human rights are to be found in the dignity that belongs to each human being. For this reason, the Human Rights Commission was founded in our country and is today being financed from taxes paid by our people.

Its functions were, among others, to be the investigation of human rights violations; maladministration of justice; coming up with measures to prevent human rights abuse, visit prisons and places of detention or related facilities with a view to assessing and inspecting conditions of the persons held in such places and make recommendations to redress existing problems.

It is not in dispute that those who were arrested by police in Mongu over the Barotse Agreement unrest were tortured and treated in a manner that can be said to be inhuman.

It is also not in dispute that at least two unarmed young people were killed by police in Mongu in total violation of their right to life.

These young people were not a threat to any policeman’s life or the life of any other citizen.

We also know that the activists of the Barotse Agreement have been peaceful for a very long time, seeking police permits to hold public meetings and consult and exchange views over the Barotse Agreement.

But all their attempts to exercise their freedom of speech and their right to assemble were denied them by the police.

The Human Rights Commission knew about all these issues but decided to remain silent.

All peaceful avenues to addressing the issues of the Barotse Agreement were denied these young people.

And the Human Rights Commission said nothing.

These young people even sought meetings with the traditional leadership in Barotseland but nothing much came out of that.

And the night before they were supposed to hold a meeting at Limulunga, most of these young people were arrested by the police at their homes.

They were not rioting, they were simply picked up from their beds.

Yes, in the end, Mongu was in flames. But who is to blame?

One who is defending his rights eventually learns the hard way that it is the person who is trying to deny him his rights who defines the way he should defend his rights, and often he is left with no recourse but to use the methods that mirror those of the people denying him his rights.

At a certain point, one can only respond to repression by means that match it. To deny any person their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

And you can’t take away a human being’s rights without expecting a fight from him in defence of his dignity, of his humanity.

You can’t treat these young people in such an uncaring way and when they explode, you expect them to do so politely.

We are told that “it is not right to favour the guilty and keep the innocent from receiving justice” (Proverbs 18:5).

To all these injustices against these young people, to all these violations of the human rights of these young people, our Human Rights Commission’s only response was: “The Human Rights Commission joins other individuals and organisations in condemning the lawlessness being perpetrated by some people in Mongu, Western Province, which led to clashes with the Zambia Police Service last week.

The commission wishes to draw attention to the fact that Zambia has a government in place; and Zambia has laws which everyone must respect and adhere to.

It is a fact too that Western Province has a traditional structure which exercises authority on behalf of the people under its jurisdiction.

It is therefore incumbent upon those individuals and/or organisations that may harbor some grievances to seek redress through existing channels like the courts of law and/or the traditional structures.

The Commission regrets that because of the lawlessness which occurred in Mongu, some lives were lost while some people are nursing wounds and injuries.

Life is sacrosanct and must be preserved at all costs, even through the avoidance of pursuits of anarchic behaviours, like the ones portrayed last week in Mongu.

We support the police in their noble efforts to maintain law and order everywhere in Zambia and in this particular instance, Mongu, where the current problem occurred.

We urge them to ensure that every single person found to have taken part in the criminal acts is brought to book in accordance with the terms of the law.

Expressing a grievance is not synonymous with engaging in acts of lawlessness and disorder which result in loss of life and property.”

This was a response from our Human Rights Commission.

And they have said other things in the same line after this.

The question that arises is whose human rights is this Human Rights Commission defending?

Is it the human rights of the government or of those young people who have been killed, arrested and tortured?

There is nothing the Human Rights Commission has said on the violations of these young people’s rights – their right to freedom of assembly, expression, their being tortured and the abuse of the criminal justice system to detain them unnecessarily.

Human rights are international norms that help to protect all people everywhere, and not governments, from severe political, legal and social abuses.

And examples of human rights are the right not to be tortured, the right to engage in political activity, the right to a fair trial when charged with a crime.

These rights exist in morality and in law.

They are addressed primarily to governments, requiring compliance and enforcement.

Human rights are, in the first place, political norms dealing mainly with how people should be treated by their governments and institutions.

They are not ordinary moral norms applying mainly to interpersonal conduct such as prohibitions of lying and violence.

To engage human rights, conduct must be in some sense official. Human rights protect people against familiar abuses of people’s dignity and fundamental interests.

They are matters of paramount importance and their violation a grave affront to justice.

But what we have seen so far with our Human Rights Commission is its eagerness to defend the government and the police’s action and to say nothing about the violations of the rights of the Barotse Agreement activists.

The Human Rights Commission in some way abrogated its duties or functions in defence of the government and the powerful politicians who run it.

Of course, it is understandable because those who manage the affairs of our Human Rights Commission are political appointees of the same people who are behind the violation of the human rights of those young people.

The violence that dominated Mongu, the violence that killed those two young people, was of the police.

There is no single person in Mongu who was killed by the Barotse Agreement activists.

It may also be very difficult, if not impossible, to find any person in Mongu who was injured by someone else other than a policeman.

This being the case, where did the violence that killed those two young people and left many others injured come from?

The Human Rights Commission seems to be putting all the blame for all this on the young people.

Its statements contain nothing about the plight or the human rights of these young people.

And it is just about the defence of the government and the police.

What type of Human Rights Commission is this?

Since when did the right to protest cease to be a human right?

Our Human Rights Commission is not in any way defending those young people’s right to protest.

It is not the actions of those young people that led to the deaths and injuries in Mongu.

It is the actions of the authorities and the police that are to blame for all that.

But the Human Rights Commission doesn’t see all this.

Moreover, it is not the duty of the Human Rights Commission to determine who is wrong or right.

Those are matters for our courts of law to determine. The duty of our Human Rights Commission is about human rights violations.

Even a person who is guilty at law, who has committed a crime, still has human rights that our Human Rights Commission should protect.

But at no time did our Human Rights Commission protect or defend in any way the human rights of those young Barotse Agreement activists.

All their words and actions were about defending the image of the government and the police in this highly politically sensitive matter.

There is nowhere any of those young people was found with a firearm or weapon of any kind.

It was the police that was firing live ammunition at totally unarmed young people.

The Human Rights Commission sees nothing wrong in all this; sees no violation of human rights in all this. To protest is not anarchy.

When most of these young people were arrested, they were not rioting, they were sleeping. Our Human Rights Commission is not putting any blame on the police for the killings and the injuries in Mongu. Why?

One day those who head our Human Rights Commission will have to explain their clearly questionable behaviour to our people.

Theirs now doesn’t seem to be a Human Rights Commission; it is rather more of an inhuman rights commission.

Anyway, this is what happens in a nation when principles are lost, when values are traded on the altar of political expedience, when patronage is the only way to survive in a job.

Labels: BAROTSELAND AGREEMENT, HUMAN RIGHTS, MONGU

posted by MrK @ 6:34 PM