Maravi

Rupiah’s unbridled hatred for The Post

Rupiah’s unbridled hatred for The Post
By The Post
Mon 18 Apr. 2011, 04:00 CAT

“I also know there at your headquarters I have a lot of enemies. I don’t know what I did to them. I don’t know what I did to M’membe, I don’t know what I did to his number two, number three.” This is what Rupiah Banda feels about us, thinks about us, says about us.

Rupiah has said many false things about us, many slanderous things about us, many falsehoods about us. Rupiah has insulted us in so many ways. But neither the slander nor the voice of insult has taught us to hate. We may despise Rupiah since we cannot hate him or anyone else for that matter.

We, who are honest journalists, don’t preach hatred as a philosophy, the philosophy of hatred. But this doesn’t mean that we have any friendly feelings for any system that abuses the people, that humiliates our people, that abuses power and public resources, or that we haven’t struggled as hard as we can against it.

But we think we have one supreme test, we are being defamed every day, they are telling lies about us every day, they are scandalising us in all sorts of ways every day on the television channels they control and in the state-owned newspapers they have monopolised, they have sent us to jail and in all sorts of ways they have tried to close this newspaper, we have suffered from all kinds of acts of repression and wrongs from them, yet we are considerate, respectful in our dealings with them, because we don’t hate them. What we repudiate and hate are their wrongs and misdeeds. For us, it is not a matter of hating an individual but of hating an iniquitous system of abuse of power and public resources and corruption; it is not hatred of people.

What we are preaching is the repudiation, rejection and hatred of injustice. We are not preaching hatred among men and if we have to fight the system that promotes, perpetrates and defends injustice, abuse and corruption, we will do so without hesitation. If we have to fight the men who represent these evils, we will do so.

In biblical history, we were taught that there were struggles even in heaven, among the angels – and if there were struggles in heaven, how can we fail to understand that there may be struggles on earth? Jesus made some very strong charges against the Pharisees and called King Herod a fox. What’s more, Jesus tells us that we must love our enemies – and there is no greater love for a wrongdoer, an evil man than to prevent him from doing wrong or from involving himself in evil deeds. We were taught that there was a constant struggle between good and evil, and evil had to be exposed, denounced and punished. We were taught that those who commit crimes and are responsible for injustice, evil, corruption, abuse of power and of public resources and all those other things that we are fighting against would be punished in hell.

Could that be interpreted as an expression of hatred? We have never run this newspaper on the basis of personal hatred for individuals. After all, individuals come and go. If that was our basis of running this newspaper, we would have closed shop a long time ago. It’s not that we love our enemies. We don’t: we haven’t gotten that far. We understand why they are enemies. We understand how many factors have predetermined their becoming enemies.
When we expose, criticise or denounce a person who has blood on his hands, who has stolen public resources or has abused public office and power, we don’t do it because of hatred for that person. There is no sense in hating an individual. We have fought and struggled a lot throughout the last 20 years of the existence of this newspaper, yet we can’t say there was a feeling of hatred against individuals. We have seen that the individual was often the result of a series of situations and circumstances and that a large proportion of his conduct was predetermined.

And politically, we live in a plural and multiparty society where there is a lot of competition for hegemony. The competitors in all this don’t necessarily have to like each other, but they must tolerate one another and acknowledge that each has a legitimate and important role to play. Moreover, the ground rules of the society must encourage tolerance and civility.

It is in this spirit that we expose, criticise or denounce Rupiah’s decisions and actions and the corruption and abuses of his league. We do this simply to overcome the dangers their decisions and actions pose to the collective good and wellbeing of our country and our people. We do this so that our people can free themselves from these dangers.

It cannot be denied that Rupiah has failed to conceal his hatred for us. People close to him say that when it comes to The Post the boss doesn’t reason; he hates The Post with a passion. In fact, loyalty to Rupiah is often measured by how much one hates and talks ill of The Post. If one wants to be close to Rupiah they should simply be seen to hate The Post and denounce it. If they do that, all the gates and doors to State House will be open for them. Rupiah’s hatred for us cannot be concealed because it is naked and easy for all to see; he does not hide it and he expresses it in so many ways. Rupiah tells lies about us; defames us, maligns us without restraint or self-limitation. Rupiah has falsely accused us of having pocketed US$ 30 million from state institutions through Zambian Airways. And he set a combined team of officers from the Anti Corruption Commission, Drug Enforcement Commission and the police on us. But for close to three years now, his officers have failed to find anything wrong or anything dishonest in our dealings. But Rupiah has never had the moral courage or decency to tell the Zambian people the truth and apologise for his malice and falsities against us. This is how much Rupiah hates us.
Rupiah has gone on to accuse us of being queer, morbid and of circulating pornography. But again, Rupiah has failed to prove any of these allegations against us because they cannot be proved, they are lies born out of his hatred for us. Today, Rupiah and his minions run television programmes maligning, defaming and preaching hatred against us, trying to demonise and humiliate us. This again goes to show how deep Rupiah’s hatred for us is.

But this doesn’t bother us. We don’t need to be loved by Rupiah to survive in this country. Zambia is not for Rupiah and his minions alone, this country belongs to all of us. And Rupiah should know that this country will not be a good place for him or any of us to live in unless it’s a good place for him and all of us to live in.

We don’t hate Rupiah as a human being. What we hate is the evil he does, the corruption and abuse of power and public funds that he promotes and defends; the misgovernance and intolerance that he presides over. That’s what we hate. Rupiah is today the most ardent defender of corruption and abuse of power in this country. Rupiah has abused our judicial process to let Frederick Chiluba’s corruption go unpunished. This is not a secret. This is not a lie. Rupiah has even frustrated and stopped the process to have Chiluba pay back what he stole from the Zambian people. Again, this is not a lie. It is a fact that cannot be disputed. Today, they are trying everything possible to ensure that Chiluba gets back the properties he bought with stolen public funds that were forfeited to the state. It is a fact that the properties that are said to be owned by Tedworth Properties Incorporated, a Panamanian registered company, belong to Chiluba and all schemes are in place to try and give him back these properties in total abuse of our judicial process – a process that Rupiah has corrupted and gets from it what he wants.

Rupiah heads the government that has squandered over K200 billion over a constitution making process which they approached in a manner that made it impossible even for members of his own political party to support. They wanted to unilaterally impose a constitution on the Zambian people. This is corruption and abuse of power and lack of respect for the people of this country.

Rupiah heads a political party that daily engages in violence against other participants in our multiparty political dispensation. Rupiah has lamentably failed to bring discipline in his party and stop the violence of his cadres. Rupiah has actually, in many instances, justified this violence. Rupiah has justified even the violence of his cadres against our reporters, saying they are doing so because we insult him. Even hatred for us should not allow Rupiah to disregard the law – there are procedures and processes that he can follow if he feels offended by any of our stories or comments. It is lawlessness on his part to set his cadres on us simply because he is not happy with us, he hates us. This is what hatred can do. Rupiah has no regard for the lives of those he hates. Violence against those he hates is always easy for him to justify.
Today, Rupiah is running an electoral process which only he himself has a say on how things should be conducted. He singlehandedly appoints all the commissioners and senior directors of the Electoral Commission of Zambia. And he expects other citizens to accept this naked abuse of our electoral process without question, without criticism! Today, Rupiah is even criminalising the clearly legal parallel vote tabulation. For what? So that he can manipulate the election results!

It’s not only us who expose, criticise and denounce Rupiah’s decisions and actions. Even his own friends, those who put him in power are today exposing, criticising and denouncing his decisions and actions. In this regard, we can cite the case of Mike Mulongoti and Dr Mbita Chitala. What about Col Panji Kaunda? What about the so many Catholic priests and Bishops and other religious leaders who criticise and denounce his decisions and actions? Do all these people hate him? Or are they all directed by The Post to criticise and denounce him in pursuance of its hatred for him?

We don’t hate Rupiah. What we hate are his wrongdoings, his evil deeds. Rupiah only needs to do one thing at all times, that is the right thing, and all the criticisms from us will dry up. But Rupiah has chosen where to belong. He loves corruption and the corrupt; he loves abuse of power and public resources and he has even removed this from our Anti Corruption Commission Act. We are against these things. The Post was established to fight against these things and there is no way it can embrace or tolerate or keep the company of those who are corrupt, those who abuse power and public resources. It is said that birds come to roost with those of their own kind. Rupiah is keeping the company that meets his desires. It is said that every creature prefers its own kind, and people are no different. Just as animals of the same species flock together, so people keep company with people like themselves. It is said that a sinner has no more in common with a devout person than a wolf has with a lamb. Rupiah enjoys the company of Chiluba and other corrupt elements, thieves. He defends their acts. Why? He doesn’t hate them the way he hates us. Again, our simple explanation for Rupiah’s hatred for us is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum.

Lastly, we would like Rupiah to stop telling lies about us. Rupiah claims that he cares for our reporters and he always tries to find out if they are well accommodated or fed when he travels with them. This is not true. It is a lie. Rupiah has never accommodated or fed any of our reporters. The Post accommodates and feeds them in the best way it can. Rupiah probably takes care of reporters from the state-owned and government-controlled media and Muvi TV, but not our reporters. Our reporters have never enjoyed special treatment or care from State House. We are not complaining about that because State House doesn’t owe them accommodation or food. They are supposed to be accommodated and fed by the institutions they work for. Being accommodated or fed by State House will be an abuse of public resources. The patronising way Rupiah is trying to talk about our reporters, trying to drive a wedge between them and their editors won’t do. Our reporters are not that cheap, they don’t buy into patronage, they are not for hire. We don’t operate the way the media they control operates. We are a totally different breed of journalists – independent, confident and principled. Our reporters know what it means to have an editor. There is no reporter who operates without an editor and the editor’s job is to edit. Our editors are not political appointees and they don’t need to patronise anyone to survive. They have a conscience and that is their guide. And hatred is not part of us.

Labels: RUPIAH BANDA, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 7:21 PM