Maravi

Death and impunity

COMMENT - No matter how much money Frederick Chiluba received for selling out the people's resources, it is a mere fraction of the money that was actually removed from the country by foreign mining companies whose money he took (which itself ultimately comes from the profit made from sales of Zambia's copper). Maybe one day Equinox, First Quantum, Anglo-American, will be forced to give back the billions they have taken without paying taxes.

Death and impunity
By The Post
Tue 28 June 2011, 04:10 CAT

THE dead deserve to be mourned and buried with maximum respect.
Regardless of one’s wrongs or crimes, all deserve to be mourned and buried with respect and dignity.

And it doesn’t matter what crime one has committed or what station one occupied in life, all human beings are equal before God and all deserve the same respect and dignity.

But this respect for the dead should not be used as a basis for telling lies. Rupiah Banda, in his speech at the burial of the remains of Frederick Chiluba, lied about the late Levy Mwanawasa wanting to drop the criminal charges and civil proceedings in the courts of law against Chiluba.

We say Rupiah is lying because Levy made it very clear that if Chiluba returned even part of what he had stolen, the criminal charges and civil proceedings against him would be dropped. This was the condition Levy gave Chiluba.

This was not a secretive but a highly publicised condition. At no time did Levy tell the Zambian people, and indeed the whole world, that he wanted to drop the charges against Chiluba but there were people who were opposed to it.

Was Levy such a coward?
We accept the principle of forgiveness and reconciliation. But this should not be equated to impunity. To prosecute someone who has done wrong is not necessarily an expression of hatred against that person.

We have over 15,560 of our brothers and sisters incarcerated in our prisons. Are they there because we hate them and we are not a forgiving society?

If Rupiah’s logic over the criminal cases and civil proceedings by the state against Chiluba initiated by the then attorney general and minister of justice George Kunda were a product of hatred, then we would have no one in our prisons today; we wouldn’t need any prisons. Every prisoner would be set free the way Chiluba was through the manipulation of the judicial process by Rupiah and his government.

We don’t believe that to prosecute someone where there is evidence of wrongdoing is an expression of hatred. There are many cases that Rupiah’s government has taken against some of our brothers and sisters.

Are all these cases a product of hatred? Even where accused persons finally get acquitted by the courts of law, can it be said that those who arrested and prosecuted them did so out of hatred, malice, vindictiveness or vengeance?

The truth is Chiluba was a man like any other human being and made mistakes – similar to those of our brothers and sisters who are today locked up in our jails. Being a man like any other and, like any other human being, prone to err, Chiluba made great mistakes. He was blinded by greed and power and abused public trust. Chiluba abused public resources – he stole public funds. This is a fact.

And there is a judgment obtained by attorney general Kunda in a matter he took before the London High Court. In that judgment, the details of how Chiluba abused public funds are well detailed. There is no hatred for Chiluba on our part in saying all this. We were taught that there was a constant struggle between good and evil, and evil had to be punished.

Well, we are not going to say we share that belief. We were taught that those who committed crimes and were responsible for injustice, abuse, evil, 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 don’t believe that every time a person who has stolen public funds, who has abused public office, who has committed a crime is prosecuted, it is done for the sake of hatred, vengeance or retribution.

There is no sense in revenging. On whom are you taking revenge? We don’t believe that even those criminals who were sentenced to death, to be hanged at Mukobeko Maximum Prison, are subjected to all that because someone in the state or political system hates them.

It is clear that Rupiah manipulated the judicial process to let Chiluba go scot-free and keep his loot for a personal reason. Rupiah was not motivated by the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Rupiah is not a man of love at all times. He is a man full of hate, malice and vengeance. And his hatred, malice and vengeance are not difficult to see. Just look at the way he is treating his political opponents and people he considers to be personal enemies! Look at the way he treats us!

Listen to the lies he tells about us! Isn’t it this same Rupiah that accused us without any evidence whatsoever that we had pocketed US$30 million from state institutions and he would make sure that that money is returned to the state so that they could build schools and hospitals? Was his claim against us true? It wasn’t.

It was simply a product of Rupiah’s hatred, malice and the spirit of vengeance. Look at the way Rupiah is today treating Rajan Mahtani! Who doesn’t know Rupiah’s unbridled hatred for Mahtani? Look at the lies, calumny that he is subjecting Michael Sata to! Rupiah has hired all sorts of scoundrels to malign his political opponents and personal enemies.

Is this a man of love and forgiveness? The truth is Rupiah is doing all these things for Chiluba for personal gain, politically and otherwise. He is preaching forgiveness so that when his time comes to be prosecuted for his abuses and misdeeds, the Chiluba precedent will be there to shield and protect him. He knows the crimes his regime is committing every day against the people.

It was not Chiluba’s neck Rupiah was interested in saving; it is his own neck and those of his league he is protecting. There is also the political capital he thought he would extract from Chiluba. And he still believes he can use Chiluba’s name even in death to win votes in Luapula.

Forgiveness and reconciliation should not be confused with impunity.

Rupiah is encouraging impunity and wants to entrench it to save his own neck. Levy was against impunity and this is why he asked Chiluba to return what he had stolen, or even just part of it, for the criminal charges against him to be dropped. This impunity Rupiah is preaching goes against the spirit and principle of the rule of law.

Why should poor people, humble citizens go to jail for stealing a few cabbages, small amounts of money when presidents are allowed to steal millions of dollars from the Treasury and go scot-free? There is over US$ 45 million that the London High Court ordered Chiluba to return to the Zambian people. But Rupiah has stopped this. He has made sure Chiluba does not pay back anything that he stole from the Zambian people.

Why? His explanation is that it is demeaning to prosecute a citizen who has been president of a country for corruption. Where is the rule of law here which entails equality before the law. We all know that the right to equality before the law, or equal protection of the law as it is often phrased, is fundamental to any just and democratic society.

Whether rich or poor, president or ordinary citizen, all are entitled to equal protection before the law. And under no circumstances should Rupiah or any other president impose additional inequalities; they should be required to deal evenly and equally with all citizens. No democratic and just society can tolerate the impunity that Rupiah seems to be advocating.

This is why even our current Constitution provides for steps to be taken to prosecute a former president who has abused his office, who has stolen public funds the way Chiluba did. And there is no need to mystify death in the way they are trying to do to justify corruption and abuse of public office. Let’s not forget that it is Rupiah’s government that has removed the offence of abuse of office from our Anti Corruption Commission Act.

Why? To encourage corruption with impunity.
There is no doubt death will visit each one of us. Remember that we must all die sometime. But our death should not be used to justify wrongdoing and to lie about things, which the dead said or did.

Levy never wanted to let Chiluba go scot-free and keep his loot. He asked him to return the loot in exchange dropping of criminal charges against him. This is the fact Rupiah wants to twist or distort, prying on the sorrow and grief of a nation in mourning.

Whatever the political manipulation, the facts surrounding Chiluba’s prosecution for corruption and his being let off the hook by Rupiah will never change. A man who tells lies at a funeral raises many questions about his respect for the dead and about his own personal integrity.

Labels: CORRUPTION, FREDERICK CHILUBA, LEVY MWANAWASA, MMD

posted by MrK @ 4:06 PM