Maravi

‘Peace will be sustained if politicians respect people’

‘Peace will be sustained if politicians respect people’
By Brina Manenga
Mon 27 June 2011, 04:01 CAT

PEACE in the country will be sustained if people are valued and respected by political leaders, says Citizens Forum. Forum chairperson Kafula Mwila said in an interview that the peaceful nature of Zambians should be appreciated because it could easily change if their challenges were not being addressed.

“You cannot be assured that this will continue if people do not see that there is a meaningful response from those in leadership,” said Mwila.

He said the lack of political will to address police killings was one way that could destabilise the country’s peace.

“What sort of country are we in? Where it is so easy to shoot people simply because someone is wearing a police uniform,” he said. “This shows that we have taken the peace in the country for granted.

There are so many issues that constitute peace. One is recognising the value of people and respecting them.

We can also refer to the dignity of humanity and also looking at the quality of life where people have access to proper jobs, proper accommodation and other civil rights.”

He said it was unfortunate that people were dying at the hands of the police even when the country was known to be peaceful.

“That is total ignoring of the law by the authority. If the law was respected then people wouldn’t be dying that way,” he said.

Mwila said the police’s lack of non-lethal means of dealing with riots and demonstrations was unfortunate.

“We have had riots and demonstrations since the birth of this country. People used to react harshly when they thought their views were not taken into consideration. But it is surprising that even in this modern era we still do not have non-lethal ways of dealing with these cases.

The undermining and ignoring of the law by the authority has allowed people to die,” said Mwila.

Labels: CITIZENS FORUM

posted by MrK @ 4:46 PM