A most secret conversation between president Barack Obama (BO) and President Hakainde Hichilema (HH) comes to light, belatedly
By Prof Munyonzwe Hamalengwa
Washington DC, US on a certain day in September 2021 at midnight.
BO telephones HH. HH, I thought I should have a word with you before your meeting with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. You and I are alike in many respects. We were raised by single mothers with the help of grandparents and other relatives. We both are from very modest backgrounds. Education is what defines us. Education leveraged and equalised our opportunities. We both are focused and brilliant. Though they say you are the Obama of Zambia and indeed Africa, I prefer to say that I am the HH of America but without much wealth as you do. We are unlikely presidents of our respective countries. I listen to you giving speeches and I say wow, that is me!
Now, HH, I called you to warn you about some incredible landmines in the business of the presidency. One of the most difficult decisions I ever had to make was not to prosecute George W. Bush for murder and war crimes. I was given overwhelming and provable evidence of George W’s criminality and violations of the Constitution of the United States. One dossier I got was an incredible book of evidence written by Vincent Bugliosi, a former LA prosecutor, the book entitled, “The Prosecution of George Bush for Murder”. What is contained in the book is enough to have put George W on trial and secure a conviction for starting an unjustified war in Iraq which led to the death of thousands of innocent young Americans and the majority were African Americans and poor whites.
I received anonymously several copies of that book when it came out but I had already a million pieces of evidence with which to put W on trial and have him convicted. And I would have been a most popular president if I prosecuted W. He was hated.
But HH, I nearly prosecuted him but then I held back? At what cost to the fabric of the US. Which is more important, my popularity and guaranteed reelection or the unity and cohesion of these United States? I agonised. Michelle stated that I was on my own and it was my decision alone. You are a religious person and I read your FB postings every morning. Brother HH you won’t be making the decision to strip president Edgar Chagwa Lungu (ECL) of his immunity alone. You have good company in your life. You will get guidance. Besides, you already have precedents in Zambia for stripping the immunity and prosecuting former heads of state .
HH, in America we have no such precedent and raising one with W was a most daunting dilemma. It is the same monumental task Biden is facing with Trump though, like Bush, they were ripe for criminal prosecution. Trump may still face the music and Joe will pull you to a corner to discuss that aspect which he knows you are facing.
I also got a dossier of a great book of evidence against Donald Rumsfeld written by Centre for Constitutional Rights lawyer in New York Michael Ratner on “The Prosecution of Donald Rumsfeld”. I urge you to buy both books to guide you. Do you have scholars in Zambia who can write books on the prosecution of Edgar Chagwa Lungu for looting and corruption? I bet you do.
HH, you have an unenviable task. I still receive secret security briefings and I can tell you that your supporters are angry and growing impatient at why you have not convoked a commission of inquiry into the restoration of looted property or prosection of Edgar Chagwa Lungu and his cabal of alleged looters and cohorts of corruption. If you lose that critical constituency, you will not get it back. I got shellacked in the midterm of 2012. In Zambia you don’t have midterms.
That constituency from the reports I am reading is much more disaffected by the maintanence of the heads of the ACC, the DEC, ZRA, Zesco, RTSA, RDA, FRA, and others who were appointed by Lungu. HH, these people have no business still being the employees of your government. By now you should have written them letters for them to write comprehensive reports about their conduct under the reign of ECL. Why did they not pursue cases of corruption? What impediments were placed before them? What evidence can they release now about any suppressed evidence? Do they have any confessions to make? Can they be whistle blowers? Where are the bodies buried?
HH, your constituency is crying that these bodies are incapable of mounting serious investigations. They are allegedly incompetent and already compromised. They are already corrupted, HH. Some of them may have been eating from the sane trough as the looters and the corrupt. There is no way they did not participate. Why are you still keeping them? In the US, the equivalent offices that I have mentioned above resign immediately the president who appointed them loses an election.
Let me tell you something, HH, many apartheid criminals in South Africa got away with impunity for two reasons: they didn’t confess because they knew that if they were prosecuted, agents of apartheid who were still dominating the investigative , prosecutorial and judicial system would be the ones to investigate, prosecute and pass judgments on them and nothing would happen because these agents would essentially be exposing their own crimes if they revealed the truth. The second reason is that agents of apartheid destroyed millions of pieces of incriminating evidence and indeed when these criminals who didn’t confess were prosecuted they were acquitted by the holdover apartheid criminals.
There are many studies on the South African experiment and how criminals got away with impunity. See Munyonzwe Hamalengwa, “Getting Away With Impunity: South African Apartheid Criminals and International Criminal Law”. Would Zambian looters and the corrupt get away with impunity?
HH, one such criminal where there was overwhelming evidence of his crimes against humanity under apartheid was one Walter Basson, otherwise known as Dr Death. This is a guy who admitted infecting thousands of Blacks with HIV and dropping hundreds of live Black South Africans over the Atlantic Ocean to be eaten by sharks below and many other horrible deaths. The investigation by agents of apartheid were shoddy but there was nonetheless enough evidence for his conviction but was acquitted by an apartheid judge who had excluded rims of incriminating evidence. HH, you can’t use the same prosecutors, ACC, DEC etc and same judges who protected these criminals before to now vigorously prosecute the birds of the same feather?
In Zambia, the evidence of massive PF looting and corruption is there. You don’t need these characters to continue in their employment at tax payer’s expense. Learn from how apartheid criminals got away with impunity. You can never win the hearts and minds of the heads of ACC, DEC, RTSA, FRA, Police, ZESCO etc put there by someone who had vowed to put you in jail for privatisation conundrum that happened three decades ago and someone who had already detained you 15 times. ECL doesn’t even know that judge Kabazo Chanda of the High Court as he then was, had dismissed judicially any inquiries pertaining to privatisation ruling that the programme was approved by the Executive and the Legislature.
HH, Walter Basson’s case was appealed all the way to the ConCourt. The new court reversed the acquittal and stated categorically that South Africa is obligated to retry Basson under the exigencies of international criminal law encompassing apartheid as a crime against humanity since South Africa was a signatory to international criminal conventions.
Guess what HH, the South African President at the time was Jacob Zuma and Zuma ignored the recommendation. Basson remained and remains a free man. Will Zambia enable the ECL criminals to enjoy impunity.?
So that corrupt criminals don’t luxuriate in impunity like the apartheid criminals, Zambian Professor Kenneth Mwenda recommends reverse onus situation when it comes to the prosecution of the perpetrators of corruption. Didn’t your prominent lawyer John Sangwa SC disclose that the ECL PF party was more like a criminal organisation than anything else. When you let these criminals get away with impunity, you are enhancing the image of organised state criminality as being infused in the new fabric of the new dawn government. Don’t embrace these criminals.
Like you HH we used to have difficulties in prosecuting mafia organised criminality until we started using unorthodox organised criminals racketeering laws. Do you have such laws in Zambia. Ask Joe to send a team to help you draft a raft of such laws. You can’t prosecute Zambia organised PF state criminality with old tired laws using same old tired corrupt ACC, DEC, DPP etc. It is the new dawn, HH. There must be evidence on the corruption front. Keeping these people does not offer Zambians the succour that they fought so hard for.
HH, Zuma even tried to prevent victims of the crime of apartheid from seeking reparations in the US courts under the Alien Torts Act of 1787. Zuma became an epitome of state capture. He even facilitated the escape of war criminal Al Bashir from South Africa under an ICC warrant. But Bashir was eventually overthrown in Sudan and is now under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. These criminals should not escape with impunity.
Here, HH, I am really troubled as I make these pronouncements. We let George W and Donald Rumsfeld walk away with impunity just like apartheid criminals. Trump may also walk away. Some people are saying the same thing about me that I killed a lot of people through the use of drones without affording those killed the prior due process of the law. HH, I have sleepless nights but I can justify what I did on the basis of self defence. Can this defence stand in a court of law? There is no precedent. HH, do the right thing and you have company on your side as I can see from your daily morning postings. Go see Joe now.
March 25, 2024 update new conversation between
BO and HH
HH, I can update you that since we last spoke, Donald Trump has since been indicted severally, breaking the precedent of non-indictment of former American presidents that I had feared most.
HH, since our last conversation in September 2021, I hear a lot of things have changed in Zambia while also a lot of things have remained the same. That conversation was just after the elections and what we discussed were as things stood then.
HH, some things you have done really well. I have just finished reading the book by your new Chief Justice Dr Mumba Malila, entitled, “Judicial Leadership and the Quest for a Reformed Zambian Judiciary”. HH, you have done some things correctly respecting the judiciary and the fight against corruption. HH, you are in good company and I wish you success as you fight corruption of the old and the new.
HH, I also finished a fascinating book by Sam Nujoma entitled, “Where Others Wavered, My Life in SWAPO and my participation in the liberation struggle of Namibia”. What a book! What a man! HH, I can see you write a book along Sam Nujoma’s title. Your title could be something like, Hakainde Hichilema, “Where Others Wavered, My Life in UPND and my participation in the struggle against corruption in Zambia”.
The author teaches Criminal Law and the Law of Evidence. Reach him via:
munyonzwe.hamalengwa@zaou.ac.zm