Dickson Jere and KK – the interview that landed both in jail
DICKSON Jere then a young journalist with the Post got an exclusive interview with KK. In that interview KK predicted unrest if the MMD government continued their authoritarian ways.
Two weeks later Dickson Jere was on the run with the whole State machinery after him.
If there is one profession in Zambia which has suffered persecution by the State it is journalism. Journalists were being hailed before courts in the pre-Independence colonial period and incredibly enough the trend continued all through the post independence years and well into the 2000s.
I got to know a lot of journalists due to my work installing Apple computers and computerising newspapers in the 1990s as well from my father having been Director Public Relations for INDECO in the 1980s. People like Joseph Mkandawire, the late Augustine Seyuba, Simon Mwale have seen me grow from a nerdy teenager to the present day.
Dickson Jere was part of the new crop my friends and contemporaries trained at Evelyn Hone in the late 1980s.
That interview landed him in hot soup. He disappeared from view in the aftermath of the Solo coup as intelligence agents and policemen scoured the country hunting for him. He was the man they wanted because they claimed KK knew or was part of the coup and Dickson Jere would provide that key information.
You see the KK interview Dickson Jere penned predicted the nation was on the edge of an explosion. Bang a week later Captain Solo was on the radio announcing a coup and Dickson Jere was on the run and in true James Bond style eluded the cops and ZSIS for a while.
It was not unusual for a Post journalist to be on the run with the State in hot pursuit. Mulenga Chomba, Sheik Chifuwe, Chris Chitanda, Bright Mwape, Jowie Mwiinga, Anthony Mukwita, Amos Malupenga, Henry Kabwe, Gershom Njovu, Hicks Sikazwe, Masautso Phiri, Joe Kaunda, Goodson Machona, the list is long, they all spent time in hiding or in offices in police stations or worse in hidden unknown locations explaining to shadowy guys in dark sunglasses explaining who their sources were and what they had written or just hiding at an undisclosed location.
I can’t remember who, but I think its Lweendo Hamusankwa, a certain journalist actually had a little bag packed and ready for his next stint in the cells.
Hanging around journalists, the talk would eventually turn to which was the worst police station to be locked up in and whether the police or OP were more pleasant adversaries.
Sometimes the journalists were helped when they needed to lie low. Helpful donors or benefactors would whisk journalists out of the country for seminars or courses or just got them out of the country until the trouble died down. The late Jowie Mwiinga was on one occasion handed a wad of cash and a ticket to Swaziland to help him lie low while irate ruling party cadres hunted for him by the ambassador of a donor country.
Sometimes the adversaries were friendly. I remember one night the Post generously provided Tontos chicken and chips for the OP agents parked outside Kanjonmbe House who were carefully photographing everyone entering the offices of the Post.
I remember the excitement of one cub reporter at the Post proudly showing off his scoop. The older wiser heads were laughing. They knew the reporter was doomed. The cops were sure to come calling.
Journalists shared phone numbers of lawyers and interestingly enough one lawyer who helped a lot of journalists in their travails was one Edgar Lungu !!!
One of the worst cases I remember of state persecution was by avuncular RB. Chansa Kabwela authored a story of a woman who gave birth in the UTH car park complete with pictures. RB was livid. He thundered his anger at such lack of decorum and breach of traditional values. The journalist responsible should be punished he said. The journo was duly arrested. She ended up in the cells !!! Appearing in court like a common criminal ! Petite and beautiful she was obviously suffering in the less than salubrious surroundings of our jails and police cells. It was agonizing to see the pain etched on her husband’s face, ZNBC’s Henry Nglazi, as he provided support and attended court proceedings.
Every year Amnesty International reports had something to say about journalists in trouble with the State.
Lee Habasonda, as an NGO worker for press freedom, was one person I knew who always fought for the locked up journalists. He could be relied upon to look for journalists (they sometimes disappeared) or organised protests in support.
Well this KK interview had repurcussions. Dickson Jere went on the run. For several days helicopters full of armed policemen and intelligence agents scoured the outskirts of Lusaka landing at farms and villages searching for Dickson Jere.
He turned up chained to a hospital bed with an armed policeman outside. The story came out that he had fallen into the hands of the dreaded Emmanuel Lukonde.
The man who tortured Dean Mungomba and Stephen Lungu aka Captain Solo and reportedly cackled with glee when told KK had been arrested and would be his next guest for interrogation.
Dickson Jere to this day has never fully revealed what happened when they finally captured him after weeks on the run. He just disappeared and reappeared in a UTH bed.
He later achieved that pinnacle of journalistic success being the Press Aide to the President. And on his wall today he still does not want to tell the story when he was interrogated and asked to implicate KK in a coup plot.
Today Dickson Jere leads a less exciting life. He is a lawyer and not a fugitive hiding in villages outside Lusaka with choppers full of OP agents and cops looking for him.
Emmanuel Lukonde has passed on. He died in a horrific car crash. He became a tragic figure. Drinking heavily and handing out business cards like confetti and yet people only remembered him as the man who tortured Dean Mungomba. No one wanted to speak freely or drink with him. People don’t forget.
By Brian Mulenga
Kalemba June 23, 2021