NO AMOUNT OF MEDIA SPINNING WILL ABSOLVE HICHILEMA OF WRONGDOING- Fred M’membe

NO AMOUNT OF MEDIA SPINNING WILL ABSOLVE HICHILEMA OF WRONGDOING

Since the passing of our sixth president Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu, we have seen videos and narratives emerge aiming to cast Mr Hakainde Hichilema as the most persecuted politician in Zambia’s recent history.

Clearly, these desperate efforts appear calculated to definitely justify either implicitly or explicitly Mr Hichilema and the UPND government’s mistreatment of Mr Lungu, especially the rejection of his right to travel to seek medical treatment abroad since leaving office in 2021.

There is a frantic campaign aimed at laundering Mr Hichilema and the UPND government for their mistake in the manner they handled Mr Lungu post his presidency and subsequently his illness, which led to his death.

Let us face the truth here. We do not downplay the difficulties that Mr Hichilema and the UPND faced during the PF administration. Nonetheless, he is not the only leader in Zambia’s political history to have endured persecution.

Our political past and certainly, our present are riddled with examples and reminders of how the state machinery is being used to suppress dissent. This is not so hard to prove. One only needs to recall how extremely dangerous it would be today for any opposition leader to disrupt Mr Hichilema’s motorcade the way he did during Mr Lungu’s presidency. What would happen to such a leader now? Would he be alive? What won’t this vicious regime and its law enforcement do to set an example for others?

Today, under Mr Hichilema’s leadership, several opposition political leaders have fled the country. They’ve been forced to go into exile, people like Ambassador Emmanuel Mwamba, Emmanuel Jay Jay Banda and others after suffering intense political harassment and real threats on their lives.

Equally, I was among the first to challenge the Public Order Act (POA) and I paid a heavy price for it. I was detained and harassed by the regime at that time. This was just one of my many detentions and harassment by different regimes that have governed this country. But it’s immoral for me to use past injustices against me to justify my current illegal and cruel actions, if any.

Further, under Mr Hichilema and the UPND administration, opposition leaders have repeatedly been arrested on trumped up charges, tortured, detained in remote locations, and publicly humiliated. It is a fact that the treatment of opposition leaders today is disturbingly similar, if not worse than what Mr Hichilema himself once endured during his days in opposition.

Therefore, it is not proper and decent that in light of Mr Lungu and his family and party’s current predicament, we should now be expected to sympathise with Mr Hichilema and his supporters for what they went through in their days in opposition? This is wrong by all means.

Mr Hichilema and the UPND government must realize that Zambians are not blind. We will not accept the hypocrisy. We will not accept this deceit and manipulation from them. There is a limit to how far they can go with their insincerity and lack of integrity.

Our point is if Mr Hichilema truly believes in the values he once preached about democracy, fairness, and justice then let him reflect deeply on his government’s cruel actions against their political competitors and critics. Indeed, political persecution, whether by PF or UPND, must be condemned. But at the same time, sympathy cannot be demanded while continuing the same injustices as those that have taken place before if not worse.

Let Mr Lungu’s death and that of others before him, be a learning curve  for all of us, to firstly accept and understand the past, and secondly, begin our healing and reconciliation process. Only then can we truly move forward as a nation.

Otherwise, no spin is sufficient to absolve Mr Hichilema of his wrongdoing.

Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party