OUR COLLECTIVE HYPOCRISY OVER PF SPONSORED VIOLENCE IS WHAT BEGETS MORE VIOLENCE.
By Richard Waga
Political violence is a product of our collective hypocrisy, spearheaded by President Lungu.
The pretence that our head of state cannot end violence with his powers or with a politically willed executive order.
Think about it. The same leader who has taken authority away from the police when it comes to PF cadres, is the same one suggesting that the police have failed. He deploys the arm to largely peaceful streets when he knows the terror cells PF thugs operate from.
As a nation we are all pretenders or deniers of the truth. The fact that PF systematically sponsors, abets and immunises violence is visibly and logically evident. The police, the church, the Media, HRC, NGOs, CSOs, PF and some opposition parties are all complicity to the escalation of violence due to their failure to hold President Lungu and his administration accountable.
All these organisation have shared the blame of violence between PF and UPND, even when they know PF is the perpetrators, provocateur, provoker, instigator and sponsor of violence. Most of these organisations are led by cowards who are scared on placing the blame on PF.
Other opposition parties even betray their fellow opposition UPND by blaming them as well, even when they know it is PF that’s always attacking them. To prove this there is no one who can recall an incident where UPND provoked or attacked PF. None, and yet we all want to drag UPND in the same pit of blame.
Denouncing violence has not worked, what has worked is the promotion violence and the impunity granted to PF thugs while police officers who try to stop it get fired. Lungu himself retired police officers who arrested PF thugs who were found with offensive weapons in Sesheke. What a hypocrite! A lot of crimes committed by PF with video evidence have gone unpunished including police station raids, radio station attacks, murders during bye elections, video threats, damage to property, etc.
Even when gruesome attacks are committed by PF thugs, Lungu has never had the guts to call them out and prefers to preach in general terms. The best proof that PF is violent is the mere fact that Police cannot guarantee any citizen safety if they walked in Lusaka with a UPND party regalia, this culture did not just happen, someone promoted it.
President Lungu should learn the difference between Commander-in-chief and Chief priest. Citizens do not expect Lungu to just preach peace, we expect him to guarantee peace. His number one jobs is to protect life, property and liberties of citizens. Domestic and national security are his priority and as commander of the police we expect him to enforce the law and not to just preach the law.
President Lungu has denounce violence more times than Mwanawasa did but violence has escalated because his words are just hot air. Mwanawasa’s words were backed with action and genuine political will and violence stopped. The buck stops with Lungu and never with HH or the opposition. HH himself has been a victim of Lungu’s violence before. Was it not Lungu who sent a death squad to HH house in the middle of the night and cruelly threw teargas in a bunker HH’s family were sheltering in? HH knows the ills of PF violence more than Lungu can ever imagine while Lungu knows the benefit of PF violence because that is what gave him the initial candidacy.
The logic is simple. As long as citizens are scared of holding Lungu and PF accountable, they will continue to use violence for political gains. As long as the police cannot investigate, prosecute and punish PF thugs we shall never know the masterminds of PF violence.
Let us be a country that treasures each life by collectively standing up and calling out the perpetrators and benefactors of violence, without shielding the authorities responsible for ending it.