Our foreign policy is being torn apart, notes Changala
By Thomas Ngala
GOOD governance activist Brebner Changala has demanded that President Hakainde Hichilema should brief the nation on what the current country’s foreign policy is.
Recently, while declaring the current dry spell as national disaster and emergency, President Hichilema said “you won’t believe it, just an hour before, Minister of Agriculture [Mtolo Phiri], I was talking to the President of Israel, and he too, instantly on the phone said he will make sure that a specialised team in water harvest and irrigation will be dispatched to our country immediately even though they are at war. I think this is what friendship is all about”.
“Now, what about us who are here? Do we wait for people who are at war to assist us? No. We need assistance but charity begins at home,” said President Hichilema.
Reacting to the President’s statement, Changala recalled that Zambia has been a non-aligned country since independence.
“…and it has stayed so until the new dawn administration came into power. As we stand, we demand that we are well briefed by this administration as to what is our foreign policy. No wonder, three months after the resignation of the foreign minister [Stanley Kakubo], we don’t have a substantive minister of foreign affairs,” he told The Mast. “What the President said at the press conference that he had been talking to the President of Israel, to help us ameliorate our [challenge] is strange as it was shameful. Zambia has always been an ally of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Orgainsation).”
Changala said Zambia has stood with all the oppressed people all over the world.
“Zambia stood with the African National Congress. Zambia stood with SWAPO (The South West Africa People’s Organisation) and Zambia stood with the people of South Sudan,” he said.
Changala said it is very strange that the foreign policy is being torn apart without a clear mandate from the people of Zambia through the national assembly and cabinet.
He accused President Hichilema of shifting Zambia towards oppressive regimes.
“On the war in Ukraine, he found himself elsewhere. On the war in Israel and Gaza, he has found himself on the wrong side and history will judge this administration harshly. The people of Gaza and the people of Palestine are oppressed people by, as I said, Israel,” said Changala. “What we need to fight for is a two-state solution, the independence of the people of Palestine. And for us to lean on the side of the oppressor is unZambian. And we need a full explanation from President Hakainde Hichilema. When did Zambia change its foreign policy? That is cardinal. We need to know where we stand as a nation. Only …. week, the Solicitor General [Marshal Muchende] at the International Court of Justice made a submission that was truly in support of the genocide in Gaza. That is inhuman, unforgivable and barbaric.”