“Bury ECL, Free Fred: Zambia’s Ghost of Democracy”
…President HH, where are you?
Chilenje Police Post, Lusaka.
3 Mar 26
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“If President HH had a problem today, I would be the first person to speak on his behalf,”—Dr. Fred M’membe.
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The gates groan open, heavy with the weight of history and irony, and I, with my buddy George Chulumanda, a former cabinet minister and lawmaker, stand.
George is a friend of Dr. Fred M’membe, and an unwitting companion on this curious pilgrimage ahead of the polls on 13 August in Zambia
There is no grandeur here, only a somber hush. The air is thick with sorrow, a revolution swirling quietly under the surface, and the fate of a nation’s conscience locked behind steel.
We are here to see Dr. Fred M’membe, a presidential aspirant, journalist, lawyer, and, in this bitter season, a prisoner of conscience.
Fred has been held for two days. His crime, they say, is “humiliating the President” of Zambia, H.E. Hichilema.
The president in question, our own Hakainde Hichilema—beloved by some, feared by others—has, by official fiat, become a man so sacrosanct that dissent itself is outlawed.
And this is the 21st Century.
Fred’s sin? Speaking out against the unburied corpse of the late President Edgar Lungu, the predecessor of Hichilema who, nine months after his passing, lies frozen in a bureaucratic and legal limbo in Pretoria, a political ghost haunting the corridors of power.
This, in a country where voices are hushed by baton and law, where Amnesty International, the UN Rights Commission, and Human Rights Watch have all raised the alarm on shrinking civic space. Zambia, once a beacon, now flickers under a darkening sky.
I find Fred in the bowels of a Chilenje cell, summoned from his cell by a polite, almost apologetic police officer, four of them actually.
There is a quiet dignity in Fred’s bearing, even as he emerges from a dark cell that stinks of neglect and filth, lit only by the dim glow of justice denied.
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He is denied even the comfort of a mattress—a small cruelty that stings all the more for its pettiness. Fred, ever resilient, has made a habit of buying mattresses for his fellow detainees; here, he has been denied even that small humanity.
“Ambassador, what I did I do not regret,” Fred says, voice steady and strong, high spirit. “I spoke against an injustice done to the family of President Edgar Lungu. It is cruel to freeze a corpse for nine months. It is not just to deny Mrs. Lungu the right to bury her husband because of politics.”
There is a strange poetry in Fred’s defiance, a Shakespearean melancholy, as if the ghost of Macbeth’s Banquo stalks Zambia, demanding closure, or Hamlet’s father pleading for rest.
The non-burial of a leader is not new in Africa—think of Kwame Nkrumah, Alexander the Great, the voodoo of unburied kings. The difference is, here, the entire nation is forced to watch, mouths covered, hearts heavy.
Fred continues: “If it were President Hichilema lying unburied, I would have spoken out all the same. When Hichilema was a prisoner in Mukobeko, I demanded his release. I told my young brother, Dr. George Magwende, to ensure his safety. When Hichilema became President, he made Dr. George Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health. Justice yesterday for Hichilema, justice today for Lungu. This is not about politics, this is about humanity, about ubuntu, that’s what I stand for.”
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There is a tragic absurdity in the air, a sense that Zambia is acting out its own Macbeth, its own Hamlet, with the body of Edgar Lungu as the unquiet ghost.
Why does President Hichilema, never a friend of Lungu, now insist on keeping his corpse from burial via Mulilo Kabesha? Is it a ritual of power, a voodoo of the state, or merely the tragic farce of a wounded democracy, many ask?
The world watches with scorn—former President of Malawi, Bakili Muluzi, Jacob Zuma of South Africa, SADC, all have failed to convince Attorney General Mulilio Kabesha to let the dead rest.
Zambia, the Christian nation, wears its scar openly, a wound that will not heal.
Outside Chilenje Police, the mood is tense but peaceful. Fred’s supporters, cordoned off by a gentle, almost embarrassed police force, wait in the winter dusk.
The optics are abysmal; this is no Waldorf Astoria, just a cell with a black steel gate and the lingering smell of injustice. Yet the police are professional, even kind. It is as if we are all visitors at an ICU, awaiting the prognosis of Zambia’s soul.
I have known Fred for decades—he was my boss at The Post and older brother the legendary paper where I learned the meaning of free expression.
I have watched as his daughter, Akende, now in her thirties, has waited at detention centers across the country for twenty years, the torch of justice passing from one generation to the next.
Free expression and association are the lifeblood of democracy, and Fred stands at the heart of this beleaguered tradition—a freedom fighter in the truest sense, his voice rising above the silence.
In this crucible of sorrow and satire, as Zambia approaches the August 13 elections, the unburied body of Edgar Lungu has become both specter and symbol.
It will be on the ballot, a macabre reminder of the unfinished business of history. Fred, in closing, looks me in the eye and says, “Please, my plea is bury ECL. This is not about politics. It is about dignity, about letting a family, and a nation, find rest and closure. I regret nothing in what I said, and I will say it again whether it’s on ECL or HH.”
So here we are—As Zambia prepares to vote, the ghost of Edgar Lungu haunts us all, and one wonders: in a land where the dead cannot rest, can the living ever truly be free?
No one knows how long Fred will remain in jail in Chilenje for speaking against the non-burial of Edgar Lungu as many remain silent. Fred M’membe is a brave hombre.
President HH is my personal cousin and I say to him, boss tell Kabesha to drop the Pretoria case, you are a great man let ECL sleep you have the power Boss.
n picture is myself with Freds daughter Akande whom I last met visiting her father at Chimbwkaila prison 20 years ago. Crunch that number.
As the French say, “Il faut enterrer les morts pour que les vivants puissent respirer.” (“The dead must be buried so the living may breathe.”)
Bury ECL. Free Zambia’s conscience.
—Amb. Anthony Mukwita, Analyst and Author.
