By MacDonald Chipenzi
PEACE ACCORDS IN ZAMBIA: CULTURE OF DISPLAYED HYPOCRISY.
EVERY time the country faces an election, albeit general or by-election, peace ACCORDS mooted by various institutions are signed in churches and other opulent places such as hotels and international conference centres.
These peace accords, accompanied by borrowed flowering words in speeches, are witnessed by the affluents and signed by representatives of political parties who also are elitists and police elites in some instances after having teas and snacks but the culture of violence has not shown any signs of abation.
The self-created violence happens in compounds and committed by the children of the poor living in compounds affecting the poor in compounds who get teargassed and not the affluents and their children in safe havens, hotels and cathedrals.
The violence does not affect the pastors staying in high cost residential areas and their members living mu mayadis but those clergy men and women and their members living in compounds kwa Kuku, kwa Kanyama, Kwa Jack, Kwa Mandevu and the General kwa family etc.
Since the signing of these peace ACCORDS started which now has been a culture may be that is where donor money and focus has shifted , I have not witnessed any one peace ACCORD that have been signed kwa Kanyama, Chawama, Kabwata munyaule, Mandevu and witnessed or signed by the so called commanders and their people and witnessed by the compound based pastors.
Not even where the local police men and women have witnessed such but instead when such projects come, the headquarters police get the scramble and sign without the actuals on the ground.
All the signs are at and in opulent places where the poor and those involved in and affected by violence rarely frequent or familiar with such as Cathedrals, hotels and International Conference Centres.
We have become too elitists resolving our problems including violence the reason we fear the places where things actually happen from and why we are not involve the actuals is difficult to appreciate and why we target perceived sponsors, in this case the leaders who in most cases who are elitists and also never in these areas is puzzling
This is where, I feel, we go wrong with the peace efforts and why we have ended up failing to curb the violence ending up having multiple peace ACCORDS.
Because we involve innocent people in signing and participating in these peace accords leaving out the affected, aggressors the reasons these peace ACCORDS lack enforcements and have failed to give results.
Under the guise of representative democracy, which we all know is failing us in many respects, the witnesses and the signees to these peace accords never get to the affected audiences but end in hotels, cathedrals and opulent centres.
Those invited to these signing ceremonies and feasts are not concerned about violence in real sense as it does not affect but benefit them.
They may be remotely connected to those affected and will attend all the meetings on peace and on behalf of the affected people moreso, especially, if these meetings are massaged with allowances, other benefits and for building CVs.
We must learn the psychology of the aggressors of violence especially having involved in peacebuilding and rebuilding efforts in other countries and how such efforts failed to yield immediate results when targeting wrong targets whose main aim is to be relevant and enrichment.
Anyone can prove me wrong by giving me an example of any peace-effort involving leaders of the rebels that abruptly ended despite agreements signed in hotels, cathedrals etc other than enriching foreign consultants and so called mediators at the expense of innocent lives.
Cadres once indoctrinated with the hate doctrine against their opponents, don’t need any command from their leaders to commit violence, the violence is involuntarily committed.
They just become viciously uncompromising in defending the doctrine inculcated in them and the sight of an opponent becomes an irritating sore, brand and trade mark to them and triggers anger and fighting hormones.
Community consciousness in ending violence is key not peace ACCORDS signed in hotels, cathedrals and opulent centres which has now become a culture of hypocrisy.
Attack my reasoning not myself
I submit
Chipenzi