By Sishuwa Sishuwa
YOU ARE JUST A BAD HUMAN BEING, MR HICHILEMA. RELEASE XAVIER CHUNGU: An Open Letter to the President
By Sishuwa Sishuwa
Hello Mr. Hichilema,
May you and your police please release Xavier Chungu, the presidential candidate of the opposition Liberal Democrats Party. After suppressing the right to peaceful assembly over the last four years and ten months, it is critically important for your administration to let the opposition freely conduct their political campaigns in the remaining two months before the election.
On Thursday, the police released a statement saying Chungu “was” questioned as part of an investigation. The use of the word “was” made it look like he was released after questioning when in fact he has been detained since 7:40am. The next day, on Friday, the police released another statement saying a warn and caution statement was recorded from Chungu. This framing made it look like he was released after the said warn and caution statement was recorded. It may be that these statements were intentionally designed to mislead external human rights bodies such as Amnesty International, UN Human Rights, and Human Rights Watch, since government-funded NGOs like the Human Rights Commission of Zambia are busy looking away.
Others like the dreadful UN Resident Coordinator
Mutali Beatrice appears to be completely unbothered and only focused on calculating the time that is remaining before she gets her pension. I sometimes wonder what Zambia did to Antonio Guterres and his predecessor for the UN Secretary General to keep sending us semi-retirees as RCs. Like Janet Rogan before her (to read how terrible Janet was, click here: https://diggers.news/guest-diggers/2018/04/09/is-janet-rogan-the-undp-resident-representative-undermining-the-uns-neutrality-in-zambia/), Beatrice Mutali is totally removed from what is happening in the country, as if she is just waiting for disaster to happen so that she can finally have a job: reporting about it! Whatever the case, the continued pretrial detention of the opposition leader is unacceptable and wrong.
The offense for which Chungu was arrested and charged attracts bond. On Thursday, he was charged and asked to present two working sureties. Four people were made available, but the police said formal processes for bond would only be completed today. On Friday, the police shifted goal posts and demanded that Chungu should present sureties at the level of Director or Chief Executive Officer. No law was cited in support of this demand, which, one may argue, was imposed to keep him in detention for the weekend.
You arrested the man on Thursday morning. You charged him the same day. He presented the sureties the same day. Yet he is spending the weekend in custody. A man who should be freely campaigning, as you are doing, is spending a weekend in detention for no clear reason. These are some of the injustices you were subjected to by your predecessor when you were in opposition. You condemned detention without timely bond as unjust and an abuse of state power. Today, you are in power and doing to your political opponents the very wrong things that you condemned when done to you in opposition by your predecessor. Where is the difference you promised? You see why I say you are just a bad human being, Mr. Hichilema?
Ok, I am aware that you are surprised at how the former spy chief managed to beat the system by quietly registering his party (when your administration was blocking so many others) and raising the 100 supporters required in each province – including Southern Province – for the nomination process. You only picked this information at the eleventh hour when Chungu notified the electoral commission about his intention to file in his papers for the Zambian presidency. This, alongside his statement that change is coming in August, has sent shivers down your spine. It made you start going through his phones, properties, office, everything, in search of a case to be built against him. Now you are keeping him in detention even after charging him. This is not how to use power, Mr. Hichilema.
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I would have joined Katele Kalumba in saying the police are provoking conditions for disorder, but since they are working under your instructions, I will say this: Mr, Hichilema, you are provoking conditions for disorder. Please release Xavier. Your continued detention of the man is ruining the credibility of an already problematic election. Win power cleanly, not by excluding political opponents, arresting them, or keeping them in prolonged detention. What you are doing is not right.
Source:
https://x.com/ssishuwa/status/2060434123726991750?s=20