ZAMBIA – SLEEP WALKING INTO A POLICE STATE – A CLARION ALERT!
28th October 2022
As the New Heritage Party (NHP), a party that lives up to its name of upholding our Zambian democratic heritage, we are deeply concerned at the break down of the rule of law in the country.
We say this after noting with dismay that this penchant to disregard the law is happening almost on a daily basis, as well as the insipid introduction of a fascist order, under the leadership of the United Party for National Development (UPND) headed by President Hakainde Hichilema and who is taking the country back to the one party state in all but name.
As a party that cherishes our heritage as a regional model of peace that we have enjoyed for more than half a century, we are speaking for the voiceless Zambians who invested massively in the change of government from the leadership of the former ruling party, the Patriotic Front (PF) to the UPND.
While it is common sense to every Zambian that what characterised the governance of the PF is unbridled corruption, political thuggery and mismanagement of the economy, we are grossly disappointed that the UPND has its own brand of bad governance that, if left unchecked, will rank Zambia as a failed state in the same league with some war torn countries in our region and beyond.
We have observed with disquiet the increasing number of arrests, of a number of prominent Zambians, especially those from the former rulling party the PF, and in recent times some prominent business persons, some on very questionable grounds – but for the reason that most of these cases are still in court we would have actually cited specific cases. Suffice to say that what we are witnessing through these indiscriminate arrests, is an escalating show of intolerance for divergent views and dissent in general, which in the normal course of things are the hallmark of a democratic dispensation.
The other worrying bad governance trait that is reminiscent of fascist regimes the world over is the deliberate imasculation of and surbodination of the democratic governance institutions such as the courts, the elections body, the police and other state security institutions, the church and other civic bodies, trade unions ,the student movement, traditional authorities and most importantly to the media.
We have in recent times in our country witnessed the removal under unexplained circumstances, of key and senior members of the Electoral Commission of Zambia, thereby leaving this critical governance institution without legitimate leadership, leading to the complete manipulation and abuse of the electoral process in the recent Kabushi and Kwacha by elections.
We can also cite the recent dismissal of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Lillian Siyuni, an action that has drilled holes in the independence that this cardinal office has in the delivery of justice. The glaring anomalies of her dismissal, based on the partisan, partial and illegally constituted, Vincent Malambo led Judicial Complaints Commission (JCC) is a disgrace to the nation and the judiciary of our country.
We note also with dismay, the contemptuous conduct of the executive branch, through the office of the Attorney General towards court decisions and orders, such as the stay which the high court put on elections in Kabushi and Kwacha but which were totally ignored by both the state and ECZ, clearly making the separation of powers a big joke and, in a similar vein, making the independence of the judiciary and it’s decions in so far as the UPND government is concerned, of no consequence.
This should alarm progressive Zambians since we feel something rotten is being incubated in the UPND hatchery that is not only divisive but destructive to the wellbeing of the populace.
We sound this clarion call knowing that this is not happening in the first and second republics when Zambia was a police state subsisting under a perpetual state of emergency, necessitated by the fact that Kenneth Kaunda was starting a new nation coupled with the serious internal and external security threats to the nation caused by the interparty political violence mainly between the ANC and UNIP on one hand and the on going wars of liberation aiding neighbouring countries like Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and Namibia which were under colonial rule, on the other.
After the 1968 Choma Declaration of the almagamation of ANC and UNIP into one party and the 1991 change from one party rule to plural politics and the eventual attainment of independence in neighbouring countries, Zambia had no further need to continue being a police state and the successive leaders to Kaunda from Frederick Chiluba, Levy Mwanawasa, Rupiah Banda and Michael Sata acknowledged this progressive status quo.
Alas! The UPND seems to be blind to this pacifist history and is shepherding the country back to the days of the police state characterised by the over empowering of security wings, intolerance to opposition and concentration of power in the executive and other draconian forms of autocratic governance.
All this is being done to prepare, the Zambian population to quitely accept to live in fear of the rulling party through the state coercive forces of the police, DEC, ACC, Army and other security agencies. The real targets for this intimidatory project of the UPND, is the Zambian masses who must be forced into submission so that the foreign sponsors of the UPND can continue to plunder our nutural resources freely, without the fear of rebellion from a harrased and cowed citizenry.
We can safely say that with the state capture of ECZ and the constitutional court, any upcoming elections whether parliamentary or presidential would only favour the ruling party.
These injustices cries to the heavens high and should prompt any peace-loving and progressive Zambian to protest, since it is an affront on our wellbeing and dignity as human beings.
The New Heritage Party, which speaks for the people, is calling on peace loving Zambians to resist and strongly condemn these attempts at state capture of our governance institutions and the base attempts to disempower them for the benefit of foreign individuals and other corporate entities which are in control of the UPND.
Zambians should know that this so called fight against corruption by the UPND is nothing but a ruse through which they are abusing the sacred mandate of the Zambian people to settle scores with their enemies, real or imaginary and that when they are done with the “corrupt PF” they are coming for the ordinary Zambians. They have already demonstrated their hatred for poor Zambians in Kasompe, Chingola where they razed poor people’s homes and in Lusaka where the poor telephone booth operaters where again they demolished the only source of income for these unemployed youths.
Zambians, the New Heritage Party, calls upon you to wake up to the UPND’s schemes and say enough is enough. In ending this Clarion alert we leave you with this timeless quote by pastor and theologian Martin Niemöller who famously said
” First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Long live Zambia; long live our rich heritage, long live people’s power.
#ZambiaOurHeritage
CHISHALA KATEKA
President – New Heritage Party