SA needs to act to reverse Zambia’s sad slide into dictatorship
AS South Africa prepares to take over as chair of SADC (Southern African Development Community) next month, one of its most urgent challenges will be to forge regional consensus on how to reverse Zambia’s slide towards dictatorship.
Not many South Africans follow Zambian politics, but what they do know about Zambia is that it was the home of ANC leaders in exile under apartheid; it was led by the much loved Kenneth Kaunda – a fervent supporter of the liberation movements; and that the country is the second biggest producer of copper in Africa.
But beyond that not much was heard about Zambia, until DA leader Mmusi Maimane tried to attend the treason trial of Zambian opposition leader, Hakainde Hichilema recently, and was refused entry into the country.
Then came the EFF’s condemnation of the growing state repression there. It should be noted that former president Kaunda recently tried to visit Hichilema in prison, but was prevented from doing so.
Zambia was long considered one of Southern Africa’s more stable democracies, but with the death of its President Michael Sata in 2014, and the rise of Edgar Lungu to the presidency in elections (the results of which have been hotly contested), the government has adopted increasingly draconian measures in dealing with opposition and dissent.
Lungu has suspended 48 members of parliament for having boycotted his state of the nation address. But more concerning is the level of oppression, torture and detention without trial in recent months that is sounding alarm bells.
In April, Hichilema was detained following a raid on his home reportedly by over 100 police officers, some using tear gas. He was accused of endangering the president’s life by not making way for the president’s motorcade, and for this traffic offence he is being tried for treason.
A guilty verdict for treason in Zambia can be punishable by death.
According to a source close to Hichilema, he was allegedly tied up like a dog, beaten, and thrown in a cell with excrement on the floor, with only a bucket to relieve himself. He has also been moved to a maximum security prison 160km outside of the capital Lusaka to make it difficult for his family to see him.
The case has all the hallmarks of the apartheid security police stories – concocted charges, beatings, treason charges, a closing of the political space where people are afraid to criticise the government for fear of their physical security.
Since Lungu declared a state of emergency on July 5, journalists claim that over 500 members of the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) have been detained without charges, and 18 have already been executed.
Mutinta Haabasune, a female online journalist, was detained on July 12 for 10 days for “insulting the president”, tortured and only released from detention a week ago. She has written about her alleged torture in detention, the beatings, being denied food and clothing, and prevented from bathing. She claims this has been the fate of hundreds in the clampdown on the opposition UPND since the government declared the state of emergency.
In a week where we have been reminded of the torture and gross abuses of human rights in John Vorster Square in the 1970s during the reopening of the Ahmed Timol inquest, we need to be cognisant that the same tactics are currently being used against the political opposition in detention in Zambia.
The ruling party of Zambia has sought to paint Hichilema as an agent of foreign powers, which they have argued in an article posted on their Facebook page – suggesting that Hichilema was in cahoots with former Nigerian president Olesegun Obasanjo and wealthy South African businessman Jonathan Oppenheimer to install Hichilema as president of Zambia, given their business interests in the country.
The article depicted Hichilema as being part of a secret alliance with Oppenheimer and Obasanjo, which discussed involving foreign military intervention.
The narrative is laughable. The article refers to these secret meetings taking place in 2014 and 2016 at the Oppenheimer game reserve in the Kalahari, organised by Greg Mills and the Brenthurst Foundation. The Brenthurst Foundation regularly hosts political think-tank dialogues at the Kalahari Tswalu Reserve, and while Obasanjo and Hichilema participated in Brenthurst Foundation dialogues, so did former president Kgalema Motlanthe and numerous other South African government officials and academics.
Zambian government officials were also invited to attend, but according to Mills had declined the invitation. There was nothing secretive about the meetings, and there is no evidence to support such a conspiracy theory. Despite the Zambian high commission being asked to produce evidence to back up the claims, they have so far refused to respond.
It will now be one of the first tests of South Africa’s leadership of SADC as to whether it can effectively mobilise the region to pressure Lungu to restore the rule of law and political freedom in that country.