Vengeance dressed as fight against graft

...When political persecution is disguised as prosecution

ZAMBIANS have always loathed corruption because of its debil itating impact on their ability to lead normal, decent lives. Corruption shackles citizens to perpetual poverty besides stifling their capacity to participate in and benefit from the equitable exploitation and distribution of national resources.

In this light we welcome efforts by the new dawn government of President Hakainde Hichilema to investigate all cases of corruption so that the culprits can face justice.

However, we are worried about the selective and unprofes sional nature of this fight. The hu miliation, as well as the identity, of those being targeted smack of vengeance.

All the people being arrested or questioned by excited, overzealous elements from investigative wings, except a few, are former and cur rent senior officials of the Patriotic Front (PF) and close associates of President Edgar Lungu.

The arrests have the hallmarks of a well-calculated plan to utterly destroy the PF so that there is no strong opposition to challenge the UPND government’s failures and excesses.

It is clear that President Hichilema and his cronies are bent on turning this country into a defac to one-party state. Zambia’s democ racy is under a siege.

The written script involves the rounding-up of people who occu pied or are occupying senior po sitions in the last administration, humiliating them publicly and then dragging them through lengthy court processes under trumped up charges.

The selective targeting of former ministers, former senior public ser vants and PF MPs are not ordinary security operations as Zambians have known them.

No UPND officials or members are being targeted despite the well- known dark record of the party’s atrocities.

Investigative wings have not ex hibited the same zeal on the infa mous Mapatizya Formula in which over 100 citizens were maimed by UPND militias during the MMD administration, the violence in Mufumbwe, Chiengi, Mpulungu and Nakonde, and the brutal mur ders of PF officials and members in Livingstone, Mongu, Solwezi and Kanyama by UPND rogues.

Several prominent citizens and leaders of opposition political par ties have condemned the political persecution emanating from State House.

In separate posts on their Facebook pages Rainbow Party sec retary general Wynter Kabimba and Party for Economic Patriots (PeP) president Sean Tembo recently de scribed the arrests and searches of properties as “vengeance.”

The political-cum-ethnic witch- hunt is in line with the threats President Hichilema repeatedly made publicly against the PF lead ership and government officials when he was in opposition and after assuming office.

For example, by sensationally labelling citizens from certain re gions who served under previous administrations, especially the last government, as a “clique of thieves” President Hichilema was deliberately poisoning the minds of unsuspecting Zambians not to feel any sympathy for the victims once the arrests and searches began.

He also wants Zambians to ignore his failure to fulfil the many grandi ose promises he made during campaigns.

But did Zambians vote the UPND into power to mete out revenge on Mr Hichilema’s political enemies or to address their problems?

The current persecution is akin to the ill-conceived fight against corruption by the new deal admin istration under former President Levy Mwanawasa. There are glaring similarities.

Before the elections, a former aide to Dr Mwanawasa forged close ties with Mr Hichilema and the UPND.

The man was given vast space in anti-government media to attack President Lungu and the PF. He was one of the architects of the persecu tion of former President Frederick Chiluba and his close allies, which was also thinly disguised as a fight against corruption.

Dr Mwanawasa had resented Dr Chiluba dating back to 1994 when he resigned as republican vice pres ident during the MMD administra tion citing rampant corruption.

Veteran journalist and author Hicks Sikazwe writes in his well-re searched book “Zambia’s Fall-back Presidents” that while President Chiluba was out of the country, Dr Mwanawasa had ordered security wings to investigate then minister of Health Michael Chilufya Sata for alleged corruption.

“But when Chiluba returned from an overseas trip, he called off the probe. This move upset Mwanawasa and he resigned,” Mr Sikazwe writes.

“The sources further insist that Mwanawasa believed that Chiluba had protected Sata on tribal lines.”

As expected when Dr Mwanawasa became head of State he created the controversial, vindictive task force on corruption with the help of his close allies, including The Post newspaper, to fix Dr Chiluba and Mr Sata.

Dramatic arrests of Dr Chiluba’s close associates and former aides, including Mr Sata, followed. The ar rests and prosecutions culminated into the lifting of Dr Chiluba’s im munity and his subsequent prosecu tion on trumped up charges.

But he was later acquitted of all those charges, only convicted of buy ing expensive shoes.

It is therefore not difficult for Zambians to see similarities in the crusades targeting political oppo nents from selected regions.

President Hichilema is reacting to the past instead of leading the na tion. His first 100 days in office were wasteful, a disaster. He expended his energies on whining about the PF, self-praise and scheming how to fix his political opponents instead of fixing the economy, and he has con tinued on that path.

This country needs to heal; it is bleeding. The UPND government is diving us more on ethnic lines. Statements from senior UPND leaders and government officials lamenting how certain regions were favoured while Southern, Western and North-Western provinces al legedly denied development by the last administration are divisive.

Little wonder the appointments to public service positions expose conscious discrimination against certain ethnic groups. We are likely to see the same pattern in Foreign Service appointments. That is not the Zambia the voters wanted.

That is not leadership.

The persecution of the senior leadership of the PF and former public officers disguised as a fight against corruption is a recipe for political and ethnic cleansing. It is a time bomb which is bound to ex plode. It must be dieused.