By The Post Editor
Mon 19 Apr. 2010
postzambia

NO amount of intimidation will silence our people’s desire for progress.
It has become abundantly clear that Rupiah Banda and his minions have run out of ideas on how to keep themselves relevant to our people.



We say this because they have made it very plain that intimidation is their preferred mode of engagement with those who hold views different from what they think. It is clear that Rupiah is becoming autocratic and he is ready to use his position to bully all his opponents into submission if he could. It is also clear that his preferred mode of operation is submarine. Rupiah is hiding behind his minions to push oppressive schemes. Rupiah is pushing his ministers to oppress our people and intimidate them.

Hardly a week goes by without one threat or another being made against this or that citizen for expressing their opinion. If Rupiah had his way, he would want this country to be a police state with his ministers daily directing who should be arrested because they expressed an opinion which was different from what they like.

It seems that Rupiah is trying to relive some very negative periods of the history of our continent. The autocratic tendencies that he is displaying are reminding us of the shameful excesses that characterised the rule of people like Kamuzu Banda in Malawi. Our people will not accept to be intimidated and brutalised in the way that Kamuzu Banda intimidated and brutalised his people in Malawi. Anyway, he may manage to intimidate many of our people but we promise him one thing, we will not be among them.

We decided a very long time ago that our comfort and wellbeing was secondary to the needs of our country. For that reason, we have never shied away from being critical, sometimes in very harsh terms, of governments that have tried to oppress our people and thought they held an unchallengeable hold on power. We have not been spared the indignity of being dragged before courts of law by those in power for the simple reason that we have dared to criticise them.

This is not a mere question of bravado or a disinterest in the benefits of a peaceful and quiet life, but we are driven by the realisation that if all of us kept quiet as things got out of hand in our country we would have no one to blame but ourselves for the anarchy that could result.

We are also driven by the knowledge that we are not the only ones who feel strongly about where our country should go and how wrong some of the things happening in our country are. Yes, Rupiah may intimidate some poor souls into submission but he cannot intimidate all our people.

We do not want to be counted amongst those who chose personal benefit at the expense of national interests. This is what drives us.

The threats to investigate and possibly arrest General Malimba Masheke for expressing his view on Rupiah’s decision to retire all his commanders and their deputies is shameful indeed. What wrong did General Masheke commit when he analysed and gave his view on the implications of the way that Rupiah had behaved? What state secrets did General Masheke divulge?

As he himself says, the shameful threat by minister for information and chief government spokesman Ronnie Shikapwasha is a naked attempt to intimidate a man for expressing an opinion on matters that were in the public domain.

General Masheke left the Army many years ago and to suggest that he has breached his oath of secrecy by commenting on Rupiah’s own comedy of errors when he removed all the commanders of the fighting forces together with their deputies is shallow, hollow and intellectually bankrupt bunkum. It is unfortunate that this is all that we have come to expect from Shikapwasha.

One would have expected that with his experience, he would have dismissed that issue with the contempt it deserved. Anyway, he is not working alone. He is working on the instructions of ‘boma’, Rupiah himself.

How else could one explain the fact that Shikapwasha is telling us that two ministers have been instructed to look into the matter? Who instructed these ministers? It can only be Rupiah. Shikapwasha has no authority to instruct anybody on a matter of this nature.

These friends of ours are very interesting. People like Shikapwasha are always complaining about how this one or that one is not respecting them. What about him? What respect is he showing to General Masheke? Whether he likes it or not, Shikapwasha could never be a soldier and military expert that Masheke was in his time. These are people that served this country and this region admirably and retired from active military service honourably.

General Masheke has been in politics for a long time. Why should he not comment on a matter of general public interest which affects his particular expertise? Rupiah and his minions are so confused they don’t even listen to themselves when they are talking. How many people are they going to threaten with arrest?

Instead of trying to intimidate a solid man, Shikapwasha should concentrate on explaining his boss’ shameful contradiction. General Masheke in commenting on the matter of the retirement of the defence chiefs made it clear that the President had the right to do what he had done.

Having said that, he also pointed out that notwithstanding his right, the President’s actions tended to suggest that there was a crisis. What was wrong about that? If anything, General Masheke’s analysis is supported by Rupiah’s own contradictory pronouncements on the matter.

Rupiah claimed that he had retired the defence chiefs and their deputies because they had reached retirement age and there was need to allow the rank and file in the forces to move up into those places.

Having given what he thought was a satisfactory explanation, Rupiah went ahead to appoint some people who are clearly above retirement age. In fact, the new Zambia Air Force (ZAF) commander Lieutenant General Andrew Sakala was recalled from retirement.

What was so critical at ZAF to recall a man who had retired to replace others who had reached retirement age? The same can be said about the Army commander Lieutenant General Wisdom Lopa. We have no doubt in our minds that he too must be past retirement age.

This raises the question: why did Rupiah give the nation misleading information? Is it wrong for General Masheke to comment on such a serious matter? Rupiah and his minions know that once again they have been caught lying. Their arrogance prevents them from simply keeping quiet. They have instead chosen to attack innocent people to try and mask their naked schemes.

This use of the judicial process to try and muzzle all critical voices will not work. Others have tried it before but it has not worked. What Rupiah and his friends are doing is simply to rob our police and our courts of law of their respect and, therefore, the legitimacy that they should have in the public eyes. This daily menu of threatening investigation, arrest and prosecution of anyone who criticises them is a recipe for disaster.

The police are there to maintain law and order for all of us. Trying to use them as an extension of the political machine is leading the country into anarchy. We all know that if people lose respect for the judicial process, they will find the prospect of taking the law into their own hands very attractive.

These childish attacks on General Masheke will not help Rupiah to divert attention from his disastrous press conference at which he raised more questions than he answered. This was a man who did not even know what ranks the people he was appointing should really have.

Some of the people he appointed ended up with two or three promotions on the same day. What was the rush? Why the confusion? What Rupiah and his minions are doing will not help them. They should leave General Masheke alone.