The threat of violence is what secures peace: is Zambia is on the edge?
By Osward Bwali
IN last week’s column, I stated that President Hakainde Hichilema is creating conditions for a coup. As promised, I wish to highlight these conditions in this column so that the president can change course, or his handlers can advise him to do so. I repeat: I am not advocating for violent seizure of power. As a matter of fact, I do not and will never support coups. It is because of this opposition to violence that I am drawing the attention of the public to conditions that are emerging which threaten peace and stability as well as the democracy of our country. There are many such conditions, but for reasons of space, I will only discuss three of them here.
The first condition that Hichilema has created is the further erosion of public trust in formal institutions such as the Judiciary and the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ). The Judiciary ordinarily exists to diffuse public tension through the fair adjudication of disputes. Edgar Lungu and the Patriotic Front (PF) started this descent of the Judiciary and the ECZ into the abyss, and it was hoped that Hichilema would reverse the trend. In power, he has perfected what his predecessor was doing by ensuring that appointments to both bodies are mostly of men and women from the Zambezi region. In other words, since his election, Hichilema has either promoted or appointed more people from the Zambezi region and the auxiliary groups to the Judiciary and the ECZ than those from ‘other areas’. Many of these new people such as Chocho and several judges on the Constitutional Court are the ones who have gone to handle politically sensitive cases in which Hichilema and the UPND have an interest. The danger here is that people risk losing respect for the Judiciary because they may start seeing the institution as out to dispense decisions in the interest of one region, especially in matters where those on the receiving end of such decisions are either opposition members or people from the ‘other areas’. Once people lost trust in the integrity of the justice system, they are less likely to take their differences to court and more likely to take matters in their own hands. This could lead to chaos and disorder, and even large-scale violence including demands for the resignation of the government.
The second condition that Hichilema has created is the politicisation of the security services especially the police and the army. Not only has Hichilema appointed an Inspector-General of police who has no regard for human rights. He has also ensured that the leadership of the security services hail from the Zambezi region or the auxiliary ethnic groups. This has led to complaints of victimisation in the security services against those perceived to be from the other areas by their colleagues from the Zambezi region. Whether these complaints are real or not is immaterial. The problem is that when security services are led by people from only one region, it is hard to for those coming from other areas to feel that they belong to these institutions and to accept disciplinary outcomes or transfers from one place to another even in instances where there may be justifiable reason for taking such actions. The police arrest members of the opposition and ignore crimes committed by those aligned to the ruling party or hailing from the Zambezi region.
A case in point is the abduction of Emmanuel Jay Banda. The former Petauke Member of Parliament has come out to name the people he said were behind his abduction and who sodomised him. Instead of summoning those named, the police are keeping quiet. Instead of dismissing the named officials, two of whom are members of his presidential advisory team, Hichilema continues to look away. Yet when members of the opposition or those from the ‘other areas’ commit misdemeanors, they are arrested, detained in police custody for a period longer than authorised by law, and sometimes convicted before being denied bail. This could lead to further divisions even within the security wings. When officiating at Kohima Barracks last week, Hichilema urged soldiers to be lethal when dealing with civilians. Such kind of remarks ignore the fact that soldiers are not trained to deal with civilians but to protect the country from external threats. If the president were to unleash soldiers onto the public, there is no guarantee that the officers, in such highly politicised institutions, will not protest against what they may see as an attempt to use them for partisan ends. The end result may be violence and more violence.
The third condition that Hichilema has created is the culture of telling lies and not making effort to explain why he is going against what he had earlier said. I do not need to list here the many things that the president has said he will do only to do the opposite without apologising for change of position or explaining why he is abandoning previous commitments. This has generated a lot of public discontent against his leadership. Such discontent has historically been diffused by the promise of change through elections among the discontented lot who, in other countries, would take to the streets to demand the resignation of the entire government, that is the president and cabinet, for failure to honour promises or for telling lies. Since the political opposition is not being allowed to operate freely by the police and since the Judiciary is not adjudicating disputes in a fair manner, people may lose trust in the use of elections as the best mechanism of changing governments. They may one day rise to demand the resignation of the entire government.
In our context of extreme mass hunger, systemic and structural mass unemployment, generalised mass discontent, the UPND have long published a loud invitation to peaceful insurrection. Thus, in our extremely polarised political environment where even the security services have been politicised, lying by public leaders can have grave consequences on the ability of the police and even the army to quell possible civil unrest. Service men and women including the professional police all thrive on honour, integrity, honesty, loyalty and discipline. These traits constitute the essential qualities they need to see in those they must regard as their leaders such as presidents and cabinet ministers. These military, security and police services hate to pretend that they are loyal and must accord respect to liars, cheats, or people who do not honour their promises and are therefore untrustworthy.
In addition, all police, intelligence and army personnel in leadership positions are trained to protect legitimate states, not illegitimate and fraudulent states. They are trained to read the signs when a state has collapsed through: Loss of public respect of the entire state; Loss of public respect in key state institutions; Loss of public respect of politicians in government; General discontent against the state and politicians; Generalised mass unemployment, poverty, inequalities, gross tribal, ethnic and regional inequalities; corruption becomes a cultural way of life; Nepotism, tribalism, regionalism in promotions in the services, thereby making it virtually impossible for good, career professional from unfavoured background to progress. Currently this is a great source of instability in the services: some are superior to others on account merely of their origins!
Ultimately, “the state” for these men and women is the legal infrastructure and the Constitution and how “civilians” respect these. Hichilema has shown great contempt for the law if his interests are concerned, and now he is overthrowing the constitutional order upon which he was elected and which he swore to protect, defend and advance. As with the Zambian civilian population, HH and the United Party for National Development (UPND) have been behaving as if they are some absolute monarchy, and not a “democratic and constitutional state”. Further they have carried on as if there is a sacred law that the Zambian masses are impotent before them, can do nothing to react to their unconstitutional behaviors! Both are grave errors. The earlier the UPND and Hichilema change for the better and address the conditions that threaten our peace, the better or all of us. As it is, Zambia is on the edge, and the tipping point may be near.
