Kabesha embarrassing Zambia, says Kasonde

Kabesha embarrassing Zambia, says Kasonde

By Tony Nkhoma

ATTORNEY General Mulilo Kabesha has embarrassed Zambia on the international stage over the funeral of late former president Edgar Lungu, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Kasonde Mwenda has said.

And Kabesha said former president Lungu’s benefits were reinstated following his death, in line with constitutional provisions.

Mwenda wondered why President Hakainde Hichilema and the United Party for National (UPND’s) were desperate over Lungu’s body.

Lungu died in South Africa on June 5 but his remains are still in that country and yet to be buried because of a bitter standoff between his family and the Zambian government over control.

“Why is the government desperately fighting over Edgar Lungu’s remains? The Attorney General, Mulilo Kabesha, successfully secured an injunction from the High Court in Pretoria to stop the burial saying he [Lungu] is a state property. But this is the same state property they stripped of his benefits and died a private man. He died a common man,” Mwenda said.

He said Kabesha’s successful securing of an injunction from the High Court in Pretoria to stop the burial of Lungu, a man his government took away benefits from was no longer a legal strategy but an international embarrassment and a national tragedy.

Mwenda said the law suit against the Lungu family filed in South Africa by Hichilema and Kabesha was no longer about honouring Lungu, protocol and patriotism but an evil desire to continue punishing Lungu even in his death.

“This is all about settling political power play over a dead man’s body. And it reeks. It stinks of insecurity, desperation and a disturbing attempt to rewrite legacy by force. Let us speak plainly; what kind of government fights to own the dead while failing to serve the living?” Mwenda wondered.

He said the justification by the UPND government that Lungu should be buried in Zambia with full honours as part of his benefits was unconvincing.

Mwenda said instead, Lungu’s family and not the State, should have the final say on his burial arrangements and where he should lie because he died as a private person.

“Yet the State, like a paranoid regime frightened even by a lifeless body, has invoked courts, lawyers and diplomatic channels to seize control. And for what? These are the deeper questions haunting the nation and the government knows it,” he said.

“It is about converting grief into a political weapon. While families mourn, the State plays games with the dead and worse, uses the distraction to quietly advance constitutional changes behind our backs,” he said.

But Kabesha has explained that under Zambian law, when a former president who re-entered active politics subsequently stopped political activity, their benefits were reinstated, which was the case with Lungu after his death.

Appearing on various media outlets he said he was disappointed with critics opposing government’s insistence on giving Lungu a state funeral, describing such arguments as rooted in ignorance of the law.

Kabesha insists that in death, Lungu is no longer a political actor and therefore qualified for full state honours.