CADRES WERE SENT
…UPND knows who sent them to PF office – Laura
By Mast Reporter
ORDERING the arrest of the political cadres who attacked the Patriotic Front (PF) secretariat in Lusaka and injured people instead of disciplining the United Party for National Development (UPND) leaders who sent them is mere damage control, activist Laura Miti has said.
Miti, a political and social commentator, said the UPND cadres were sent to commit “that heinous crime” by some leaders in its structures.
A horde of UPND cadres, who moved in a convoy of motor cycles and buses from Kulima Tower Bus Station, stormed the PF secretariat last Saturday where they spread terror.
“Yes, my view is that the hapless youth we see throwing stones are at the tail end of the matter. Probably hear of it on the [same] day. Cadres and the hangers-on they carry along are always loaded with alcohol and paid for the job they do by someone. That person is an identifiable leader in the party structure,” Miti said.
In the Saturday rampage, the UPND cadres assaulted people, including informal motor vehicle mechanics and street hawkers who use the premises for free, and damaged property worth tens of thousands of kwacha.
Shortly after, chief government spokesperson and UPND national spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa condemned the violence and directed law enforcement wings to thoroughly investigate the true identities of the perpetrators and bring the culprits to book.
But in a post on her Facebook page, Miti dismissed Mweetwa’s statement as mere damage control because the UPND knew the leaders within its structures who had sent the assailants of the PF secretariat.
She said it was not true to suggest that the cadres were not known and that they carried out the attack on their own.
“My enduring view is that political party cadres never just come together, out of nowhere, and say, ‘let’s go and attack our rivals’. At best, the conditions in which they feel able to do so are created by their leaders. At worst, someone with authority in the party actively facilitates the activity. The latter is more likely,” Miti said.
She said such attacks were well-managed and planned.
“What I am saying is that cadre violence requires actual event management with all its parts: [that is] conceptualisation, planning, identification and contraction of relevant staff, financing, implementation and supervision,” Miti said.
She said youths contracted to throw stones were not part of the scheme at conception, but were only contracted as end-users to implement the plan.
This was done after the financiers had met certain benchmarks such as feeding and making the youths drunk.
Miti wondered who in the UPND was behind the attacks targeting PF members and the party’s property.
She said all the UPND was doing at the moment was mere damage control.
“With that said, the question about the disturbing attack on the PF secretariat and members of the public, last week, is: who in the UPND was responsible for it? All that to say, this thing of picking up a few thugs who were but tools for some authority or other is plain damage control,” Miti said.
She challenged Mweetwa to tell the nation who in the UPND had been arrested for the attack, if he meant what he said during his weekend press briefing.
Miti also noted that there was a surge of attacks by UPND cadres on citizens whenever they were returning from state events, funerals or any other meeting.
“To get back to the point of how cadre anarchy is allowed and facilitated by leaders, here is my point. For a while now, UPND cadres, on their way to and from party and government events, have been harassing road users. The whole hanging out of bus windows and blocking roads. Citizens have complained,” she said.
Miti said, despite various complaints, nothing had been done to correct the deteriorating situation.
