‘SA case has damaged Zambia’s image’
By Tony Nkhoma
ZAMBIANS are watching in disbelief how President Hakainde Hichilema is willfully creating serious divisions in the country and now the region, Dr Lawrence Mwelwa has said.
Dr Mwelwa cited the United Party for National Development (UPND) government’s decision to sue late former president Edgar Lungu’s family and the South African government in the Pretoria High Court over the repatriation of the remains.
In an article titled ‘There Is More Dignity in Letting Go Than in Clinging to a Losing Fight’ Dr Mwelwa questioned whether there was any wisdom left in the UPND administration to continue fighting for the repatriation of Lungu’s remains to Zambia.
“The President, his Cabinet and the legal apparatus that engineered this sad affair must acknowledge the error, withdraw the case and restore dignity. If not for themselves, then for the grieving family and the nation watching in disbelief,” he said.
Dr Mwelwa, a Zambian writer, entrepreneur, academic and politician said every moment the State continued to litigate against a widow chipped away not only at public sympathy but also at the moral authority of the government itself.
“The government’s recent admission in a foreign court that it denied the former president access to medical care abroad based on the suspicion that he would use the trip for “political purposes” has stripped away the last shreds of legal and ethical justification,” Dr Mwelwa said.
He said government’s handling of Lungu’s funeral was a breach of human decency and a stain on Zambia’s image within the international community.
“What are we defending now? That a man we denied treatment should still be buried according to the rules of those who denied him? That the widow of a man we failed to protect should now kneel before us for permission to grieve and to bury? We must ask ourselves, what kind of justice is this?” Dr Mwelwa said.
Lungu died on June 5 in Pretoria, South Africa but his remains are yet to be buried because of a bitter standoff between the Zambian government over control of the funeral.
The Zambian government has sued Lungu’s widow, his children and others in the South Africa High Court seeking an order for the body to be handed over to the government for a state burial at home.
