We wish to express our deepest condolences to the bereaved families arising from the shootings that took place in Mufumbwe.
No Zambian civilian should have to lose their life at the barrel of a Zambian soldier’s gun. This is unacceptable.
While we agree that illegal mining must be stopped and replaced by order and the rule of law, we insist that Zambians must never be killed in cold blood unless when in full fledged combat with criminals. We therefore call for a thorough investigation in this unfortunate development.
This is not the first gold rush in history. There have been several. One notable one is known as the California gold rush(1848-1855) when gold was found by James W Marshall at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California. This news brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The injection of these gold revenues made California into the huge economic state that it has become.
We can learn lessons from history. Instead of chasing the gold diggers, we must take administrative procedures there without excluding those who got there first.
There is always a better way, that can eventually benefit all.
Dr.Nevers Mumba
Very irrelevant history here and not reflective of the situation. Government should take responsibility and issue artesanal licences on sites, after educating these so called ‘illegal miners’ on safe mining and how to find markets. Government can even get taxes. The loss of life is regrettable and should not have occurred. Some how these people should be incorporated but without the usual beureatical and tedious processes, these people are doing this just as a way out to feed their families
On point ba Mumba wesu.
This chap should stop trying to make political mileage over these deaths
It is indeed very sad and tragic but coming from his dark shady past silence would be more welcome
No,ba Mumbai.You are very wrong.You are not dealing with an orderly mob.They can mobilize and attack government forces.Government MUST first gain control by minimum force if necessary.If you give a hungry mob free reign, the competition that will erupt there will be fertile ground for criminal activities and government will soon be fighting very sophisticated crime syndicates
Government must nip this way real possibility in the bud
God gives you gold, then you start using live bullets on each other. Why not use rubber bullets which will achieve a reasonable objective and maintain the sanctity of life. But we have ignorant people defending something that cannot be defended. Life belongs to God, he is the creator
Well put Hadak, reason why Africa was and is still being called the dark continent, government takes away life from its own people and the only ‘offence’ people committed was scrounging for some life line, and you have some body cheering the goverment on on this blog. Of course it can only happen on this continent. No clue why rubber bullets were invented, it appears.
Police, please use rubber bullets. You will achieve the same objective with live bullets but lives won’t be lost.
You missed yesterday’s edition… Rubber bullets were used it didn’t help control the mob. they used live ammunition in self defence. Illegal mining is a crime, Soldiers fired warning shots and then rubber bullets before using live ammunition. FORCE TO BRING THE SITUATION UNDER CONTROL
Which one is more embarrassing? Losing a legal case on ecl lifeless body to be repatriated to Zambia or ending life when checking who owns legal mining rights in Zambia’s gold?
BOTH.
Ana that is reality.
Hadak,Rubber bullets were invented for very small numbers of reasonable rioters like university students not multitudes of hungry half naked peasants.I have never heard of a government in the entire world that has no guns with live ammo for crowd control.Its only logical, if you want peace, just shot a few(leaders) and calm and order shall return
Life is sacred but even God the almighty in the bible many times allowed Israel to wipe out entire cities to cleanse itself
If necessary, Government should consider surrounding entire mine fields with land mines
With land mines? And when will they sort out the economy, looking at it that this is 4 years of total failure
Only experts can tell us if rubber bullets can not be used, not UPND cadres here
Comments above are unfortunate. Regardless of the situation never use live bullets. I also note that the ones defending the use of live bullets were no where near the sceen but are those known to defend government no matter the situation, with no objectivity all the time.
Mailoni, These are UPND cadres here just posting stuff without scrutiny. Don’t even respond to them, they are paid to do this, hence the use of names that are not real. How do you justify the killing of people. I for one condemned it in PF times and condemning it again now in UPND time.
Sort out the economy please. Respect the sanctity of life. Extra judicial killings are not in order. Don’t bring in things that don’t exist like self defence.
No more shooting. Please use other means