By Wynter Kabimba
When I was battling the COVID-19 pandemic in hospital in June/July, 2021, I was reading The Mayor of Casterbridge, a classic by Thomas Hardy. The moral of the story is “character is fate.’’
History is witness to the lives of leaders like Adolf Hitler, Julius Caesar, Emperor Bokassa, Idi Amin and others whose ultimate fate in their lives was driven by their character.
The swearing in of HH as the 7th President of Zambia’s after Edgar Lungu at the National Heroes Stadium last year was seen as a new chapter in the history of Zambia given the political degeneration and internal collapse of PF.
All of us still harbour fresh memories of his inaugural speech which promised a united country which would never see ever again arbitrary detention of citizens, respect for human rights, promotion of the rule of law, a police service which would carry out comprehensive investigations before effecting any arrest and an environment free from cadre overzealousness and hijacked authority and political violence perpetrated against innocent citizens.
According to HH and his UPND, Zambia was witnessing the “New Dawn,’’ a common preamble today in every speech delivered by all and sundry in the UPND government.
Time is man’s enemy, so says William Shakespeare. Six months into his term as president the tide for HH and UPND is turning against all the promises at a rate often witnessed only under populist leaders.
The economy has continued to flounder with the cost of living screaming to the high heavens leaving the ordinary person struggling to survive more than ever before.
Youth unemployment is evidenced by illegal mining calamities such as the landslide which buried three youths in the Chisamba District area on 11th February 2022, leaving their indigent families in grief.
It is during such conditions of political and economic turnmoil that the true character of a man blossoms.
In 1980, Kenneth Kaunda detained Chitalu Sampa, Fredrick Chiluba, and Newstead Zimba, all leaders of the Zambia Congress of Trade Union based on the Copperbelt Province at the time, for allegedly inciting industrial unrest.
I was privileged as a law undergraduate at the time to witness the release of Chiluba by the High Court’s Mr. Justice Moodley on a Habeas Corpus application by his lawyer Levy Patrick Mwanwasa.
In October 1991 Chiluba and MMD won a landslide election victory against UNIP.
The tables had turned and the country was ecstatic after 27 years of the Kaunda rule. Like HH, Chiluba who came across as a fervent Christian believer promised the country a new era away from the iniquities of UNIP.
He immediately revoked the State of Emergency and the Preservation of Public Security Regulations under which he himself was detained in 1980.
Chiluba preached the rhetoric of democracy and the rule of law to woo donor support and went on to establish the current Human Rights Commission. He raised people’s hopes and expectations.
But Chiluba had another agenda.
In order to exact vengeance against Kaunda for his 1980 detention, Chiluba sent police to search his residence for alleged stolen books from State House, a search which did not yield his anticipated results.
On 26th December, 1997, Kaunda was arrested on tramped up treason charges for the failed coup d‘etat and sent to Mukobeko Maximum Prison in Kabwe.
I was privileged to be present in Chiluba’s office at State House on 27th December the following morning when President Nyerere of Tanzania called him to protest Kaunda’s incarceration and the conditions obtaining at Mukobeko, a telephone conversation I was able to over hear on the land phone.
On 01st January 1998, Chiluba granted Kaunda house arrest following Nyerere’s visit to Zambia and after meeting Kaunda who was now on hunger-strike in prison.
The detention of Kaunda in 1997 was preceeded by Chiluba’s opening up of underground security tunnels at State House, alleging that Kaunda had used them as torture chambers during his rule.
He produced no evidence but the people were psyched to believe the story through the programme which was aired on ZNBC for days.
During this same period several of Kaunda’s close political associates were also detained and William Banda who is now a UPND member was deported to Malawi.
As all this was going on the people’s attention was diverted from the corruption which was becoming systemic in MMD and the rising unemployment and poverty levels under the IMF prescribed panacea which they were made to believe would turn round the economy and improve their living standards.
This surely sounds familiar today.
It is said that history does not repeat itself but it certainly does under different circumstances.
The Bible teaches us not to take revenge against those who do wrong to us.
Nowhere is the moral of the wickedness and futility of revenge more highlighted than in George Bernard Shaw’s 1898 play, Caesar and Cleopatra, where Caesar says;
“And so to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honour and peace until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand.’’
The last 6 months of the UPND government with HH at the helm show that the gods are late in the creation of a race that can understand. Let’s wait and see.
As Africa’s quest for export value addition increases, one wants to think that this will be one of its priority discussions with its EU partner. Currently, the proportion of Africa’s exports of manufactured goods to the EU in total stands at only 35% and this is largely due to South Africa’s majority contribution. Excluding South Africa, Sub-Sahara African countries’ proportion of exports of manufactured goods in total to the EU was only 7% in 2020 compared to primary commodities’ share of 93%. In other words, they exported only $2.6 billion manufactured goods relative to $36.1 billion worth of primary commodities.
Concluding
