By Kelvin Mambwe, PhD General Secretary, UNZALARU

The University of Zambia Lecturers and Researchers’ Union (UNZALARU) is appalled at the deteriorating situation of human rights of citizens at the hands of the Zambia Police Service. We note that the Zambia Police Service is an institution whose legal mandate is to ensure security to all citizens and uphold their human rights as enshrined in Zambia’s Constitution. We are equally concerned with the Patriotic Front Government’s reticence whenever the Police are involved in harassing and brutalising innocent citizens. We are left to wonder whether the actions of the Police represent the actions of Government or that the Government does not simply care about the rights of its citizens.

All citizens deserve to be treated with dignity regardless of their ethnicity and political affiliation. Yet the Zambia Police Service appear to have divided Zambians into two sets of citizens; those who belong to the PF and those who do not and more especially those who belong to the opposition political parties. The Police have given a blind eye and rendered a deaf ear to blatant violence and inciting of violence on clear video footage by the PF. However, the same Zambia Police Service is swift to attack or hunt after ordinary citizens, human rights activists, and opposition political party leaders and cadres on the flimsiest of suspicions and sometimes on what appears concocted suspicions.

UNZALARU finds the violent and selective application of the law by Government and the attendant actions of the Zambia Police Service disturbing and a matter of concern for every well-meaning Zambian. We wish to refer the nation to the recent specific actions in which Police violently manhandled and embarrassed the persons of Mrs. Carol Kambwili and her daughter Ms Chanda Kambwili in full view of the public. This incident did not only alarm us but raised serious questions on the ability of the Police to protect citizens, treat them humanely and with dignity even if found on the wrong side of the law.
These recent actions reminded us of the police brutality against unarmed students in their hostels at the University of Zambia in 2018 which led to the unforgettable death of Vespers Shimuzhila, whom the university community continues to mourn to this day. The same Police is responsible for the death of a young pupil by the name of Frank Mugala, nephew of the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, whose life was suddenly cut short by people entrusted with his security. The Human Rights Commission’s investigations have found the Zambia Police Service responsible for these two totally avoidable losses of lives of innocent learners at the hands of law enforcement officers. Unfortunately, the list of such incidents keeps rising unabated. This is what is worrisome.

We therefore wish to express our utmost condemnation on the continued and increasing disregard of human rights by the Zambia Police Service and by the Ministry of Home Affairs that is supposed to oversee actions of the police. UNZALARU strongly feels that the Zambia Police are being abused by those in Government as a tool to settle political scores against perceived opponents and as a way of intimidating citizens as we approach the general elections in 2021.

While UNZALARU appreciates the hostile environment under which the Zambia Police Service are operating which favours errant and overzealous officers over professional and ethical ones who are in constant fear of transfers and retirement in ‘national interest’. We call upon them to remain professional as they serve the nation. We further urge them to always restrain themselves from acting outside the law whenever they are dealing with citizens, especially those seen to have dissenting voices. They must strictly adhere to the highest professional standards and not succumb to undue pressure from government officials or political cadres. The Zambia Police Service command and Government should be worried about the widespread loss of public confidence in the Service which may very easily and swiftly turn into public hostility and mob injustice as well as we witnessed during the spate of gassing incidents across the country recently.

The Zambia Police Service has now, more than ever, the mammoth task of ensuring human rights and law and order. They must therefore not be in the forefront of the rights violations and anarchy we have witnessed so far. We would like to urge all well-meaning citizens, members of our civil society, and international human rights bodies to add their voices against the scourge of police brutality and partiality and not wait until themselves or someone close and dear to them becomes a victim. Injustice against one is injustice against all.

Let us reclaim Yahweh in Zambia

Since Zambia was declared a Christian nation in 1991 it has become more and more evident that God has departed from many spheres of Zambian life.

It is therefore no surprise that one cleric has recently said those shouting the loudest about Zambia being a Christian nation are pagans. Heinous crimes are being committed,family values have collapsed,the economy is in free fall, national leaders have turned the pulpit into political campaign altars,corruption and bribery are called empowerment,tribalism and hate speech are the order of the day,traditional leaders are coerced into parroting partisan statements on promise of boreholes or palaces and the judiciary and law enforcement is on the brink of completely losing the peoples’ confidence.Disaster management and social economic safety net are now tools of appeasement and patronage.

How did we get here? The “salt” or “light” of the world,the clergy,has largely been compromised and no longer speak for the weak and downtrodden.The intellectuals or enlightened have remained aloof while those in power have replaced Yahweh with self idolization and consolidation of absolute power.

The late Sata said intellectuals were the worst cowards.Luckily not all is lost.We have some upright clergy and intellectuals who despite vicious attacks on them have stood fast with the oppressed masses.Only when we repent from the hypocrisy and bring Yahweh back into Zambia”s affairs will Zambia prosper.It is a mockery to build houses of prayer or decree days of repentance,fasting and reconciliation to idolize a political leader and demonize other people and tribes.God cannot be mocked.

By Concerned Zambian

By Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D. Professor of Sociology

I had been watching news all week about the early voting for the crucial American Presidential elections on November 3rd. I saw TV images of long lines of voters standing six feet apart going sometimes miles or kilometers around street blocks in many cities and towns. Some people were reporting standing in line for eight hours to cast their vote.

About thirty million Americans of the possible total of about 134 million voters had already voted in the early voting by last week. Some had voted by mailing or posting their ballots. But the President and Republicans are so desperate to win re-election that the Post Office was messed up in June this year. Some Post Office boxes were removed, large mail automatic processing machines were removed from Post offices, and the Post Office mail or letter carriers were ordered to slow down mail delivery. Since many people especially Democrats were going to vote by mail because of the Corona Virus pandemic, these measures were going to severely delay or disrupt the delivery of the filled election ballots causing Trump and the Republicans to win re-election. The President has been making wild false statements that voting by mail was going to cause wide spread fraud in the elections. There is no proof of voter fraud as many States like California have safely conducted mail voting for decades. The bad news made me panic. I did not want my vote not to count on Election Day if I was unable to vote that day due to overcrowding. So I decided to go and vote last Saturday on a non-work day.

The previous evening, I went to the park and exercised since all the gyms are Covert-19 super spreaders and have been closed. In the morning, I packed lunch, took two spare masks, charged my cell phone lining up my favorite music. I drove 23 Kms to the closest town of Harrisonburg population of 54,000. I arrived ready to face voting obstacles at the Rockingham Country early voting precinct. There was no line. I went inside and voted in less than ten minutes.

But much as I feel good that I voted, I and millions of other Americans have this very deep fear. The country is very divided and we fear there might be violence on election day next Tuesday November 3rd. I have witnessed many elections for the last 40 years in this country. I have never seen this much tension over elections with actual threats of violence breaking out on election day and the days that follow. There have been fears that after being defeated in the elections, the President might refuse to leave office or the White House as he has already broken most of the rules of his office over the last 4 years.

The tensions, divisions, and now more than 225 thousand Americans dead from Corona virus started on July 16 2015. This is the day when Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President of the United States as a member of the Republican Party. He started by saying Mexican immigrants were criminals, rapists and drug dealers. He bullied over 17 other Republican candidates and won the nomination. For months, he falsely claimed President Obama was born in Kenya and was not an American. There were so many terrible things he said as a candidate that I, and most Americans believed he would never win the General Election. Once he won in November 2016, the nation was stunned. We knew we were in for the next 4 years of hell as a nation. I remember the following week in November 2016 being at a meeting of over 200 people in room as a member of the newly created Indivisible Movement that was going to resist Trump for the next four years. These past 4 years have been dark days in America.

George Washington is the founding father and the first President. Since 1797, there have been 45 Presidents. Trump is among the worst. He won his election very narrowly in 2016 engaging in political chicanery as Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million. Press reports today say he has told more than twenty thousand lies.

The entire Congress and Senate are so corrupted that when the President was impeached last year, the Senate refused to remove him from office. The entire federal bureaucracy is headed by his inept political sycophants as most experts have been side lined or forced out of government. The President demands that all his government appointees have personal loyalty to him and not the Constitution of the United States. The President has fomented disunity among the 28 European countries who are members of NATO. These are not just my words or views, as there are now over a dozen books and too many former patriotic government employees disclosing how corruption, criminality, and immorality are so rampart. This great American nation has been lucky many times during it’s over 200 years since the first President George Washington in 1797. Tashupika; we are suffering here in America. We are all just praying we will be lucky during next Tuesday Presidential elections.