Mon, 22 May 2017 12:42:59 +0000
By BENNIE MUNDANDO
MANIPULATION, deceit, and lies have flooded international media which is all out to tarnish the image of Zambia over the incarceration of UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema, the Evangelical Youth Alliance (EYA) has observed.
EYA executive director Reverend Moses Lungu told the Daily Nation that the development could create a problem if records were not set straight.
Rev Lungu said the increasing distortion in media portrayals concerning Zambia by international media houses were either purposefully misleading or inadvertently misrepresenting facts on what was obtaining and could lead to chaos if not stopped.
He said international media was desperately trying to tarnish Zambia’s good image as a country with a flourishing democracy by creating an impression that dictatorship was slowly gaining ground where opposition political parties were being prosecuted to create room for President Edgar Lungu to easily consolidate his push for re-election in 2021.
He said the international media had failed to recognise the fact that President Lungu neither had anything to do with the prosecution of Mr. Hichilema nor did he have the mandate to guide the judiciary’s course of action to doctor the outcome of the case and that branding him as a dictator was unfortunate.
“The international media has embarked on a path to destroy the goodwill of the people of Zambia and its democracy and respect for the rule of law by creating a picture that we are now cascading into a dictatorship from a country with a flourishing democracy and a haven for refugees and asylum seekers and this is propagated either willingly or unwillingly.
“However, records need to be set straight that Zambia has never been a dictatorship and aligning Mr. Hichilema’s predicament to dictatorship is unfortunate because Western countries cannot dictate to us how we should be governing ourselves,
“We have laws and no one is above the law and we have managed our affairs as a country since independence so well without any problem,” Rev. Lungu said.
He said the current video that has gone viral which depicts President Lungu dancing at the meet the president gala and a woman expressing worry that her children would die of malnutrition as a show of the levels of poverty in Zambia was a total misrepresentation of facts and a direct assault on the integrity of Zambians.
“Who says there is no poverty in Europe? Who said there are no people in need of food in Europe? Why then should it be newsworthy if such happens in Zambia and not in Europe? I think the Western media should take deep introspection about their reports on Zambia,
“This kind of reckless reporting aimed at setting a certain agenda against any Government is destructive and this level of mudslinging should come to an end. The propensity by the international media to paint Africa negatively in everything is not right and records must be set straight or else, this could create a problem locally,” he said.
