Sat, 06 May 2017 14:44:11 +0000
By OSCAR MALIPENGA
IT IS a lie that Zambians based in South Africa protested against President Edgar Lungu over the incarceration of UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema and those pictures published in The Mast Newspaper yesterday could have been stage-managed.
Presidential assistant for press and public relations Amos Chanda made the revelation yesterday.
The Mast on Friday published a story suggesting that Zambians based in South Africa, supported by some South Africans, staged a protest outside Durban’s Hilton Hotel against President Lungu and his Government, demanding that the Head of State should immediately and unconditionally release Mr. Hichilema.
But Mr Chanda, Presidential Affairs minister Freedom Sikazwe and Zambia’s High Commissioner to South Africa Emmanuel Mwamba, who were in the presidential entourage in South Africa, confirmed that there was no single Zambian based in South Africa who protested against President Lungu at Hilton Hotel during the World Economic Forum on Africa.
Mr. Chanda said The Mast wished there were protests against President Lungu in South Africa. “You know this country is very big, someone can organize those people in one corner and they can raise those placards for pictures and put them in The Mast.
“We have not seen them, we only saw some protestors who are members of Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) who have been protesting from the day when the Minister of Finance of South Africa was dismissed. Those are the people we saw,” said Mr. Chanda said.
He said there were no protestors outside Durban’s Hilton Hotel.
Mr. Chanda said he only saw protestors from COSATU, South African Communist Party and Democratic Alliance members from a long distance who had been protesting for some days.
Meanwhile, High Commissioner Mwamba said that Patriotic Front (PF) members based in South Africa arrested several foreigners parading as UPND protesters.
Mr. Mwamba disclosed that PF members based in South Africa yesterday surrendered three foreign nationals who had forged accreditation purporting to be Zambian journalists. He said the three were carrying posters and masquerading as UPND protestors.
“PF South Africa chairperson Sydney Njamba narrated that a tip was given to them that there was a white man who was paying students to carry posters against Zambia. The three foreign protestors said a Mr. Walter had paid and hired them and did not even know anything about Zambia,” he said.
Mr. Mwamba said the students hired by a Mr. Walter pleaded with the police to release them after exposing their sponsor.
And Emmanuel Nkhoma, a Durban-based Zambian, said none of the people with posters were known in Kwazulu Natal.
“This is clearly staged as no Zambian based in Durban (who is protesting). In fact most Zambians that are in Durban came to welcome President Edgar Lungu at the Hilton Hotel,” Mr. Nkhoma said.
