By ADRIAN MWANZA and JULIET MAKAWAMA
ZAMBIA must heal with the cessation of high level political arrests, searches, raids and humiliation of opposition figures, senior PF member ChishimbaKambwili has said.
And the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has backed Mr Kambwili stating that Zambia needed to initiate a reconciliation commission in order to allow stakeholders put aside their differences as the country embarks on reviewing the republican constitution. The plea follows the recent arrests of senior PF members who had been targeted and humiliated by the police and investigative wings through searches and detentions. To
CPD Executive Director Caroline Katotobwe said a reconciliation commission is necessary in a democracy for stakeholders to iron out key issues that may be holding objective participation in important national undertakings such as the constitution making process.
“Such a move will provide a conducive platform where all stakeholders will have the confidence to participate in important matters, the commission should have all stakeholders on board and participation should not be based on sides,” she said.
Meanwhile Mr Kambwili said there was need to start a new page by moving away from the trajectory of persecutions based on political lines.
He said the country needed to discard old trends and move in a positive trajectory for the betterment of Zambia.
Mr Kambwili however said that there was need to do the right thing by discarding old trends by arresting the corrupt and not concentrating on trivial matters.
He said there was need for the head of state not evoke emotions, hatred and vengeance when in office.
Mr Kambwili if this was not stopped then it would continue from government to government.
He said the current president made it clear that you could criticize the government and not expect retribution.
“I don’t want any Zambian to go through what I have gone through and I cannot let any individual to be treated inhumanely because it is wrong,” he said.
Mr Kambwili said the head of state had been arrested on several occasions and as a father of the nation he needed to push for peace and reconciliation.
Meanwhile Mr Kambwili said the international community needed to speak out on the unbecoming behavior of the prolonged detention of people without charging them.
He challenged the British High Commissioner, US Ambassador, French Ambassador and UN representatives to speak out before things got out of hand.
“These are the people President Hakainde Hichilema addressed that a new culture has come but they were surprisingly quite about the whole debacle,” he said.
Mr Kambwili said the investigative wings were embarrassing the country and the president needed to take charge or else people would have a wrong narrative.
He said this when addressing the media from his residence in Luanshya, said that Mr Nakacinda did not defame the president but that he used a Bemba idiom which meant something else.
Meanwhile Mr Kambwili called for the arrest of unprofessional Police officers who were embarrassing President Hichilema.
He said the detentions were illegal and the head of state strongly rebutted prolonged detentions which had been witnessed in the recent months.
Mr Kambwili said that it was disheartening that the police had detained MrNakacinda and Kabushi MP Bowman Lusambo without charging them.
He said Mr Lusambo did not deserve the treatment he got and described it as an extra judicial arrangement.
Mr Kambwili said the Kabushi lawmaker was not a criminal for him to be handcuffed and detained without a charge.
He said the incompetent Police officers needed to be caged because they were abrogating the laws of Zambia and embarrassing the head of state who had clearly indicated that no person should be detained for more than 48 hours.
Mr Kambwili said that President Hakainde was creating a monster and that if left unchecked would come back to haunt him.
And Mr Kambwili has also said that Health Minister Sylvia Masebo needed to up her game because the pronouncement that the country had run out of Covid-19 test kits was shameful because the country was grappling with Covid-19.
He said that the Omicron was ravaging the country and that there was need to be serious because human lives were at stake.
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