Dear Editor,
YESTERDAY morning, l awoke to various videos trending online showing chaos and mayhem being perpetrated by cadres clad in regalia of the incoming ruling party; the UPND. Some showed a shopping mall being looted and property belonging to the now opposition PF party being vandalised, including their Secretariat.
Other videos showed perceived political opponents being beaten and others being kidnapped in the name of effecting a citizen’s arrest. I however discounted all these scenes as a passing phase. That it was a normal human reaction for the once oppressed to want to fight back once they are liberated.
However, the video that broke my heart is the one in which UPND cadres were seen slapping and undressing a uniformed police officer in broad daylight. That video just broke my heart. I don’t know whether it is because I’m a former police officer, but l just found that scene extremely repulsive. I must say that l have witnessed a fair share of the thuggery of political cadres from the UNIP vigilante days to the MMD and PF days, but l have never seen a cadre remove the headdress of a police officer and then proceed to slap him in the face! Never.
That is the ultimate disrespect to the men and women in uniform that was perpetrated by the UPND cadres. I just hope that the incoming ruling party does not perceive the police as their enemies because of the clashes they’ve had with them over the years during their long struggle in opposition.
You see, police officers merely carry out instructions that are given to them by the Command, and the Command gets its instructions from the political leadership. Therefore holding a grudge against individual police officers for the brutalisation that the UPND might have suffered in the past is totally misunderstood how the system works.
Police officers have no leeway to question the instructions that are given to them, especially if they intend to keep their jobs. And l know for a fact that the majority of police officers, well at least the ones that l know personally, voted for the UPND in the just ended election and helped it to achieve their landslide victory.
So the UPND and their supporters are totally misguided in holding a grudge against police officers to the extent that they start cheering and justifying when their cadres assault and undress a police officer in broad daylight.
I find that totally abhorrent and repulsive. However, my lowest point came when President-elect Hakainde Hichilema released his response to the many public cries regarding the misbehaviour of his party cadres
SEAN TEMBO, PeP PRESIDENT
