By NATION REPORTER
THE insolence and detail in which the American government speaks of the internal affairs of the Zambia Police Service raises serious concerns about the sovereignty of the country, Patriotic Front (PF) acting president Given Lubinda has said.
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Mr Lubinda is wondering what and how much the American government knew about personnel in the Zambia Police Service and Zambia in general?
“Who is giving them the information? Has our government ceded its sovereignty to the US government to an extent that the Americans now know and are in control of every detail of our personnel in the Zambia Police,” Mr Lubinda wondered.
He said it was surprising that the US Embassy in Zambia issued a statement applauding President Hakainde Hichilema on the dismissal of Lemmy Kajoba, the former Inspector General of Police and the subsequent appointment Graphel Musamba as the new boss for the Zambia Police.
In their statement, the US embassy in Lusaka claimed that the appointment of Mr Musamba as the new Inspector General od Police would reinforce impartiality in the application of the rule of law and accountability for criminal offences.
The US Embassy also called for strict accountability to counter violent cadreism in Zambia and ending the impunity of traffic police as well as accusing the Zambia Police of soliciting bribes.
“It is hypocritical and actually laughable that a country that is grappling with serious police misconduct, ranging from excessive force, discriminatory harassment, false arrests, coercive sexual conduct, and unlawful stops, searches or arrests including torture and murder can have the audacity to reprimand accuse another country’s police of being corrupt and unethical,” Mr Lubinda said.
Mr Lubinda said America had a serious problem of policing and that the misconduct of the police in America was so grim that the American people had protested in their thousands to demand for the defunding of the police in the US.
“The American government has spent more than US$1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money to settle claims of police misconduct involving thousands of officers repeatedly accused of wrongdoing. And the majority of the American citizens have been kept in the dark about this,” Mr Lubinda said.
He said records showed that police killings in America account for nearly 5% of all homicides, with at least 1,192 people killed by law enforcement in 2022 alone.
“We challenge President Hakainde Hichilema to tell his masters, for once, to stop meddling in the internal security affairs of our state. Zambia is not a colony of America and we take great exception when we are treated as such,” Mr Lubinda said.
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