Don’t bring genocide, church leaders warned

Sat, 17 Jun 2017 11:00:02 +0000

By BENNIE MUNDANDO

CHURCH leaders risk plunging Zambia into a horrifying genocide as their actions may be perpetuating and deepening tribal segregation as the case was in Rwanda in 1994, the Evangelical Youth Alliance (EYA) has charged.

EYA claimed the churchmen had become ‘‘extremely careless’’ in the manner they were looking at the incarceration of UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema.

And the Zambia Union of Government and Allied workers (ZUGAW) has advised church leaders to foster peace and avoid creating tension and situation that could spill into genocide as was the case in Rwanda. Union secretary general, John Nsululu told the Daily Nation yesterday that the problems the country was facing could be blamed on the  church’s failure to unite people.

Speaking during a joint press briefing by the Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ), the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB) and the Evangelical Fellowship in Zambia (EFZ) at Kapingila House yesterday, the three church mother bodies demanded for the immediate release of Mr. Hichilema.

Lusaka Catholic Archbishop Telesphore Mpundu said State House had denied the church mother bodies access to the President, hence their resolve to issue a public statement and declare the country a dictatorship.

But EYA executive director Moses Lungu said the Catholic bishops and the rest of church mother bodies that converged at Kapingila House yesterday to demand for the release of Mr. Hichilema had the potential to breed chaos in Zambia as it would give birth to both tribal and political tension as the case was in Rwanda.

Rev. Lungu said there was no justification in the demand for Mr. Hichilema’s release while disregarding the provisions of the laws of the land and that the church in Zambia should condemn such politically-motivated antics which threatened national security.

He said the church played a critical role in nation-building but that yesterday’s development provided no hope for the church’s counsel on politicians as ‘‘some church groupings were clearly cascading into the political arena and taking sides when they needed to remain true to their purpose’’.

“The Catholic bishops and the other two church mother bodies have become extremely careless in the manner they are taking national issues because they have failed to draw a distinction between political issues and religious affairs and what their role is in these two aspects.

“At the rate they are discharging their duties through the decisions they are making, Zambia could be destined for a horrifying genocide reminiscent of what happened in Rwanda in 1994 if they remain unquestioned or un-curtailed. These church mother bodies must reason correctly and collectively before they create more problems and I appeal to the church in Zambia to disown these leaders,” Rev. Lungu said.

Rev. Lungu wondered how those leaders could sink so low to push for the release of Mr. Hichilema when he had not even been convicted to qualify for the prerogative of mercy from the President, adding that their actions were hypocritical.

“How can bishops demand for the release of Mr. Hichilema whose case is before the courts of law? People should not forget that the church played a very critical role in exacerbating the Rwandan genocide, not because they intended it to be but because it tolerated certain wrong elements in its midst which led to that tragedy and if nothing is done in Zambia, we will have a situation where politicians, churches, and ethnic groupings rise against each other,” he said.