Our Leaders Have Sold Zambia To The Highest Bidder – Msoni
NASON Msoni says Zambian leaders are behaving like Judas Iscariot over proposals to withdraw the country from the International Criminal Court.
And Msoni says it is morally corrupt for the Zambian government to be making bilateral friendships that work to subvert the course of international justice.
At the recently held African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, African leaders cautiously backed a strategy of collective withdrawal from The Hague-based ICC.
The summit proposed a coordinated withdrawal unless the ICC was reformed. Almost a third of the ICC’s 124 members are African.
On February 6, on his departure to Kasane, Botswana, President Edgar Lungu told journalists at Lusaka’s Kenneth Kaunda International Airport that the ICC was weighing heavily on African leaders and that Zambia was studying the issue of withdrawing its membership, like other African countries were doing.
And President Lungu is scheduled to travel to Sudan soon to meet Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir. Al Bashir is being pursued by the ICC for war crimes in Darfur, which is now part of South Sudan.
Commenting on the developments, Msoni, who is All People’s Congress (APC) president, noted that what was happening in Zambia was inevitable given that national leaders had sold the “soul of the country to the highest bidders”.
“Zambian leaders are behaving like Judas Iscariot on the withdrawal of Zambia from the International Criminal court. I think a sense of shame is not a bad moral compass for any self-respecting leader. Sensible countries with sensible leaders have outright rejected the overtures of criminals trying to use them by running away from justice,” Msoni said.
He wondered how a sane leader would feel to sit in Khartoum and wine and dine with someone wanted for crimes against humanity.
Msoni also cautioned African leaders against playing double standards on the issue of arresting indicted and wanted criminals.
“The dominant question to ask this leadership is: where is their moral conscience on the plight of the victims in this equation? Zambian people, and not the greedy Zambian government, will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Darfur,” he stressed.
“Effectively, Zambia has lost its moral high ground to arrest Al Bashir. Plainly, we can’t arrest Omar Al Bashir for the reason that Lungu has established an unholy friendship with the man, although that friendship does not represent the views of the Zambian people. The withdrawal of Zambia from ICC is meant to service this friendship! Our view is that the behaviour being exhibited by President Lungu and his colleagues in government is no different from the former second Republican president Frederick Chiluba when they were busting sanctions by supplying arms to UNITA. Zambia was at the verge of going to war with Angola because of the behaviour of a few greedy politicians.”
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) is the second largest political party in Angola.
Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the Angolan war for independence (1961-1975) and then against the MPLA in the ensuing civil war (1975-2002).
And Msoni, who backed President Lungu’s candidature ahead of the August 11 general elections last year, pointed out that those who sided with war criminals ought to be charged as partners in crime.
“It was a decision of the dignified countries in the council of the United Nations that felt that those who were at the centre of ethnic cleansing in Darfur must be brought to justice. Indeed, President Omar Al Bashir was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ideally, there is an unwritten rule that you cannot be seen to be fraternising with a person who ought to be indicted for war crimes,” explained Msoni.
“You can’t be going to Khartoum wining and dining and making friendships that work to subvert the course of justice. President Lungu and his friends are playing a very dangerous game and time has now come when those who willfully ignore indictments and decide to collaborate and interact with criminals who are wanted by the International Criminal Court, they too be seen and treated in the light of being accomplices, they too have their assets frozen. So, we are demanding that the European Union and indeed the United Nations move in and make a resolution that will make those who collaborate with war criminals become accomplices. There must be a penalty! Our position as a country should be that Zambia should remain a member of the ICC.”