T
ON EMERGING POLITICAL VIOLENCE - 18TH
MARCH 2014.
“AN OUTRIGHT CONDEMNATION”
PREAMBLE
The Justice and Peace Commission of the Episcopal Conference
of Malawi, an institution mandated by the Catholic bishops to ensure works for
and promotion of a just and peace
Malawian society is hereby condemning categorically the acts of violence that
have resurfaced in this immediate past as evidenced by the fracas and
subsequent loss of life in Thyolo-Goliati over the weekend and the beating in a
private hotel (but on an open place) of an opposition politician in Blantyre on
Monday night, due to apparently politically motivated reasons. CCJP
emphatically states that no one must lose his or her life or get disfigured
due to violence emanating from political rallies. The right to life and safety supersedes
the right to political association and assembly as such; no amount of political
differences and verbal provocation should lead to any acts of violence and
sudden deaths or wounding of any person.
OUR SERIOUS CALL TO ALL
We, the Justice and Peace Commission, therefore, call upon
all political leaders, their supporters, the state security functionaries,
traditional leaders and the general
citizenry to remember always to work for peace and calm at all times; and that
during these hyped- elections times, all must ensure safety and security of all
that come to listen to campaign issues that seek to ensure an informed
citizenry that will make its choice of leaders on May 20, 2014 based on their
assessment of the leaders that have successfully won their hearts not by intimidation, nor coercion.
We also call on the youths to refuse to be abused by political leaders to
perpetrate violence.
ISSUES THAT MALAWIANS
MUST REMEMBER
With this important basis, we therefore remind fellow
Malawians the following:
I.
The
laws of Malawi allow for plural politics meaning different political parties
will always exist and operate in Malawi. The same laws do not allow political
parties’ ownership of some geographical zones or territories. Freedom of
assembly is agreed and acknowledged for all without political discrimination.
II.
The
laws of Malawi allow political parties to conduct political meetings anywhere
and anytime as far as notices to right authorities are given so that they do
not book more than one party at a given venue.
III.
The
Malawi Electoral Commission has encouraged Malawians- just like CSOs and FBOs
including the academia have an issue-based campaign- so that political players
do not exploit people’s ignorance by telling them non-essential issues like
name calling, bad-mouthing, there will be no inflammatory vocabulary; how good
or bad another leader is looking, who is appropriate or inappropriate to be or
not to be a leader in Malawi. But that political campaigns should offer
alternative views on policy and developmental issues; as such, there will be no
IV.
Malawian
youths must not be used by political leaders to incite political violence. The
youths have a role in Malawi and this is in development and leadership strides
of our country. The current violence reminds us of the nasty situation in 1999
when Alick Makina died during fracas between NDA AND UDF, in 2004, innocent
Epifania Bonjesi IN 1999, on 20th July, 2011 20 lives were lost. We
regret that the youths whore are being used in these acts are ending up being
victims of their own acts. In view of this, we call upon the youths to desist
from being used by barbaric politicians. We are a nation that maintains social
values of respect for others, peaceful co-existence, settlement of our
differences, communal dialogue and our social cohesion as the warm heart of
Africa should not be sacrificed by political bigotry and sycophancy. We need to
love our political parties, yes, but we need not be zealots and blind loyalists
even at the expense of our brothers or sisters’ life.
Ours therefore is a call to Malawi Electoral Commission to
make sure that measures are put in place and reinforced to allow parties to
comply with best standards of conducting their political rallies. We also
appeal for justice in all such cases since we believe in the saying “where
there is no justice, there is no peace”
OUR APPEAL
1. We call upon all leaders of political
parties to condemn any acts of violence and to continue encouraging their
supporters to remain peaceful.
2. We call upon Malawi Electoral
Commission to find ways of disciplining parties in a very tangible way
including disqualifying potential candidates, if indeed proven to having
perpetrated political violence.
As our Catholic Bishops
reminded us in “Strengthening the Vision of Our Destiny” December 1st,
2013 pastoral letter that “The forthcoming tripartite elections provide us with
the best opportunity for strengthening the vision of our destiny. Essentially
this entails conducting elections that are free, fair and credible and electing
leaders that have the desire, commitment and capability of turning our country
around. It also entails that the electorate can get out of chronic object poverty
by electing leaders who can enable them to do so”.
Furthermore, our Bishops
recently reminded us that “When we began the journey towards our independence,
we dream of ushering in a new era…we envisioned a country emancipated
politically and economically. Peace is one of the values we envisioned as
clearly expressed in the National Anthem: ‘O God bless our land of Malawi, keep
it a land of peace’…” (Strengthening our destiny, 1st December 2013,
p. 3)
We conclude by emphatically saying that we need an environment
of peace, calm and freedom to campaign, articulate real issues, to participate
in these campaigns without fear, favour and prejudices.
God Bless Malawi.
SIGNED ON BEHALF OF
CCJP BY: Chris
Chisoni- National Secretary, today: 18th March 2014.
