Mutharika told: Stop terror or face ‘winter of discontent’
Malawi NGOs have called on President Bingu wa Mutharika to stop its terror campaign against a growing band of critics concentrate on resolving the county’s social and economic woes or consider resigning.
Addressing journalists in Mzuzu on Wednesday, the NGOs; Forum for New Direction (FOND), Youth Watch Society, Renaissance Solutions Centre and Church and Society of the CCAP Synod of Livingstonia, threatened government with unspecified nationwide action on a date to be announced if Capital Hill does resolve its demands.
Renaissance Solutions Centre Executive Director John Chawinga said they will meet with their colleagues from other regions and agree on the next course of action.
“Malawi is plunging into brutal tyranny because there is too much focus on power other than the use of that power for the common good,” Chawinga said, reading from a prepared statement titled “Restoration of rule of law, safety and security of Human Rights Defenders in Malawi”
Incensed with President Mutharika’s promising start in 2004 to brutal tyranny in his last term which ends 2014, the NGOs are astounded by the blame shifting and hypocrisy that is growing side by side with the many social and economic problems engulfing Malawi.
Mutharika paranoia
The Alliance for Democracy (Aford) has since described President Mutharika’s penchant of finding fault with everyone but himself and wallowing in grandiosity as symptomatic of Paranoid Disorder, a mental health problem.
Aford’s Chairperson for Elections Dan Msowoya said this in a media release that Malawi seem to have become a country of oppression or confused people.
In 2011 the NGOs also presented government with a 20 point petition and also organised nationwide demonstrations after government failed either to respond to the petition or to resolve issues raised.
Sources told Nyasa Times that the Malawi government has a list of Human Rights Defenders whom it will ‘deal’ with before the end of 2012.
They said government spies will plant incriminating evidence in cars, houses or offices of Human Rights Defenders and then immediately arrest them.
But Malawi government’s verbose spokesperson Patricia Kaliati quashed the allegations saying there is no such war.
“May be that war only exists in their heads,” Kaliati said.
The NGOs have also asked government to swiftly act in resolving the judicial strike, so that Malawians continue accessing justice.
“Although in our reflections, we feel that the strike is justified, considering that the government agreed to raise their salaries way back in 2006, but since then its has been dragging its feet,” Chawinga said.
Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :
