The ‘enigma’ of July 20 in Malawi!
Just last week President Mrs. Joyce Banda read out the inquest report on the July 20/21, 2011 mass demonstrations that culminated into needless bloodshed and destruction of millions worth of property.
The findings indicate that almost all Jim and Jack were in the wrong.
The government, for starters, failed to be tolerant and listen to the voice of reason. The organizing civil society leaders on their part, failed to do a good clean job in the manner they put the mass protests to play.
The media has been blamed for both accelerating the people to uncontrollable anger and the public media, Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) under the ‘acute tutelage’ of once upon a time Bright Malopa has taken the large blame for perpetuating lies through its broadcast of events.
That is not enough, the security arm, the Malawi Police Service (MPS), under the stranger than fiction ‘shoot-to-kill’ blue eyed Bingu-boy, Inspector General Peter Mukhito, have been blamed for ‘daylight terror-tactics’. And well, looks like all Malawians have been blamed for something in this multifaceted report.
The District Commissioners (DCs) populalry known as Bwana Mkubwa’s, have been rapped with the inefficiency to respond to peoples’ peaceful protest calls on time – agitating them into unstoppable venomous anger.
Well, we have had the glimpse into the works of late President Bingu wa Mutharika’s hands – and May His Soul continue to rest in peace at Mpumulo wa Bata.
What should concern us now, as peaceful Malawians, is the latest government warning that come July 20 this month (and that has some blood red memories for most of us), vendors will be kicked off the streets of the capital city, Lilongwe, commercial city of Blantyre, academic city of Zomba, and northern ever-green city of Mzuzu – BY FORCE!
One Malawian expressed as I walked past the streets today: “My worry here is the choice of the date deadline. Someone should have done better not to choose JULY 20 the anniversary of the RED DAY.” And that packs some sense.
Events of July 20 cannot be ignored. The date itself has also become synonymous with ‘peaceful struggle gone awry’ and government’s decision to boot the rowdy, mostly vendor-pretenders, out of town may as well provoke another ‘red’ July day.
The moral of the matter being that Malawians are sick of such seemingly double standards, where about 377 law-breakers, real or imagine or wrongfully found guilty, are out on the streets. Not to forget the five who broke out some few days ago, taking advantage of Zomba Maximum Prison protests over the weekend.
Mama JB seems to be doing the rights things couple with the wrong things at the same time, and this is starting to smell of a leadership plot that may be tough to juggle as no-one, this time threateningly, not many Malawians, will be in support of her and overusing the military band in the National Anthem frenzy of July 8 when she took over leaderships reigns.
But there is always a God to the whole act. As it happened with the late Bingu (MHSRIP), there must be some answer tacked away somewhere – ready to rescue Malawians from the overflow of July 20 anger!
This is neither the right time to disturb the military from concentrating on sending more troops to Ivory Coast where they are more and rightfully needed than adding them to the cat and mouse chase that the police fail to handle on our cities streets!
This enigma is a good cause for worry!
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