No time for executive arrogance

For the past five years, a common feature of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration has been divisionary tactics against any entity that shows subversive behaviour to authority.

Malawi has seen ‘associations’, ‘joint coalitions’ sprout up just at the point that credible civil society organisations are organising demonstrations against various injustices or corruption.

There are credible reports someone in the government is behind the splinter group of the Association of People with Albinism (Apam) which has, as expected, been established just at that moment to save the president the embarrassment of calling for a meeting in which only he shows up.

Again, as per script, the splinter group is organising a march, in solidarity with whom only they know.

All along, the demands of Apam have been simple and very possible to implement. The government came up with a National Action Plan setting out steps to be taken to stop the murders and a budget for it was formulated.

If President Peter Mutharika is really on top of things, he would check with the relevant ministers if the implementation of the plan is underway. If not, he would do his job by demanding reports of action being taken to resolve this issue.

With consultations with the Judiciary and Ministry of Justice, surely the government can consider instituting ad hoc courts to fast track conclusion of cases. The Director of Public Prosecutions can inform the President where the cases are lagging and what can be done to speed them up.

It is within the President’s powers to institute a commission of inquiry on attacks against person with albinism.

It does not help the people with albinism living in fear in their own country where there is a government which guarantees them respect of their human rights, among them the right to life.

This is not the time for meaningless propaganda by those who surround the President. This is not a time to score political points. In fact, the more Mutharika sits at State House and ‘it pleases’ him to invite people who are being hunted in their own land, the more he loses the appeal of citizens.

Backdating a directive that education divisions admit students with albinism into boarding schools is mean, to say the least.

At a time when the whereabouts of 18 month old Eunice and 14-year-old Goodson remains unknown, it is executive arrogance of the highest order to be summoning people with albinism to dialogue.

There is a special place in hell for people who devise such tactics as a means to save their own skin and that of their leader who does not seem to care that people are being killed, brutally and mercilessly.

This is what should keep Mutharika and his aides up at night: The brutal murder of 25 people in the five years they have been in government; children snatched from their mothers in the dead of the night never to be seen again, a mother waking up to the anguish of finding her baby gone from beside her on the mat and a helpless child watching as his father’s limbs cut off.

This is what it is all about not saving face of the President who until now has spent more time condemning other political leaders who condemn the acts and demand action than going beyond the empty rhetoric.

It should not take a close relative of these political leaders becoming victims for the government to act or for these bogus organisations to put the interests of people with albinism first before fattening their pockets.

One murder, in November 2014, should have been one murder too many and 24 murders later, it is not time for funding bogus institutions or dialogue but action to stop these killings.n