When land rights fighter feels misunderstood
(Leader of Land of People Organisation Vinja Mpolitiki is protesting his recent arrest by Nyasaland Police and remarks that he is a confusionist)
Vinja Mpolitiki: My Lord, the justice system in Nyasaland is a sham! A total fraud hahahahaha! I am not laughing at you or at this tribunal, My Lord, because yours has maintained its integrity at all times.
If it were this court, I would not have been convicted of frivolous charges such as unauthorised use of land. Whose land? The land which settlers expropriated, stitching us between rocks and hilly sterile patches that can only support thorns so that we should become their labourers?
Now I hear some traditional ruler Ngalangalawa says I have got what I deserve. He says I am a riff-raff, a nobody; chisiru chenicheni! Chomwa mazi ometela ndevu! He is claiming that I was stealing from people who were paying membership fees for our organisation, yet the chief has not been arrested for collecting strange fines such as ‘goats’ from people.
Well My Lord, here is a guy who claims to bleed royalty, yet he was sleeping when his kin and kith were being stripped of their land. My Lord, would it not be logical to say those against my noble fight are in a way complicit in selling of the land to the settlers? These are people who should be labelled puppets of imperialists because they danced to every sad song that our people should relocate to hilly and rocky areas.
My Lord which Mwene Mulipale would be proud of leading a people that dwell in rocks and farm on granite?
Let me put it on record that I was not after her majesty Ngalangalawa’s chieftaincy. My Lord, it doesn’t require one to be born in the family of kings to become a freedom fighter. At least this nobody mustered enough courage and looked the establishment in the face on what was stolen from our people; the fertile land!
My Lord, would a ‘nobody’ be concerned about the welfare of people? Where was he when our people were being sent to far regions in a Kudzigulira Malo project because there is literally no land left to farm?
My Lord, I will tell you who has conspired to commit a felony. It is the people who do not accept our sovereignty and allowed a foreign nation to handle our case. Trespassing? Do you trespass in your own backyard?
I stated before that the Land of People Organisation is of the view that the government of Mapuya in Nyasaland does not have the jurisdiction to arraign me.
Now if I am indeed a nobody, why did they convict me? I ask your respected tribunal to review the case. The person they wrongly arraigned is somebody; Vinja Mpolitiki. He has a name and a country where he belongs.
This tribunal My Lord, should also review whether the International Court of Justice should not be allowed to handle the matter from now on. Thank you My Lord.
Judge Mbadwa: Mr Mpolitiki, I have heard your submission but because the matter is not concluded in the lower court of Nyasaland, the tribunal will wait for the conclusion of the case before it acts. But I order that you be released on bail as you wait for sentencing.
