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Three opposition political parties have condemned the killing of two artisanal miners in Mufumbwe District of North Western Province by the Police during the reported dispersing of over 25,000 recently.
The three parties have also criticized the government for failing to provide youths with the promised employment and mismanaging the economy, leading to a lot of them to engage in illegal mining as a means of survival.
In a statement issued in Lusaka on Monday, Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) spokesperson Anthony Chibuye said the UPND government should be held accountable for the unfortunate events.
“While we, FDD, believe in the real operation and application of the rule of law, and whereas we don’t support illegal activities such as illegal mining, we find the killings of unarmed citizens to be barbaric and excessive,” Chibuye said.
He said the failure by President Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND government to better the economy had now been manifested in such situations and that the country was experiencing unprecedented youth unemployment, high poverty and chronic and endemic sufferings of many kinds.
Chibuye alleged that this was because President Hichilema and the UPND had mismanaged the economy and had no clue whatsoever on how to navigate the bad situation they had created.
“Our young people, our mothers , fathers including toddlers have been forced to go to places such as Kikonge in Mufumbwe and Kasempa in search of survival and not necessarily gold,” he said.
Chibuye claimed that Hichilema accused late president Edgar Lungu of killing citizens during his regime but today had become guilty of the same offense.
Similarly, Tonse Alliance spokesperson, Sean Tembo, condemned the killing of youths, arguing that it did not matter whether the total number of those killed was three, as alleged by the government media, or 18 as alleged by some private media.
“The TONSE ALLIANCE is very saddened by the unnecessary loss of lives due to Police brutality at Kikonge Gold Mine in Mufumbwe District. From our standpoint, Even a single life lost due to Police brutality is one too many,” Tembo said
He also wondered why the government did not simply issue eviction notices to the miners, for them to vacate the premises within a specified period of time, instead of sending Police to ambush them, bringing about unnecessary bloodshed and loss of lives.
“If the UPND Government respected human lives, then the use of force should have been the last resort and not the first option,” Tembo said.
He further wondered why the UPND government had been unwilling to issue artisanal mining licenses to the youths so as to allow them to regularize their mining activities, instead of gleefully referring to them as illegal miners.
Tembo stated that it was evident that the youths were Zambian citizens who were not lazy, but ere able and willing to work hard by engaging in mining activities.
“So why can’t the Government empower these youths by issuing them with artisanal mining licenses so that they can undertake their activities within the confines of the law,” Tembo asked.
Meanwhile, the United for Better Zambia (UBZ) Party president, Apostle Hector Soondo, has called on the Church and the nation at large to offer urgent spiritual intercession for North-Western Province, warning that unresolved bloodshed continues to cast a shadow over the region.
Soondo referenced the killing of Patriotic Front (PF) North Western Chairperson, Victor Kungo, during the 2011 general elections, describing it as a tragic event that had left spiritual wounds on the land.
“The blood of an innocent man was shed in cold blood, and the nation has taken it for granted. That blood is not at rest. What is now unfolding in North-Western Province should not only be viewed politically or socially—it is a spiritual matter that requires divine intervention,” Soondo said.
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