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The Tonse Alliance has warned President Hakainde Hichilema and the United Party for National Development (UPND) administration that the recent visit by United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur, Irene Khan, should serve as a wake-up call on alleged human rights violations.
Alliance spokesperson, Sean Tembo, cautioned that if such violations continued, the next investigation into the government’s actions may come from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In a statement issued in Lusaka on Saturday, Tembo stressed that the world is now a “global village” where evidence of human rights violations could be shared instantly, making it difficult for any regime to suppress the truth.
He cited UN’s decision to send a Special Rapporteur to Zambia as proof that what he claimed as the UPND’s “heavily funded propaganda machinery” was failing to conceal the reality of human rights abuses.
“The Tonse Alliance would further like to take this opportunity to sound a timely warning to individual hooligans within the UPND party, as well as purveyors of selective justice within the Zambia Police Service to stop,” Tembo stated.
He warned that if these individuals do not change their ways, they could find themselves facing international justice.
“If such individuals do not change their ways soon, they may find themselves sitting in a solitary detention cell at the International Criminal Court in The Hague,” he said.
Tembo added that those responsible for human rights violations would be forced to reflect on their actions while in ICC custody.
“This is the place where they shall have ample time and opportunity to reflect on the wanton human rights abuses that they perpetrated and perpetuated on innocent Zambians, all because of a difference in political ideology and affiliation,” he stated.
He further accused the UPND administration of attempting to silence opposition voices through intimidation and bribery but warned that such tactics would not be effective internationally.
“The Tonse Alliance would like to remind President Hichilema that whereas he may succeed to intimidate, gag, and bribe the voices of the Zambian people, it is literally impossible to intimidate, gag, or bribe the voices of the international community,” he said.
Tembo claimed that incidents of “state-sponsored terrorism” against opposition members, as well as cases of police abductions and extra-judicial killings, were being closely monitored by the global community.
“Every incident of state-sponsored terrorism against citizens with dissenting opinions, incident of police abduction, and incident of extra-judicial killing of citizens is well documented and catalogued by the international community for action at the appropriate time,” he asserted.
He warned that the UN Special Rapporteur’s visit was only a glimpse of the potential international actions that could follow if the government did not reverse its alleged course of repression.
“The recent visit by the UN Special Rapporteur was but merely a snippet of possible interdictions by the international community that await the President and his administration, should they decide not to change their ways,” Tembo stated.
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