Former British Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) Enoch Powell will probably be remembered for his warning during the 1970 election campaign that the ‘enemy within’ is more deadly than a foreign enemy who invades a country with jet fighter planes and other military hardware.
The enemy within is like a sniper – a hidden gunman – who strikes anywhere and when least expected. Above all what makes the internal enemy more lethal is the fact that you may have some idea as to his motive but you do not know who he is because he is like the biblical ‘roaring lion’ that is always looking for someone to devour.
At the time Powell sounded the ‘warning’, his statement was widely dismissed as racist because he wanted government to tighten the screws because certain cities and regions of the United Kingdom (UK) had – due to the continuous inflows of Commonwealth immigrants – ceased to be a part of England even though they were still located within the UK geographically. Powell was, rightly or wrongly, alarmed at the danger posed to national security by the swelling numbers of immigrants some of whom could be a bad influence in the long term.
In the light of what has been happening in Britain – and here at home in Zambia where someone seems to be conducting some form of urban guerilla warfare (probably based on Fidel Castro’s 26 July Revolution tactics) in particular – I would say 47 years have done little or nothing to efface the validity Enoch Powell’s fears about the danger posed by the enemy within.
President Edgar Lungu, whose legitimacy resides with the vast majority who elected him in the August 11, 2016 presidential election declared free and fair by international observers would be completely justified, therefore, if he were to take stern measurers, including the imposition of a curfew to protect life and property and in the process ensure Zambia’s peace and stability that is indispensable to the inflow of foreign direct investments (FDIs) into the country.
Sir Evelyn Hone, the last colonial governor of Northern Rhodesia, declared a state of emergency to contain African nationalist movements like Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula’s African National Congress (ANC) and later Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party (UNIP) that were justifiably agitating for emancipation from foreign bondage.
The colonial governor used the same state of emergency powers to dispatch Federal troops to crush UNIP militants particularly in the Northern Province where bridges, houses and government infrastructure were being burnt and destroyed in what has gone down in the annals of Zambian politics as the ‘Cha-Cha-Cha’ days.
And for his part, Dr Kaunda, who had some foresight and probably appreciated its strategic ‘importance’, retained the state of emergency and used it effectively immediately after independence in 1964 to put down insurrections by various elements, including Alice Linshina’s Lumpa Church followers in the volatile Northern, Luapula and Copperbelt provinces, where prophetess’s religious organisation was spreading like a bushfire, and in defiance of the law thus posing a huge threat to national peace and security.
The state of emergency remained in force until second Republican president Frederick Titus Jacob (FTJ) Chiluba lifted it soon after the country returned to multiparty politics in 1991 when his Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) toppled Dr Kaunda and UNIP from power after nearly 30 years in charge.
Before the lifting of the state of emergency by Dr Chiluba, who also liberalised the country’s command economy, Zambians experienced two periods that can only be characterised as dark days in the history of the young nation – one following the food riots on the Copperbelt in December 1986; and second what came to be known as the ‘Mwamba Luchembe coup attempt’ in 1990 when night curfews were imposed.
The Longman Active Study Dictionary of English (New Edition) defines the word Curfew as ‘a time during which everyone must stay indoors’. For example: government ‘imposed a curfew from sunset to sunrise’. Now is that what the perpetrators currently wreaking havoc in the country want the government to do and curtail citizens’ civil liberties?
Those of us who were there would tell you they were not pleasant days that must never be allowed to happen again especially in present Zambia which has witnessed unprecedented economic development. Modern infrastructure, including bridges, schools, clinics, hospitals, shopping malls, new mines, districts, and farms that are creating employment and producing food for the people are flourishing in all parts of the Republic.
So why should anyone in his or her right senses want to drag the country back to the dark days when people’s civil rights, guaranteed under the Constitution, were suppressed or trampled upon?  In fact some people lost their lives and property. I remember with profound sadness one tragic incident involving a friend who lost his life needlessly after being shot by security operatives enforcing the curfew.
This particular friend (name withheld), it was explained by the relevant authorities, met his death as he drove back to Ndola from Mufulira where he had gone to see his pregnant wife who had been admitted to one of the local hospitals with better medical facilities in the mining town.
A drive between Ndola and Mufulira often takes 40 to 45 minutes (if the road is in tip top condition). With that in mind he reckoned he would be able to beat the 19-hour deadline but didn’t manage as members of the security forces on patrol allegedly opened fire, killing him instantly, allegedly for ‘ignoring’ orders for him to stop. He probably did not hear the ‘warning shots’ – if there were any – as his mind seems to have been set on getting back to Ndola as quickly as possible and avoid breaking the curfew hours there as well. For the workers and business community, the curfew triggered countless operational problems, including having to obtain special permits for workers and their managers doing nightshifts or risk arrest and prosecution in courts of law.
As a result, business hours and productivity were scaled down with terrible consequences for the country’s economy. Such things must not be allowed to happen again. Zambia has come a long way and patriotic citizens must never give usurpers an opportunity to succeed in their mercenary intentions to create chaos after 53 years of peace and unity.
Zambia does not need international peace-keepers.
If it were during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and liberation wars in Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique and South West Africa (Namibia) between 1965 when Ian Smith proclaimed UDI the current spate of mysterious fires and destruction of private and public property would have been blamed on the rebel and racist SA forces that frequently invade the country in ‘hot pursuit’ of so-called ‘terrorists’. But that era is gone – and gone forever.
But for reasons that cannot be sufficiently explained some misguided elements want to short-circuit the political and electoral process to achieve what they cannot win legally through the front- door and have, therefore, resorted to hit-and-run tactics like Castro’s militants did to end colonialism on the former Spanish colony of Cuba in the 1950s.
Known as the July 26 Revolutionary Movement, it was a political movement led by Castro which finally overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Its name commemorates an attack on the Santiago de Cuba army barracks on July 26, 1953.
The movement began formally in 1955 when Castro went to Mexico to form a disciplined guerrilla force. The leaders of the movement remaining in Cuba to carry out sabotage and political activities were Frank País, Armando Hart, and Enrique Oltuski. At this time the movement espoused a reform program that included distribution of land to peasants, nationalization of public services, industrialization, honest elections, and mass education.
In early 1957, with Castro back in Cuba fighting in the Sierra Maestra, “Civic Resistance” groups were organized in the cities, and numerous middle-class and professional persons gravitated toward Castro. In 1958 the movement joined in a “Junta of Unity” with most other groups opposing Batista. After Castro’s victory, the 26th of July Movement was integrated into the Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas in 1961.
So if some people feel they can do Castro here they are mistaken and President Lungu, who was elected in a free and fair election, has the necessary legitimacy to adopt any measures to protect the people and their property. It means everyone who believes they are a ‘government-in-waiting’ must be patient and wait for the next general elections when Zambians from all the provinces will decide whether to give them a chance to rule or not.
Chiluba, did it, Levy Mwanawasa did it; Rupiah Banda did it; and Michael Chilufya Sata and his Patriotic Front (PF) party did it after four failed attempts.
Booker T Washington, the Negro (African-American scholar) is famously remembered for his delight at his failed 700 experiments because ‘we now know 700 times how not to succeed’.
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