06/06/2024
SOCIAL MEDIA YENA HICHILEMA ABEPELEFYE
We are not shocked that Mr Hakainde Hichilema revealed at his press conference yesterday that he was spying on citizens, who were engaging in political expression through various social media channels such as the WhatsApp messaging application.
Mr Hichilema’s confirmation of such ruthless state surveillance on private conversations by the state may have been advertent because it was said in anger, frustration and desperation as the economy and other aspects of governance nose-dive and continue to slip away from his control because he lacks a genuine plan for the country.
Even so, it should alert Zambians because if Mr Hichilema is not stopped, we are likely to start witnessing the worst forms of dictatorship and ruthlessness, all because the man knows he can’t win the next election without manipulation, intimidation, violence, repression and fraud.
It is also not surprising that Mr Hichilema’s Western friends and backers are not restraining his tyranny. This is the imperialist history we are familiar with. We haven’t forgotten how the same West backed Mr Hichilema’s protégé, the autocratic Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, even as he ruthlessly assassinated his political opponents and shut down spaces for political expression. All this was because Kamuzu supported the apartheid settler colonial regime in South Africa at a time when other African countries refused to endorse such an evil.
Today, Mr Hichilema is the being backed against his own people by the West, as a reward for backing settler colonialisation against Palestinians, the colonisation of Western Sahara by Morocco with the support of United States in exchange for Morocco's support for Israel, and for surrendering the country’s political and economic sovereignty to the West. All this is happening amidst increasing human rights violations, nepotism, tribalism, economic crisis, and corruption.
But just like apartheid in South Africa, Mr Hichilema and his masters s
