PF Cadre Strategy “well thought out, funded and implemented” – ACA’s Miti

The Police have this week sought to provide assurance that the upcoming August 12th elections will be peaceful. According to Deputy Inspector of Police for Operations Charity Katanga they are geared to implement an effective policing system for manning the polls. She has also warned that the police will not condone any political violence and that perpetrators will “face the full wrath of the law regardless of… political inclination.”

However, recent reports of incidents have thrown into question the ability of the police to deal with the threat posed by cadres. Already opposition billboards and campaign materials have been subject to destruction and burning.

Commenting on the challenges presented by cadres that claim to support the ruling PF Alliance for Community Action (ACA) Executive Director Laura Miti has stated, “One of President Lungu's greatest accomplishments is coming across as totally unaware of the systematic terror his PF thugs visit on ordinary citizens. While the President walks around with hands clasped, looking as holy the Pope, his PF thugs are essentially in vicious control of the country.”

Miti goes on to recount a story to make her point.

“A couple of months ago, we were in Mwansabombwe carrying out routine election civic education, from village to village. One afternoon, we were having the 2nd meeting of the day, when the local police nd a convoy of PF cadres, dressed in their full regalia, arrived. The cadres begun to pace, threateningly, around. I was speaking, so I continued, but could see the police speaking to my colleague. The cadres then gathered at the back of a now tense crowd, and begun to listen. I noticed them become interested in what I was saying. The District Intelligence Officer (I discovered who he was after the meeting) also sat through the meeting - clearly on duty. Done, we left, expecting to hold 4 to 5 more meetings in the next days. The police had, however, summoned my colleague to the police station. Long story short is that the police ordered us to leave Mwansabombwe, immediately, "for our own good," because they had information that cadres were planning to storm the lodge we were in, to beat us up. They said they could not protect us. We asked what we had done wrong that the police would order us to leave. The Officer-in- Charge said you have done nothing wrong but the cadres will beat you up and I have been instructed to tell you to leave. Just leave the district now!”

According to Miti her team had similar experiences in Nyimba and elsewhere.

“I write this to show how President Lungu's administration has created an illegal army of thugs called cadres, who they are routinely using for violence and the threat of it. They obviously fund the hoodlums because they arrive in expensive 4x4s which cannot be afforded by ordinary mortals. Most significantly, they, as shown from our experience, are in control of institutions of government, including law enforcement,” she writes on social media.

Miti says all this points to a cadre strategy that “is well thought out, funded and implemented.”