2: 01 Mutharika consolidates his power through arrests

Any lingering doubt that Malawi had returned to an era of political arrests was completely erased by president Bingu wa Mutharika himself on his return from Scotland where he had ttended a Malawi-Scotland cooperation conference in 2005. He categorically stated that the arrests of Hons. Lucius Banda and Maxwell Milanzi were his administration’s revenge, “tit-for-tat”, for their championing presidential impeachment in the National Assembly.

Banda and Milanzi were arbitrarily arrested, and were being singled out for harsh treatment, solely because they had shown the gumption to promote presidential impeachment. The probe into their backgrounds at the exclusion of similar probes of any other MPs, especially those on the government side in parliament, clearly demonstrates the political nature of their prosecution. Malawi’s 1994 constitution is clear in outlawing harsh government treatment of anyone for their peaceful political beliefs, association or actions.

Hon. Banda’s alleged lack of adequate academic qualifications to be an MP, and his alleged forgery of a school leaving certificate; as well as Hon. Milanzi’s alleged unexpired criminal record - all didn’t bother the government before the two stood up in favour of impeachment. That they were being accused of these things only now automatically raised a reasonable doubt about their guilt. This government was taking Malawi down a slippery slope to kangaroo courts and public institutions serving the president’s political interests.

If it is true that Hon. Lucius Banda used a forged MSCE to apply for his candidature, and that Hon. Milanzi has an unexpired criminal record that should have disqualified him; surely the Malawi Electoral Commission, which owes due diligence to the electorate in vetting the bona fides of candidates, must share the blame. If the MEC cleared these men to stand for election, logically it should today be justifying itself. Inexplicably, however, the MEC stood on the president’s side denouncing Banda and Milanzi. At the very least, the MEC should have had to answer how it failed to find something as public as a criminal record which needed only a simple request to police during the vetting process. Evidence against Banda also suggested that it would have been easy for the MEC to vet Hon. Banda’s academic qualifications via a simple liaison with the Malawi National Examining Board prior to approving his candidature.

If the allegations against Banda and Milanzi were true, therefore, the MEC had plenty of questions to answer about the quality of its due diligence in vetting candidates for their eligibility to stand for elections. In the absence of clear answers to these issues, it is hard to escape the impression that the MEC was simply being used by the president as an instrument with which to harass his political opponents.  Later, of course, Mutharika appointed a Malawi Electoral Commission composed of his own family friends and party lackeys.

The MEC was not the only taxpayer-funded institution shirking its obligations of political neutrality. So were the Directorate of Public Prosecutions [DPP] and the Anti-Corruption Bureau [ACB].

The never-ending harassment of ex-president Bakili Muluzi by the ACB, for example, is well documented. They searched his private homes, clearly on a fishing expedition to find incriminating evidence against him.  In addition, the ACB remained engaged in a ceaseless effort to keep the ex-president busy answering invasive questions about his bank accounts and property - yet the bureau had never publicly demonstrated a legally rock-solid “probable cause” in line with the provisions of the constitution, to justify this level of harassment and invasiveness.

Earlier in the year 2005, the police had no qualms about practically ransacking the former first lady’s foundation offices ostensibly in search of illegal weapons which, of course, were not found and did not exist.

The list of those the Mutharika administration has recently arrested looks like a Who’s Who of Malawi’s political establishment. It started with the arrest of elder statesman Harry Thomson [UDF] along with Hon. Alfred Mwechumu [UDF] and Roy Comsy [then-UDF]. Mutharika’s allegation that they wanted to kill him was belied by his own dropping of the charges and his maintaining of Comsy in his cabinet. How does one keep in cabinet a person one sincerely believes wanted to dispatch one to an early, unscheduled rendezvous with one’s Maker?

Then came the arrests of journalists Mabvuto Banda, Raphael Tenthani and the Vice President’s press officer. Mabvuto Banda and Tenthani had reported that Mutharika was tormented by ghosts in the form of rodents at New State House. The ghosts, it was said, often crawled upon the president’s stomach and chest at night while he slept. Later we learned about the arrest of Hon. Gwanda Chakuamba. To charge him, Mutharika relied on an archaic law, a relic of the dictatorship, which banned the reporting or uttering of anything that might bring ridicule or disrespect to the president. Chakuamba had called Mutharika a foreigner-hiring, drunken brute. Since then, our law enforcement officers have also put behind bars Sam Mpasu [UDF] and have rendered Hon. Clement Stambuli [UDF] under criminal probe.

Recently, Limbe police have arrested a Mr. Dave Chingwalu and a Mr. Brian Magola, allegedly, “for spreading rumours that [Mutharika was] sick” [Daily Times, March 26, 2009, 2 in for Bingu reports]. This reaction is at odds with Mutharika’s earlier reaction to reports appearing on Nyasa Times, on or about March 22^nd 2009, since retracted, which averred the same about the state of his health. In that case, Mutharika appeared “live” on national television, an appearance which apparently forced Nyasa Times to retract their report and apologise.

However, Mutharika’s overreaction in the reported case of Messrs Chingwalu and Magola is undignified and unpresidential. These two arrests, incidentally, come hot on the heels of his earlier arrest of the UDF’s Hophmally Makande and our alliance partner from the Malawi Democratic Party [MDP], Kamlepo Kalua, using the archaic sedition law, accusing them of inciting violence. All they did was warn that what recently happened in Madagascar and Pakistan, where a government changed hands [Madagascar], and a fired judge was re-instated [Pakistan], as a result of public pressure, could equally happen in Malawi.

Considering his tendency to arrest and incarcerate Malawians more for offending him politically rather than for offending the law, these arrests deepen the blemish on Mutharika’s human rights record and bode ill for his legacy as a protector, rather than a predator, of fellow Malawians whose political opinions and colour differ from his own.

Keeping in mind that arresting and charging people is one of the most severe deprivations of constitutionally guaranteed personal freedoms that a government can impose on its citizens; and that charging citizens with criminal offences has the potential to rob them of their good reputations forever regardless of the outcome of their trials — this power ought to be used with utmost and exemplary discretion by a president, rather than cavalierly for crass political mileage as Mutharika tends to do.

This last April Mutharika’s arresting rampage continued as reports indicated the incarceration of Chief Mtenje and roughly five women from Mangochi district whose “crime” was to erect UDF flags when he was launching his party’s campaign in the district [Nyasa Times, April 5, 2009, Police arrest Chief, UDF supporters for erecting flags].  Although his police finally decided against charging these people, the fact remains that they spent three nights in custody for an activity that is fully protected in our constitution.

 Mutharika’s is an egregious deprivation of these citizens’ freedoms and he, as the person hired by these same voters to uphold and protect the contents of that constitution, should not be associated with violating it in this callous manner. Citizens’ constitutionally guaranteed freedoms are not his to sacrifice at the altar of his political convenience and expedience.

It is also useful to recall that Mutharika wasn’t yet one year in office when a meeting of his then party, our party, the United Democratic Front [UDF], was convoked at Sanjika Presidential Palace during the evening of January 2^nd 2005 to try and reconcile him with his then party with which he was feuding even at that early stage in his presidency.

Before the meeting began, you will recall, three party officials - Deputy Minister for Transport and Public Works Roy Commsy, Member of Parliament Alfred Mwechumu and former cabinet minister Harry Thomson - were unexpectedly arrested and later improbably charged with trying to assassinate him!  Mutharika then called off the confab, later “pardoning” them before they had been availed the opportunity to go to trial to defend themselves against the serious charge of Treason. In the meantime, they had endured the ignominy of police cells and the tattering of their reputations beyond repair. 

The whole thing was clearly a set up, and at least Thomson, if not the others, has since obtained compensation for wrongful accusation. Commsy, curiously, has been kept in Mutharika’s cabinet. Thus, Mutharika never really believed Commsy was out to kill him.  Again, this points to Mutharika’s propensity for taking liberties with the constitutional rights of fellow Malawians to advance whatever political gambit he might wish to deploy at the material time to advance his personal political whims of the moment. 

In the early days of his presidency, Mutharika’s appetite for arresting people, especially UDF people, was so high to the point it prompted one journalist, Pilirani Semu Banda, to dub the year 2004, “the year of prominent arrests” [The Nation, December 30, 2004, 2004, the year of prominent arrests].  In her article, Semu-Banda noted that almost all those arrested were prominent UDF officials, starting with the party’s then Deputy Director of Research and former Shire Bus Lines Chief Executive Humphreys Mvula, arrested on 10 charges of alleged fraud and corruption; followed quickly by the arrest, a week into September 2004, of UDF Secretary General Kennedy Makwangwala, whom Mutharika improbably charged with “malicious damage” to vehicles belonging to Ntcheu Bwanje South MP, Marjorie Ngaunje during campaigning the previous year. 
 
And then in October of 2004, Mutharika started his epic sequence of accusations and arrests of former president Dr. Bakili Muluzi, alleging initially, on October 2, that Muluzi had abused the privilege accorded to a sitting head of state by importing duty free vehicles, some of which were later given to the UDF, our party. As if this weren’t enough, on October 8, 2004, he sent ACB officers to question Agriculture Minister Chakufwa Chihana, an ally of Muluzi’s, to demand an affidavit from him “admitting” that the Aford president corrupted returning officers during the May 20 polls of that same year. 

 And in the same month, Mutharika arrested former UDF MP for Machinga Likwenu, Rodson Jangiya, on allegations that Jangiya had had a hand in the death of Sheikh Abdul Hamid Bughdad about three years earlier. Former UDF Spokesperson, Humphreys Mvula, was also arrested again on October 26 on allegations that he played a role in the same death.  Mutharika was on a galloping roll! 
 
He then moved on to UDF regional governor (South) John Chikakwiya whom he charged with Treason over his remarks at a political rally that Malawi might experience genocide if politicians continued to provoke the party’s supporters; soon thereafter followed by Mutharika’s arrest of former Finance Minister and UDF Director of Economic Affairs, Friday Jumbe, at Chileka International Airport as Jumbe was about to board a plane bound for South Africa. 

On November 22, Mutharika charged Jumbe with three counts of having played a part in a case where former Sports minister, Philip Bwanali, himself arrested earlier, was accused of misusing K11million of public money.  Funny how this came back to bite Mutharika as it was reported, a day later, that Mutharika was himself among a group of former cabinet ministers who had benefited from the same K11 million meant for the Sports and Culture Trust Fund! No wonder Mutharika has since kept quiet about these charges. 
 
Mutharika closed the year 2004 with another arrest of John Chikakwiya for the alleged theft of 
K400, 000 which Mutharika accused Chikakwiya of illegally collecting from a milling company. 
 
While 2004 may have been a banner year for these prominent arrests, Mutharika’s appetite for sending fellow Malawians to the gulags did not stop with the end of that year.  Ahead of the state visit to Malawi by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in early 2005, he saw fit to arrest, in one fell swoop, roughly 15 UDF activists, one of whom was arrested on behalf of her husband whom Mutharika’s cops could not locate during the dawn swoop, and placed all of them in preventive detention for fear that they might mount demonstrations against the state visit.

This was soon after Mutharika had resigned from the party that sponsored him to power, our party the UDF, at great financial expense and political effort.  The arrests also happened soon after Mutharika had arrested his own Vice President, Cassim Chilumpha, and two of his close associates Rashid Nembo and Yusuf Matumula, charging them with Treason. Chilumpha had adamantly refused to join Mutharika in resigning from the UDF. 

One of the Vice President’s associates, Rashid Nembo, who was arrested with Chilumpha, has since been awarded millions in compensation for wrongful arrest.  The other associate, Yusuf Matumula, remains under charge as is the Vice President himself. 

Mutharika has stopped Muluzi from holding public meetings near airports, and often stopped his public meetings elsewhere, including one at Chisitu in Mulanje which Mutharika stopped by using the military in full combat gear, armed to the teeth. 

More recently, we have witnessed the arrest of former President Dr. Bakili Muluzi on the charge of Treason.  Others more recently charged with the same offence include five army officers.  In all these cases, the “evidence” which Mutharika relied upon was an anonymous letter of poor literally quality whose contents could not withstand cannot examination. Others similarly persecuted include diplomats John Chikago and Ziliro Chibambo.

There have also been widespread dismissals of senior government officers suspected of harbouring opposition sympathies.