Chirundu UPND member of parliament Douglas Syakalima says PF has been dodging the inter-party dialogue because they are a bunch thieves who are benefitting from the lack of order in the country.

Reacting to the announcement by the Zambia Council for Inter-party Dialogue (ZCID) that the dialogue date had been moved from January end to February 2018, Syakalima said the PF were trying to paint a picture that they were interested in the meeting when in fact not.

“So it is all intertwined. They are the ones who are trying to be dodgy because dialogue will mean justice for everybody, they are not interested in justice. All they are interested in is in looting, stealing. They are just petty thieves and thieves want to stay where there is no order. So they are the ones who actually don’t want dialogue because dialogue will make them look normal because they are just an abnormally bunch of crooks. Dialogue helps us because we are the victims. So if we said ‘stop violence’ it means that they will stop inflicting pain on us, they have been killing our people. Many of our people have died under the the same PF,” Syakalima said.

“This dialogue must go ahead, it is very necessary because it will set hill to a lot of issues that people are complaining about. Just the other day there was violence against the NDC and all those things are contained in the package of dialogue. We needed this dialogue like yesterday and this is why we have been emphasising that the PF are the ones who have been dodging. They try to paint a picture as if they are interested in dialogue. That dialogue will stop the violence because they are perpetuating violence themselves. So it helps society, it does not help the PF because they want to continue with intimidation, they want to continue with depression, they want to continue with oppression, they want to continue with violence. So they save themselves because under violence, they will continue with their corruption.”

Syakalima also condemned the PF/NDC clashes at levy mall a week ago.

“Like on the Levy incident, the NDC were the victims but they ended up arresting the victims and this is why we are saying that they want to continue doing this. All they want is intimidation so that they remain in power. But one thing that you have to know is that history has taught us, oppressed people cannot live oppressed forever. So even when the police are just watching when citizens are being beaten, one day the people will become the police,” warned Syakalima.

“Why should victims become culprits? And this is what they have been doing, each time there are clashes, they go and pick up the victims, that is not right. And when people start saying that they are a PF police, they start arguing, thats being unprofessional. This is why the police must be trained now. Not just going to Sondela to do drilling, no! They must be taught on what community policing is.”

The inter-party dialogue meeting organised by the ZCID is supposed to be a build up to the Commonwealth-proposed dialogue meeting.