Where Was This Outrage When The PF Did The Same, And Even Worse?

The Editor Zambia

The outrage surrounding the cancellation of the passports of six Zambian citizens would carry considerably more moral weight if those now crying persecution had shown the same concern when the Patriotic Front (PF) government went much further against one of its own citizens.

Where were the voices of indignation when Larry Mweetwa, a Zambian and former director in the Ministry of Technology and Science, found himself not merely without a passport, but effectively barred from returning to the country of his birth?

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According to the account surrounding the Mweetwa case, his passport was cancelled by then Home Affairs Minister Stephen Kampyongo, after which he was deported from Zambia and declared persona- non grata or treated as an illegal immigrant.

This was not simply the withdrawal of a travel document but a far more drastic measure because the individual was prevented from entering Zambia, the country to which he claimed citizenship.

That history makes the current political theatre over passport cancellations look remarkably selective.

Today, some politicians and commentators are presenting the cancellation of passports as though the government has stripped the affected individuals of their nationality and rendered them stateless.

Yet even the statement circulating under the name of former Mongu Central Member of Parliament Oliver Mumbuna Amutike makes the fundamental distinction clear: cancellation of a passport is not automatically cancellation of citizenship.
A passport is a travel document, while citizenship is a legal status. The two are not synonymous.

The United States demonstrated this distinction when it revoked Edward Snowden’s passport after he became wanted over the disclosure of classified information.
Whatever one’s political opinion of Snowden, the cancellation of his passport did not automatically erase his American citizenship.

That is the point that should be understood before political opportunism takes over the national conversation.

If the six Zambians whose passports have reportedly been cancelled remain citizens, then the argument that Zambia has automatically stripped them of their nationality is misleading.

But there is an even bigger question for the opposition and its sympathisers: why the sudden discovery that passport cancellation is an outrage?
Where was this outrage during the PF era?
Mwetwa’s case is particularly uncomfortable because he was not some foreign national with no connection to Zambia.

He was reportedly a Zambian who had lived in Britain, was a trained medical doctor, and had served as a special forces officer in the British Army.

Yet, under the PF administration, the action against him reportedly went considerably beyond the cancellation of a passport. He was deported and prevented from returning to Zambia.

If the present controversy is genuinely about defending citizenship and the rights of Zambians, then Mweetwa’s case deserves the same scrutiny. Indeed, it deserves perhaps even greater scrutiny because the action went beyond restricting international travel and touched directly upon the ability of a Zambian citizen to enter his own country.

One cannot condemn a government for cancelling passports while remaining silent about an earlier government allegedly going further. That is not principle. That is political convenience.

The Mweetwa precedent, therefore, raises an unavoidable question: Where was this outrage when the PF government went further?

Those demanding accountability today should also be prepared to account for yesterday.

The real test of political principle is not whether one defends a passport cancellation when one’s opponents are in power. The real test is whether one applies the same standard when one’s own political friends are holding the pen.

Zambians deserve that consistency.
Anything less is hypocrisy dressed up as human rights.