Africa-Press – Malawi. On Friday March 4,2022 President Lazarus Chakwera announced that his government plans to construct a befitting mausoleum for freedom fighter and founder of Malawi Congress Party (MCP) Orton Ching’oli Chirwa.
He also said government will construct an international airport and library in the Northern Region in honour of him. Apparently, this is a way to right MCP wrongs. While righting MCP’s wrongs is good, doing this using public resources is completely wrong.
In the fight for independence, some people were killed, some survived. They are all heroes and need to be honored one way or another using public resources.
But there are some freedom fighters who survived until independence but were murdered, tortured and robbed of their properties by the MCP regime. Orton Chirwa was one of them. These people must be compensated or honored using MCP’s resources not public resources.
Orton Chirwa was a freedom fighter who became Malawi’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General after independence. After a dispute with Malawi’s autocratic President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, he and his wife Vera were exiled.
The couple was later kidnapped abroad and tried in Malawi on charges of treason and sentenced to death. Under the MCP government, Chirwa languished in prison, spent nearly eleven years on death row and died in prison on October 20, 1992.
MCP must take financial responsibility for such atrocities. No public resources should be used for cleaning MCP’s image. President Lazarus Chakwera should also not use tax payers money to right MCP’s wrongs with the hope of getting reelected in 2025. He should simply deliver what he promised voters in 2020.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are those of the author not necessarily of The Maravi Post or Editor
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