Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless
. Exodus 22:22-24 (NIV)
The untoward, heinous, merciless killing of people with albinism in Malawi has reached crisis levels, is political, and must get government’s urgent attention, the time is past for words.
However, minister of homeland security and disaster preparedness, who is also DPP spokesperson, Nickolas Dausi on Wednesday appear to disagree with this position. Speaking to Brian Banda of Times TV, Dausi on Wednesday responded to Banda’s questioning, that the killing of people with albinism, is not yet a crisis. He also decried people making the killings of people with albinism a political situation.
Dausi ended his outcry by challenging that the planned march to State House, whether political parties from the opposition, would not solve the spate of albinism peoples.
Nevertheless, perhaps the minister should take into consideration that the Government exists to protect all Malawians; that means each one of the 17 million plus Malawians. Malawians pay taxes that are put into the Government coffers; the Government in turn set up internal and external security departments: The Police, secret Service (National Intelligence Bureau – NIB), and the Army. These are set up to protect us.
Malawi is currently facing a crisis: people are being targeted, ambushed, beaten and butchered to death. These targeted people are being pursued on the basis that they are people with albinism, commonly known as albinos. This is what makes these killings a crisis.
There are allegations that the killings are for cash gains. There are also allegations that even relatives are working with the illicit profiteers, to ambush persons with albinism. This is what makes these killings a crisis.
Our national security apparatuses made up of the Police and NIB, with the added eyes of the immigration officials at the Malawi borders, appear to be giving blind attention to the killings and transporting the bodies of persons with albinism. This is what makes these killings political, since these security apparatuses are departments fall under the Government.
It is uncanny, strange and mysterious that the minister of home affairs Dausi to ask the members of political parties that pledge to walk with the Association of People with Albinism (APAM) to the State House. The APAM planned to stage the walk, in protest to lack of action by Government to protect people with albinism from the spate of the killings and harvesting of bones of persons with albinism.
At this stage, people with albinism in Malawi, are living in fear; their right to life reduced and nullified by the greed of a few unchecked people. While one group of people the vulnerable people with albinism are left to their own means of protection, the killers are being allowed to prance, sashay, romp, and cavort about freely in the country.
But people with albinism are tax payers, they are people, they have all the rights endowed on the people in Malawi. Right now, all persons with albinism are vulnerable. Clearly, they have every right to seek protection from all the security machinery in Malawi. They have the right to walk up to State House, because Government appears to be doing next to nothing about their welfare and protection.
In fact, they have the light to march up to Kamuzu Palace, Sanjika Palace, and State House in Zomba and in Mzuzu.
In reaction to the February 20, 2019 interview of minister Dausi with Brian Banda on Times Talk, it must be stated categorically, that Government must act, and act now with all urgency, not in the manner that Dausi displayed in the Times interview.
“What is problem (does Government have) in protecting albinism people?” This is question Dausi is asked by Times Brian Banda.
Dausi responds: “I have no comment.”
My response to DPP spokesperson Dausi is: NOW is not the time to “have no comment!”
NOW is the time to get out your dictionary and spew out words of support, words of protection, words of inclusion, words of distancing yourself and your political party from the heinous killing of persons with albinism in Malawi. NOW is the time for you to show your cleverness with all the action words you’ve got stored up in your mind. NOW is the time for Malawi Government no-nonsense action through the machinery of Malawi security and hail-storm down on the killers and buyers of persons with albinism.
Minister Dausi, Now is not the time to “have no comment”! You’re letting down Malawi’s people with albinism, your government, your DPP, and most of all, you’re letting down all the people of Malawi.
Urgent action must be taken by the Malawi Government to ensure that no person with albinism is killed.
One person with albinism killed, is one person too many!
Janet Zeenat Karim
Author of Women & Leadership: Women are the Change You Seek
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Ephesians 1:3