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afrol.com / AENS, 13 December - Malawi President Bakili Muluzi deliberately undermined investigations into human rights abuses in the small central African country to hide his possible complicity in politically motivated murder, torture and assault, a scathing new international study alleges. Respected international human rights watchdog Article 19 claims in its 'Malawi: Who Wants To Forget' study that Muluzi, senior cabinet ministers and ruling United Democratic Party (UDF) leaders repeatedly refused to support investigations or a proposed independent commission of inquiry into human rights for fear that it would implicate them. - President Muluzi was himself secretary general of the former ruling Malawi Congress Party (MCP) during the previous regime, so the prospects for a broad-ranging inquiry that would potentially implicate members of the new government were never very high, said Article 19. The abuses, which include the systematic murder of government critics or opposition leaders, occurred during the MCP's 30-year one-party reign under the leadership of President-for-Life Hastings Kamuza Banda. Stressing that many of Banda's compatriots were still in government after defecting to the UDF or smaller opposition parties, Article 19 named UDF vice president and current Malawi health minister Aleke Banda as a key figure in human rights abuses. "Hundreds of Jehovah's Witnesses were murdered by the Malawi Young Pioneers on Banda's orders in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The commander of the Malawi Young Pioneers militia was Aleke Banda, who was also secretary general of the MCP. He later became finance minister in the UDF government after the country's first multi-party elections in 1994," said Article 19. The study also criticises Malawi's decision to prosecute suspected human rights abusers instead of first probing their actions through a commission of inquiry or South African-style public truth commission. "The standard of proof [required] in criminal trials is rightly more exacting than in commissions of inquiry ... commissions of inquiry are more appropriate in societies [that] are based on concealment. Malawi is a prime example of this," the study contends. Article 19 also stressed that the government's flagship criminal case against Banda's mistress Cecelia Kadzamira and the president's protégé, MCP vice president John Tembo, for the 1993 murder of four outspoken cabinet ministers failed due to a lack of evidence. Tembo and Kadzamira were both acquitted. - Their acquittal does not itself mean that they were not responsible. Missing links in the prosecution proved crucial. There is no doubt that the government's position would have been much stronger if it had launched an investigation with wider remit than the 1993 [criminal murder] case, said the study. Article 19 also criticises international donors for their refusal to fund a proposed truth commission. "A lingering sympathy for Banda [by donors], a reluctance to have [President Muluzi's] misdeeds uncovered, or simply a failure to see the relevance of such an investigation stymied the possibility of the past being uncovered," the organisation said. Article 19 stresses that foreign donors enjoyed an effective veto over government budgets because of the size of their contributions to government revenue and could therefore "have exercised strong pressure in favour of an investigation if they had chosen to. But they did not." National reconciliation and forgiveness would only occur, Article 19 said, if human rights victims and the relatives of the dead were given full access to information about the crimes. Banda ruled Malawi as a one-party state from 1964 to 1994 through, Article 19 said, one of Africa's most elaborate systems of formal censorship and a widespread network of informers. The government's formal police and army was buttressed by the notorious Malawi Young Pioneers, the MCP Youth League and the Nyau masked dance cult belonging to Banda's Chewa tribe. Article 19's study was formally released at the weekend to commemorate International Human Rights Day and includes a dissertation on the importance of truth processes for reconciliation and development, as well as stressing the importance of access to information on human rights violations in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Namibia. By Brian Ligomeka,
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