15 May 2003
editorial
SO much has been written and said about the hired assassins called Karavinas killing innocent people in Western and North-Western provinces of Zambia.
The local people in these areas are living in fear because they do not know when this mercenary group can pounce.
The effect of this abominable behaviour by the killers is that the locals have abandoned activities like agriculture and other economic ventures for fear of being butchered.
Research indicates that this mercenary group allegedly hired from war ravaged Angola has killed many innocent villagers.
Zambia shares its borders with some neighbours who have waged wars to attain political independence.
Sometimes these conflicts have created skirmishes in border areas, to the chagrin of rational observers.
The media has highlighted selected incidents in which this country has been called on to mount security operations to protect villagers.
This, sometimes, has been clearly a phenomenon beyond the scope of the police responsibility.
An old English saying states that there is no smoke without fire.
If these Karavinas can be traced to a neighbouring country, it is understandable how this development has come about.
What is needed is for the Government to launch a concerted campaign against the barbarism associated with allegations of witchcraft among villagers.
Part of this renewed informal education drive should hinge on the villagers themselves being alert and organising themselves in such a way that they relate to security arrangements made to protect them.
It is a pity that our hardworking policemen are unfairly being called all sorts of names for failing to rid these areas of the menace posed by these killers.
Sometimes the local villagers themselves are to blame because they do not cooperate with the police officers assigned to get information on the Karavinas' activities.
The villagers ought to know that the only way to flush out the assassins and curb infiltration by subtle and evasive mercenaries whose chief interest is money offered to them by perpetrators of the witch hunt sequel is to team up with the security agencies.
When a matter of this magnitude surfaces or continues unabated, only Zambians, and in this case the affected villagers working with the police can effectively deal with it.
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