CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Gideon Thole, Zambia, October 1998
THEME = PERSONALITIES
Zambia has recently lost one of its great champions of human rights
Men, women and children from vulnerable groups sit quietly as they wait for their turn at Zambia's most depressing-looking legal clinics. The room is too small to accommodate them all, and a receptionist politely asks some to wait for their turn on a bench outside the building. These poor people are only too eager to wait: they have found a lawyer whose motive is not to empty their penniless pockets. But the future of this legal clinic, which provides free legal representation to the poor, is uncertain.
The person who was running it - human rights activist Lucy Banda Sichone - passed away on 23 August in Lusaka's University Teaching Hospital after an illness. Sichone, who was founder and executive chairperson of the Zambia Civic Education Association (ZCEA), turned a house in Lusaka's Northmead residential area, into her organisation's secretariat. Until 1993, vulnerable members of society who felt they had been abused by their employers, the government and even their own relatives, had no hope of getting redress, largely because of prohibitive legal fees. But the courage and handwork of Sichone changed all. Although her health in her last months was failing her, Lucy, as she was popularly known by her admirers and friends, continued to serve those closest to her heart - oppressed people in different parts of the country. She spent countless days on the country's pot-holed and risky roads, travelling to remote areas, to take the message of civic education to vulnerable groups. She was an extra-ordinary human rights lawyer, offering her services to rural dwellers who fell prey to all sorts of abuses.
On her trips, she took time to speak to school children, teaching them, among other things, the importance of being good citizens, of being educated, of protecting their rights and of being hardworking. This mirrored her unmatched sense of care for the less privileged. She knew how to be a friend, a fighter and a mother, this at the expense of her own personal comfort and that of her children and the orphans she looked after. In the closing months of her life, Lucy, while championing the rights of others, fought bravely for her own life right up to the end.
Lucy was admitted for a week into the privately-owned Monica Chiumya Hospital, before being transferred to the government-owned University Teaching Hospital where she died on 23 August. Her death which came as a total surprise to many who knew her, brought to an early end, the career of one of Zambia's most illustrious and controversial champions for human rights.
It is said that Lucy had taken on too many battles in her short but eminent career; she had ruffled too many feathers and ruthlessly attacked human rights abusers. Her life was a legacy of struggle. She took up the most challenging and dangerous cases, many of them for free, with great zeal.
Sichone was among the lawyers who challenged President Frederick Chiluba's nationality, in an opposition electoral petition following the controversial 1996 elections. She was also a defence lawyer of the 79 people, most of them army officers charged with treason after the failed coup in October 1997.
A note smuggled from Lusaka Central Prison where most of the detainees were kept, read: "She was a significant member of the defense team representing 40 of those detained for treason. Lucy's death is as though a light has been switched off before the assignment was finished. Lucy touched many hearts in these prisons, particularly juveniles and the under-privileged inmates whom she represented selflessly".
Sichone will also be missed by other leaders of Zambia's civic movement. The president of the Anti-Voter Apathy Project (AVAP), Bonnie Tembo, puts it this way: "Lucy was a heroine, a true revolutionary. She was always among those lawyers who handled extremely sensitive cases with no fear. She dedicated her life fighting for other people's rights".
Tembo was detained with Sichone in 1991 on treason-related charges. Both were acquitted by the court, along with several opposition leaders who had been linked to the Zero Option, an alleged plot to unlawfully unseat the Frederick Chiluba government.
Disillusioned with the state's law enforcement agencies, Sichone was not averse to taking the law into her own hands to rectify perceived injustices. Irked by what she perceived as the unfair land reforms of 1995, which she said, effectively robbed most Zambians of their birthright, she encouraged rural people to take up arms to defend their land.
When a policeman shot and injured a suspect in a police cell, she initiated legal action that led to a conviction of the officer. Controversy - in word and in deed - was part of Sichone's life. A part-time newspaper columnist, she was sentenced to an indefinite prison term along with two journalists on The Post, for alleged contempt of Parliament for questioning the competence of the Speaker, Robinson Nabulyato, and other House representatives.
Sichone, who had a three-months old daughter, then went into hiding until the dust had settled. Perhaps Sichone's most controversial action, was her lone demonstration to protest against the reported shooting by police, of opposition leaders, former president Kenneth Kaunda and Rodger Chongwe, at a political gathering in Kabwe in August 1997. As President Chiluba arrived at Lusaka international airport from Israel, Sichone greeted him with a placard bearing the message: "Welcome to Zambia, our own Sharpville massacre". Ruling party supporters reacted by beating her up.
Though Sichone retired from active politics in 1992, she saw herself as a president-in-waiting. On several occasions, she publicly announced she was confident of winning the 2001 presidential poll as an independent candidate. "The best way I can improve the peoples' welfare, is by being the head of state and I'm preparing myself to do just that," she confided to me shortly before her death. "My heart will not rest till I see an economically-liberated Zambia whose human rights are held in high esteem."
Kenneth Kaunda: "The young lady was a very great thinker. We have lost a very patriotic citizen. Her death is a terrible loss to the entire nation. She was a fearless fighter, she didn't fear anybody when it came to her work". George Kunda, a prominent lawyer and Sichone's long-time friend: "Sichone's death is a tragedy in that we have lost one of our brave advocates. It is very rare that you get advocates of Lucy's calibre. Not only will the legal profession miss her, but also the indigent members of the society whom she served so devotedly."
At the time of her death, the 43 year-old lawyer was probably the most sought after person by those who had their rights violated, especially among the poor in the remote areas. An outgoing person who received several human rights awards for her work, she was a familiar sight at meetings that dealt with development and human rights.
Sichone was born in 1955 in the northern Copperbelt Province of Zambia, a daughter of miner Robert Banda and Lily Mulenga Banda. She went to school on the Copperbelt and then studied law and politics at the University of Zambia. She subsequently worked for the mining giant, Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM), as a mines' superintendent. Soon after she was promoted to a managerial position in ZCCM, she resigned to join Kaunda's United National Independence Party (UNIP) after it lost the 1991 elections. Her leadership qualities were quickly identified within the party, and she was elected to UNIP's central committee - the party's decision-making organ - within a year.
In 1993, she resigned from UNIP and party politics to form the Zambia Civic Education Association (ZCEA). After her death, Sichone was laid to rest on 27 August at Kasisi Catholic cemetery. She is survived by seven children, three of them adopted. Following her death, other human rights activists proposed that the government grant Sichone a state funeral. However, the government refused, ostensibly because she did not fall within the categories of people who are usually accorded such an honour. The government's stance led to speculation that it was unwilling to honour her because ruling party politicians despised her for her unrelenting criticism of corruption and mismanagement.
If some people despised her, however, there were thousands of others - especially among the very poor - who revered and loved her.
As Fr. Daniel said at her funeral Mass: "The poor, widows and the needy have all lost a real friend. But most affected will be the widows and orphans."
END
CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
PeaceLink 1998 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement