Bad+laws+make+Africans+criminals,+Sata,+Post



=Bad laws make Africans criminals - Sata=


 * By Nomusa Michelo**

Post, Wednesday March 29, 2006
AFRICANS are made criminals by bad laws, Patriotic Front (PF) president Michael Sata has said.

And Sata said communist parties have to transform their approaches with the changing environment.

During a visit by South African Communist Party (SACP) secretary general Dr Blade Nzimande at his office, Sata said unfavourable laws had created corruption in Africa.

“Africans are not criminals but were made so by bad laws,” he said. “The laws we make force them to be criminals. Corruption is only in the laws we are making.”

And Sata said communist parties needed to move with the changing environment in their approaches.

“They have to have a different approach. The communist party of today has to look at the changing environment,” he said.

“In my opinion, whether statesman or capitalist, they are all capitalists.”

Sata said the Black Economic Empowerment Policy in South Africa had created petty black bourgeois, which was more dangerous than capitalism as it increased the poverty gap between black people.

“It is much more dangerous than capitalism,” he said.

Sata said in Zambia there was slogan of attracting investors, whom he called infestors, which was disadvantaging local Zambians as the government was giving favourable incentives to them.

Sata said African governments had not taken prominence to develop human resources but instead had taken land and capital resources to be more important.

“Human resource in Africa is not looked after,” he said.

“We don’t have laws which can protect these people. Concessions are not going to the people.”

Sata advised Dr Nzimande that his party (SACP), like the PF had an uphill battle to fight against capitalism and petty bourgeois.

“You have the heavy capitalist who are going to fight you,” he said.

And Sata noted that despite the appreciation of the kwacha, there was no corresponding reduction in prices of commodities.

He said fuel prices had remained high particularly in rural areas.

“We the poor people are subsidising the so-called infesters,” he said.

Sata said there was need to give people real ownership, such as giving them title deeds to land so that they could use them as collateral to obtain loans.

“A black man is more important than anything else,” he said.

Sata said the situation of the Zambian people today was worse than before independence because the colonialists looked after the people better.


 * From: http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=8181 **

405 words