Lipumba seeks meeting with JK

CUF chairman Ibrahim Lipumba shows journalists the wound suffered by the party’s deputy director of publicity and public relations, Mr Abdul Kambaya, when he was beaten by police last week.  PHOTO | SALIM SHAO 

By Athuman Mtulya,The Citizen Reporter

In Summary

• “It’s not enough to send him  a letter.  He needs to be told  in no uncertain terms that if he allows the situation to continue, then we should expect violence and chaos during the elections” CUF CHAIRMAN IBRAHIM LIPUMBA

Dar es Salaam. Civic United Front (CUF) chairman Ibrahim Lipumba says he wants to discuss police brutality with President Jakaya Kikwete.

Prof Lipumba told a news conference in Dar es Slaam yesterday that he would seek the President’s intervention ahead of the  October General Election.

He spoke a few days after police violently dispersed CUF supporters who had gathered in the city to  commemorate the killing of 21 people in  post-election protests in Zanzibar in 2001.   Prof Lipumba was roughed up and unceremoniously thrown into the back of a police vehicle during the crackdown in which 33 people were arrested.

Prof Lipumba said he wanted to meet President Kikwete to ensure that opposition parties would be left to campaign freely without being intimidated by police in the run-up to the elections.

“It’s not enough to send him  a letter.  He needs to be told  in no uncertain terms that if he allows the situation to continue, then we should expect violence and chaos during the elections,” he said.

Prof Lipumba added that CUF believes that police were increasingly being used by the ruling elite as a tool of oppression, suppression and intimidation.

He said CUF had peacefully commemorated the 2001 killings both in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar in the past, adding that the “senseless” violence unleashed by police this year pointed to jitters within CCM ahead of the elections.

The CUF chairman said peace would prevail only if all political parties operated on a level playing field.

“They (police) said that they had intelligence to the effect that our rally precipitated a terrorist attack and they had to ban it, but the question here is do such threats emerge only when opposition parties hold rallies? (CCM secretary-general) Abdulrahman Kinana is freely holding rallies throughout the country. Today (yesterday), CCM is holding a big event in Songea to mark its 38th anniversary.   Are there no terror threats? This is not acceptable,” he said.