BY Vincent Gunde
Political activist has thanked the new government of the DPP under President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika for listening to calls to visit the Kasasire people in Nkhatabay district to appreciate the trauma they have suffered on their relocation by the Malawi Defense Force (MDF) soldiers.
Kalindo said during the relocation exercise to a new land on the claims that the land belongs to Malawi Defense Force for training purposes, the government of the MCP led by President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera and Defense Force Commander General Dr. Paul Velentino Phiri ordered force to relocate the people.
He said men and women from the area protested heavily arguing that the land does not belong to the MDF for military training purposes saying the land was in the Chikangawa forest but the soldiers insisted that the land was theirs.
The activist said men and women who resisted relocating themselves to the new land allocated to them were severely beaten by soldiers and some were taken to Mzuzu Prison making the whole area of Kasasire, a land without people.
He said armed Defense Force soldiers had to open fire at innocent raised livestock, cutting down the peoples’ bananas and destroying their field crops saying the people were being accommodated at a small church under the Livingstonia CCAP Synod.
Kalindo said Bishop Martin Mtumbuka of the Roman Catholic church- Karonga Diocese travelled to Kasasire to appreciate the sufferings and trauma the people of Kasasire went through in the reign of Dr. Lazarus Chakwera and the MCP.
Speaking through an audio clip, Kalindo said the new government of the DPP has demonstrated that it is listening to what the people are saying urging it to continue doing this for Malawians to trust that the country has a caring government.
Kalindo said judgment of the case of Kasasire was pronounced at the Mzuzu High Court that the land belonged to the Kasasire ancestral fathers, ordering the people of Kasasire to assess the damage caused by the MDF for government to compensate them.
“Receive my heartfelt thanks Hon. Jappie Mhango and your team for visiting the people of Kasasire, now you have seen their sufferings, what remains is for the people to go back to their land as ordered by the court,” said Kalindo.
He has thanked Bishop Martin Mtumbuka, the Livingstonia CCAP Synod, and JB- A Malawian based in the United States of America (USA) for sending bags of maize flour to the affected people which was distributed by the Malawi First crew.
He has encouraged Malawians in and outside the country whose hands are blessed to share a little of what they have with those that do not have, to remember the people of Kasasire in northern Nkhatabay or to contact the Malawi First for distributions to the affected people on their behalf.
