Johannesburg – The Zambian government with instructions from President Hakainde Hichilema has filed a lawsuit in South Africa to stop the burial of former president Edgar Chagwa Lungu in South Africa on Wednesday.
Mulilo Kabesha, Zambia’s Attorney General filed the lawsuit with Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa.
He argues that Lungu, the sixth president of Zambia must be buried with full military honours, protocols and customs.
The respondents of the lawsuit include Lungu’s wife and daughter.
The Lungu family decided to bury Edgar Lungu in South Africa after Hichilema who was a political rival of Lungu wanted to preside over the burial against the late leader’s wishes.
Lungu reportedly told his relatives aand friends that he did want to see Hichilema’s anywhere near his body.
But Hichilema and his government have insisted that they will take part at the funeral in a way that has been done when other former Zambian leaders were buried.
The Zambian government insists that he must be buried in Zambia, arguing that the burial of a former president is a matter of public interest and governed by state protocol.
The Lungu family argues that Hichilema is being hypocritical, having previously withdrawn Lungu’s benefits citing the law, and that no law mandates a president be buried in Zambia or at a ceremony presided over by a sitting president.
Those close to the family say there is talk of desperation to access the body for so-called rituals—an embarrassing accusation that is now tainting Zambia’s image.
The South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, sent his Foreign Minister, Ronald Lamola, to Lusaka to convey a message to President Hichilema that South African law forbids the government from intervening.
Sources within the South African government said President Hichilema asked the minister if anything could be done, and was told that there was nothing President Ramaphosa could do, as South African institutions are independent and not subject to presidential directives.
The same drama happened in Zimbabwe when former President Robert Mugabe left a similar instruction that he did not want to be buried at the country’s Heroes Acre. To his credit, the Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa did not stop Mugabe’s burial at his village.
Again, accusations of wanting the body for ritual purposes were raised, and Mugabe’s wife stood her ground. There was an attempt to exhume his body using the captured judiciary, but it has not been done.