Zambia intends to deport a British writer for allegedly ”insulting” President Levy Mwanawasa in his popular weekly column in a private newspaper, an official said on Monday.
Home affairs permanent secretary Peter Mumba said he had recommended the interior minister to issue a deportation order for Zambia-based Roy Clarke, who writes a column in the Post newspaper.
The article, modelled along the lines of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, referred to the person in charge of the farm as ”Mawelewele,” or fool in the local Nyanja dialect.
”When you insult the president, you insult the people he represents. He should go back and start writing about his own people,” Mumba said.
The article, published last Thursday, also referred to ministers as ”long-legged giraffes, red-lipped, long-figured baboons.”
Clarke has lived in Zambia for many years and is married to a prominent Zambian women rights’ activist.
The editor of the Post, Fred Mmembe, said he would take responsibility for the article and urged the government to deal with him and not Clarke.
”I will be very surprised if President Mwanawasa will sanction such nonsense,” Mmembe was quoted as saying by his newspaper.
In the past, the Zambian government has deported foreigners for allegedly insulting the President or leaders in government. – Sapa-AFP