Stray Bullet

[A Commission of Inquiry investigates a gang of criminals called the Police Farce! Is this the Barotseland Inquiry of 2011? No! This piece was written in July 2001]

Stray Bullet

It was the morning of 15 January 2002, and the Truth Commission was sitting in the Mpulumushi Conference Centre. In the chair sat Saint Simon Sucker, with his two other Commissioners, Quack Quackwie and Clueless Cluo.

‘In the dock this morning,’ began Saint Simon, ‘we have the former Inquisitor General, Mr Slyarse Nyangalala.’

Turning to Nyangalala, Saint Simon spoke slowly and solemnly. ‘The People of Zambia charge you with arming a gang of thieves and criminals, commonly known as the Police Farce, to protect the Movement for Murdering Dissidents from the consequences of their crimes.’

‘My client Mr Slyarse Nyangalala,’ said Robot Siboza, ‘has hired me as his attorney, to speak for him. He refuses to speak because he has done nothing wrong.’

‘I wonder,’ quacked Quack Quackwie, ‘if he has done nothing wrong, then why has he hired a lawyer to defend him? Perhaps there is another reason why he refuses to speak?’

‘Yes indeed there is,’ replied Siboza. ‘After thirty years of service in the Police Farce, his English is very limited.’

‘Let’s get down to particulars,’ said Saint Simon, with some irritation. ‘Let us take, as an example, Nyangalala’s strange inability to find out who murdered Mr Paul Baldwin Ronald Wezi Ng’uni Ngenda Tembo …’

‘His long name was the main obstacle,’ interrupted Siboza. ‘By the time Nyangalala had finished writing out the name of the alleged murder victim, the witnesses had always forgotten their evidence.’

‘Alleged murder victim?’ queried Quack Quackwie. ‘The victim took a bullet right between the eyes! Is that not murder?’

‘There remains the intriguing but unanswered question,’ smirked Siboza, ‘of whether the alleged victim may have accidentally and allegedly walked into a stray bullet which had been allegedly wandering around the town quite innocently, thereby causing the alleged death.’

‘Alleged death?’ clucked Clueless Cluo.

‘With all due respect,’ sneered Siboza, ‘if the Commission had more forensic experience, they would be aware that not all bullets cause death. In the case of politicians, it is common for bullets to pass straight through the head without doing any damage at all.’

‘I myself attended the funeral,’ cried Clueless Cluo, her wobbly fat trembling with rage. ‘Ten thousand mourners saw the corpse laid out in the coffin.’

‘But did you have a doctor check the pulse of the alleged corpse?’ asked Siboza. ‘Do not forget that the opposition is in the habit of staging mock funerals, merely as a way of causing political embarrassment to the government.’

‘I can assure you,’ said St Simon grimly, ‘that all three of us Commissioners followed that coffin to the grave, and saw it buried six feet down.’

‘I don’t doubt that you all followed a coffin to Leopards Hill,’ laughed Siboza. ‘The only question in my mind is whether you followed the same coffin as you saw in the church.’

‘Are you suggesting it was switched?’

‘There are various possible explanations. For example, you must surely be aware that there is always a continuous queue of coffins travelling up the Leopards Hill Road. It is very easy to accidentally join the wrong burial. I myself have done so several times.’

‘Is your client seriously claiming that Mr Paul Baldwin Ronald Wezi Ng’uni Ngenda Tembo is still alive and well?’

‘Excuse me,’ protested Siboza, ‘my client is not making any claims. It is your Commission that is making claims. My client has no information on the whereabouts or health of this person. I was merely pointing out, since you asked me, that there is no convincing or conclusive evidence of murder.’

‘In that case,’ cried Saint Simon triumphantly, ‘could you please explain why the three notorious brothers, Innocent Kaponya, Blameless Kaponya and Harmless Kaponya, were, on 19 July last year, charged in the High Court with the murder of Mr Paul Baldwin Ronald Wezi Ng’uni Ngenda Tembo?’

‘If you refer to the case record,’ retorted Siboza. ‘These three Kaponya brothers were known criminals, who had already used a gun to steal a tube of toothpaste from Shoprite.’

‘But they confessed to the killing.’

‘That was just to try to avoid the death penalty. It turned out, after further beatings, that they made this false confession because they were trying to avoid the mandatory death penalty for armed robbery. To avoid this dreadful fate, they falsely confessed to the lesser crime of killing a politician, so that they would serve only five years for manslaughter.’

‘Then this Commission will also question these Kaponya brothers!’

‘They were all hung last week.’

‘But why were they hung?’ asked Saint Simon. ‘I thought you said they didn’t commit the murder!’

‘You’re not following,’ explaind Siboza patiently. ‘They were hung after being found guilty of armed robbery involving a tube of toothpaste.’

‘Very well then,’ sighed Saint Simon, with some exasperation. ‘We will proceed to the next case. Let us look at Nyangalala’s failure to arrest the culprits in the case of the six hundred petrol tankers which disappeared, and the case of the bogus ICASA contracts.’

‘It will be more difficult to go there,’ Quack Quackie quickly declared. ‘Unfortunately all those secrets went to the grave with Mr Paul Baldwin Ronald Wezi Ng’uni Ngenda Tembo.’

Saint Simon Sucker sighed sadly. ‘So what can we do?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ said Clueless Cluo. ‘I’m Clueless.’