Date Of Article: 3/27/2003
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Mwawa eludes NDA ambush
By: Jack McBrams
A clash between UDF and NDA supporters at Ulongwe in Balaka district Monday evening after a rally addressed by the area’s MP Yusuf Mwawa forced the parliamentarian to flee in a borrowed car in order to escape angry supporters from spotting him. Mwawa, who is also Health Minister was forced to abandon his official Mercedes Benz and jump into a Central African Wilderness Safaris twin cabin so as to evade angry NDA supporters, who barricaded the Mangochi-Liwonde road near Ulongwe Trading Centre. Mwawa had been travelling in a convoy which included his official car and a UDF pick-up and was later dropped off at Ward Councillor Suwedi Chilungo’s house at Mwima along the road to Liwonde. However, Mwawa down-played the whole incident, saying it was a minor accident. Said he: “No, there were no clashes at all. What was happening was that as I was coming from my meeting, there were a few caps from NDA who wanted to start trouble by throwing stones but apart from that there is nothing worth reporting.” The minister disputed the fact that he abandoned his car because he was escaping from the NDA supporters. “I never abandoned my car. There was a lot of mud at the scene of the meeting so I thought of going into another car,” Mwawa said. But in an interview on Wednesday NDA publicity secretary Salule Masangwi said it was Mwawa who actually provoked the whole situation. “What happened is that we have a lot of supporters at Ulongwe who fly our flags everyday. So what I gather is that Mwawa was passing-by on his way to his meeting and when he saw our flags he stopped and physically uprooted the flags and broke them,” he claimed. Masangwi explained that it was this action that provoked the NDA supporters, most of whom are vendors at the trading centre, into chasing Mwawa. “Mwawa then went and organised thugs who beat up our boys. In the ensuing fracas, 16 of our members were injured, six of them seriously,” he said. But officials at both Balaka Hospital and Machinga General Hospital said by late Wednesday afternoon, they had not received any patients who had been injured from the fracas. An officer at Balaka Police confirmed the incident and said no one was injured nor arrested during the fracas. He said if indeed NDA supporters where injured during the clashes, they should have reported the matter to Police. He declined to disclose further information, saying only Police Public Relations Officer George Chikowi is mandated to speak for the Police Service. Chikowi said the incident was news to him as he had not received a report from Balaka Police about the fracas.
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