The meeting that University of Malawi Students Union (Umsu) leaders had with Civil Society Platform for Constructive Dialogue (CS-PCD) ended with the students accusing the grouping of trying only to advance government’s agenda instead of uniting them and University of Malawi (Unima) Council.
The students have registered their disappointment with the grouping, which has human rights activist Undule Mwakasungula and child rights activist Maxwell Matewere as some of the members, saying Mwakasungula and colleagues started the Zomba meeting by accusing the students of receiving support from politicians.
Other faces in the group are Phillip Kamangira and Fryson Chodzi.
In an interview yesterday, Umsu President, Tionge Sikwese, said apart from calling off the meeting to concentrate on bailing out their friends who were arrested in Zomba last week, the students strongly noticed that the CS-PCD has failed on the impartiality scale and their motive is now suspicious.
“They said we are being sponsored by politicians at the onset of the meeting which we felt it was bad for such sentiments to come from people who offered themselves for dialogue. We even asked them to clarify on what they meant and why they said that. We are not against dialogue but we are against people who are partial in their approach. They should not be showing us that they are siding with government,” Sikwese said.
He said what students in the Unima are concerned with is the hike in tuition fees not politics and politicians as those people in the CS-PCD are trying to do.
“We will be happy to see other people coming to unite us with the council for the common good not people who will be sent by politicians to accuse us of being sponsored by some politicians. We are not politicians, we are just students who are fighting for the change in fees structure,” he said.
Matewere denied to have received funding from the government for the purposes of the grouping saying the events of the past week have created an emotional environment for the students and the group is just waiting for the dust to settle before proceeding with dialogue.
“During times like these there are a lot of stories that come up and we also heard of the same that there are some political parties or politicians that are fuelling this and for us to begin the dialogue we need to iron out such issues for the dialogue to be successful.
“Civil Society Platform for Constructive Dialogue is not supported by any other political party or government. We are just concerned members of the civil society who have no political interests or whatsoever. What we need is to ensure that both sides understand each other and make sure that all of them move forward instead of continued disagreements,” Matewere said.
He said the civil society gets support from well-wishers and any funding from government and its purposes are always explained to the public.
“We usually have special fund for some issues including natural disasters and other emergencies and that’s where we are getting the funds to move around in our attempt to bring sanity between the two parties,” he said.
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