Malawians have asked the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) to stop assaulting civilians for wearing camouflage.
This follows an incident where army officers severely assaulted a young man for wearing camouflage.
Social commentator Onjezani Kenani said the soldiers should be civilized and should find something to keep themselves busy if they have nothing to do.
“Malawi Defence Force soldiers, please stop this nonsense of beating up poor Malawians who are found wearing camouflage clothing. Do you, perhaps, have nothing useful to do? Today, here in Austria, I saw a girl wearing camouflage. I said to myself, If it was back home some military thugs could have flogged her to within an inch of her life,” he said in a Facebook post.
Commenting on Kenani’s post, Harry Doc Negotiator said there are many things the soldiers could be doing such as patrolling Lake Malawi or protecting persons with albinism.
“Yet they busy protecting camouflage colours. Just colours of a cloth. The country has a lot to do with soldiers. They can patrol border bypass routes all across the country and force people to use border entries. So many people smuggling things in and out of the country. But our soldiers are rotting in the barracks.
“They can keep busy training in prep for a possible marine battle. Training in water in a duty of every soldier and is supposed to be endless because we have a lake. If we are attached via the lake it could a big disaster if our soldiers don’t know water combat. They could patrol the lake saving drowning civilians.
“Every day we hear of people drowning on boats. So many jobs for them. But u know what their job is beer holes and beating civilians. Let’s keep talking these things. Because one day we will all be soldiers fighting for our country against a foreign invader,” he said.
“These clothes are sold in commercial shops and another just take it upon themselves to force you not dress, I have found it nonsensical as well,” said another commenter.
However, some Malawians argued that civilians use the camouflage clothes in criminal activities.
Said one commenter: “Thugs steal the gear and use it in crime. The MDF has to protect their image. Unfortunately violence and intimidation seems to be the only way our law enforcers use to rectify the problem.”
Malawi wake up guys wearing those it’s not acase come to another country the don’t Care about that but in Malawi we still have that spirit of kamuzu Banda work up now Malawi. Those clothes we find in the shop ok go to the shops and tell them don’t sell this that is the only solution.
That’s the problems when you have almost 75% of the soldiers who are standard 8 dropouts. The only thing they care about is the union which stinks like they’ve never taken a bath in years.
Everywhere in the world non other than the army is allowed to wear like soldiers eve in RSA the beat them these days
impersonation, for a person to be found guilt of impersonation, there has to be evidence that his conduct is in deceit with an aim to gain advantage as a different person or a member of an authority .
Fashion clothing items comes, in different colours, texture and partterns, it is a given right to choose for personel to choose clothing items of their choice.
there is no impersonation if A wears a shirt or trouser of camoflage and act as normal.. there is no impersonation even if the said person was to dress in both camouflage shirt and trouser at the same time, however this can confuse member of the public, i.e if a person dresses like a policeman from heard to toe.
The motive is what the law looks at, rmember camouflage is not a protected emblaim or symbol of MDF, same as a khakhi trouser is not protected from being worn by member of public, it is not reserved just for police. i.e blue is not just for DPP…
I am against the assaulting but wearing army clothes is not good, there are so many types of clothes and different designs of clothes out on the market why do they choose the defence force clothes.It is very dangerous to do this just the same as police uniform.
Some people take advantage to use this in criminal activities and people will be blaming the defence force .Malawi government must wakeup and put it into law that civilians are not allowed to wear defence force uniform or police uniform,for security reasons. If you want to wear it join them.