Rights group says Blair’s visit to Malawi is suspicious

Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) says former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s visit to Malawi has raised a lot of suspicions, especially now that President Chakwera is the Chairperson for the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, executive Director for CDEDI Sylvester Namiwa expressed doubts if Malawi can now benefit from Blair’s advice since Blair was also around during the Dr. Joyce Banda regime but there is literally nothing that Malawians benefited.

On Tuesday, September 28, 2021, Blair arrived into the country for a scheduled private meeting with President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera.

It was revealed last year that Blair through the Tony Blair Institute had been engaged to run a delivery unit at State House.

Namiwa noted in the statement that the former PM serves as an unpaid advisor to the Rwandan President Paul Kagame. He added that the Rwandese Inspector General of Police, Dan Munyuza, was in Malawi recently, where he announced Rwanda’s offer to train our Malawian police for free, in undisclosed capacity building areas.

“It is for this reason that Blair’s visit to Malawi has raised a lot of suspicions, especially now that President Chakwera is the Chairperson for the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

“It is also important to point out that Blair was around during the Dr. Joyce Banda regime but there is literally nothing that Malawians benefited, hence CDEDI’s caution to President Chakwera to tread carefully, since the SADC, the African region, and indeed the world, are watching!

“If truth be told, Malawi has the finest brains that are capable of turning around our fortunes without necessarily looking up to self-appointed good Samaritans, whose interests and motives are not clear.

“CDEDI does not think that the former British PM has anything to offer to Malawi. On the other hand, CDEDI believes that Blair’s closeness to the Republic of Rwanda, whose human rights record is not anywhere near a model, could offer anything positive to the Republic of Malawi in as far as tenets of good and genuine democracy are concerned,” said Namiwa in the statement.

He then challenged President Chakwera to come out in the open and tell Malawians the reasons why Tony Blair is needed in Malawi as an advisor.