POLICE BRUTALITY: NEW TESTIMONY

Another eyewitness has described how Swaziland police harassed and assaulted pro-democracy activists during this week’s freedom demonstrations.

Christine Olivier, deputy president of South Africa’s National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa), told how she and other non-Swazis were deported from Swaziland after they entered the kingdom, ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and attended a meeting to support the Global Day of Action for democracy in Swaziland.

‘We were deported on the basis that we entered the country illegally and we want to disrupt peace,’ she told a press conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.



They were rounded up on Monday (6 September 2010) while meeting to be briefed on a march.



Olivier said Swazi police asked local union leaders to identify the foreigners at the meeting, and when they refused, herded everyone into police vans and took them to a police station in Mbabane.



‘We were made to write statements that we were not arrested, but being questioned for being illegally in the country,’ she said.



‘We were humiliated and if they felt that your statement is not the one they wanted, they made you rewrite it.’



She said a delegation of 33 members, six from Numsa and 27 from the SA Municipal Workers’ Union went to Swaziland for the pro-democracy campaign.



‘Two of our members were assaulted on Tuesday evening, while being taken to the border,’ the South African Press Association reports her saying.



‘We were handled in an inappropriate manner. For once, we experienced the brutality of the Swazi police.’



She said about 10 police officers escorted her to a hotel in Manzini to collect her bags.



‘It was scary, at one stage I was not sure whether I will be taken to the border,’ she said, adding that by expelling foreign nationals Swaziland's government wanted to spread fear among the locals.



‘Our telephones were bugged on Monday, even today [Wednesday 8 September 2010] our numbers have been blocked. We are unable to speak to comrades in Swaziland.’



Olivier’s eyewitness testimony follows that of Peter Kenworthy of Africa Contact, Denmark, who reported this week that he was detained by Swazi police, assaulted told he would ‘never return to your country. You will die here’.

SILENCE ON SWAZILAND REED DANCE

Am I the only one to have been surprised by the near total lack of interest by the international media in this year’s Umhlanga Reed Dance?

In the past there has been TV, radio and newspaper coverage of the tale of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and his dancing bare-breasted maidens, complete with speculation that one of the lucky virgins will get chosen to be the king’s next wife.

I’ve written often enough in the past about how the media have covered the Reed Dance (click here) in the past so I won’t repeat myself here.

The Swazi media, of course, gave extensive coverage. The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, claimed that 130,000 maidens danced. We should take this figure with a degree of caution, since the South Africa Press Association (SAPA) put the total at a more modest 80,000.

The SAPA report was the only one I saw in the international media. Among the dancers was a nine-year-old girl from South Africa, but SAPA does not say if she was bare breasted or not.

Unless there was any doubt about what the true purpose of the Reed Dance is, consider this extract from SAPA’s report.

‘During the four-hour event, children sang songs which glorified Mswati and condemned his enemies.

‘”This land is your land our king, your enemies want to destroy you,” they sang.’

If you are suffering withdrawal symptoms because of a lack of pictures from the Red Dance you might like to look at this video, posted on Joe Dodson’s Adventures in Swaziland blog and presumably shot by him.

SWAZI DEMOCRAT’S LAWYER UPDATE

Thulani Maseko, the lawyer representing Swaziland’s jailed opposition leader Mario Masuku, has been arrested himself because he is alleged to have spoken approvingly of an attempt last September by two men to bomb a bridge near one of King Mswati III’s palaces.

The South Africa Press Association (SAPA) is reporting today (3 June 2009) that Maseko Maseko is alleged to have made the remarks at a May Day rally in Manzini. Maseko was due to appear in Manzini magistrates court today charged under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.

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SAPA says the failed bomb attack took place against the backdrop of growing calls in the impoverished kingdom for democracy. Political parties are banned from contesting parliamentary elections in the country of around 1 million people, where the king, who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, rules by decree.

Mario Masuku, president of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), has been in prison awaiting trial for more than six months.

SAPA reports Masuku was also arrested under the Suppression of Terrorism Act, but in the absence of evidence supporting terrorism-related charges, the charges against him have been downgraded.

He now faces charges under the more wide-ranging Sedition Act. No trial date has been set in his case eight months after his arrest.

Several other members of PUDEMO have also been detained in recent months.

King Mswati’s government has rebuffed calls for multi-party politics, saying the monarchy is a guarantor of stability.

NOW, SWAZI QUEEN NOT WELCOME

It is not only King Mswati III of Swaziland who is not welcome in South Africa: His mother has also been told to stay away.

Queen Ntombi Laftwala must not attend the inauguration of KwaZulu-Natal premier Zweli Mkhize as it would be an insult to the people of South Africa, the Young Communist League (YCL) says.

According to the South African Press Association, YCL says, ‘[We] call upon the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government not to allow the Swaziland dictator’s mother, Queen Ntombi Laftwala, to attend the inauguration.’

‘The oppressive Tinkundla system led by Queen mother’s son, King Mswati and his family does not uphold and respect democracy and human rights in Swaziland.’

The YCL said King Mswati continued to use state apparatus to ban and silence political organisations who tried to liberate ’the struggling people of Swaziland’.

‘We call on the provincial leadership of the African National Congress and the alliance not to allow this despotic and dictator mother to set foot in our province before his son democratises Swaziland,’ it said.

A number of pro-democracy organisations called upon King Mswati not to attend the inauguration of South Africa President Jacob Zuma last Saturday (9 May 2009). The king did attend and as I wrote yesterday depending upon which news report you read the king was cheered or jeered by the crowds.

There was some reaction to my post from readers who had themselves been at Zuma’s inauguration who confirmed that the king was indeed jeered. One correspondent wrote that he had personally been one of the jeerers.

So maybe the king isn’t quite as popularly as the Swazi elite and the local media want us to believe. I am reminded of the cult of personality that surrounded Nicolae Ceauşescu, the former dictator of Romania.

Crowds would regularly turn up outside his palace to cheer every word the man had to say. Then unexpectedly, one day the cheers turned to jeers. Within a week the rebellion was over and Ceauşescu was executed by the people ... live on television.

Now, I am beginning to understand why King Mswati has just taken delivery of armoured cars for himself and his family ,,,,