GLOBAL SUPPORT FOR SWAZI STUDENTS

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) in the UK and the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) are the latest international organisations to condemn the abduction of student leaders by the Swaziland state police.

The TUC has protested to the Swaziland High Commission in London, at the arrest of a student journalist who was later charged with being a terrorist.

In a letter to the High Commissioner, copied to the UK Foreign Secretary, the TUC says, ‘The TUC is aware of the current student unrest in your country which stems from the lack of adequate and appropriate educational facilities for university students in line with their aspirations.

‘Moreover, it is symptomatic of the absence of meaningful dialogue on political reforms and of the failure of the authorities to properly address the concerns of the students expressed through their long-standing demands.

‘We urge you to pass on to your Government our deep concern over the safety and welfare of the students concerned and use your influence with the authorities to ensure that the student leaders are released without delay.’

ZINASU also condemned the abduction in a statement. ‘The whereabouts of the student leaders are still unknown and ZINASU castigates the abuse of state machinery by ruling elites in Africa in general who continue to suppress the students’ rights to freedom of expression and association to protect their own selfish political interests, it said.

SWAZILAND DRAGS SADC AFRICA DOWN

Swaziland could become another Zimbabwe, unless the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) drags the kingdom into line.

Democracy is in jeopardy and the rule of law in Swaziland has broken down.

Sisonke Msimang, the executive director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, writing in the Mail and Guardian, South Africa, calls on SADC to act now to avoid another Zimbabwe.

‘In the past 10 years Swaziland has slid steadily into a political, economic and social morass. The ruling elite has plundered the national coffers to fund all manner of lavish celebrations, the HIV/Aids infection rate has skyrocketed to such an extent that Swaziland now enjoys the dubious distinction of having the highest HIV prevalence in the world, sham elections continue to take place, in which political parties are not allowed to contest, and a series of repressive laws to silence opposition and dissent have been enacted.



‘In the past six months Swaziland has taken a turn for the worse. Critics have become more fearful of voicing their concerns about the state of the nation. The draconian Suppression of Terrorism Act - which defines terrorism in impossibly broad terms - has had a particularly severe chilling effect. Fearing being arrested and charged with inciting terror, many activists have grown silent, refusing to issue even the meekest of criticisms.’



Msimang goes on, ‘At a time when this region is striving to set norms and standards of democratic practice, Swaziland is an outlier -- dragging the reputation and image of Southern Africa down.

‘The regional bloc would be wise to call for Swazi leaders to respect democratic principles and human rights, before the situation further deteriorates. The SADC is unlikely to do so. Swaziland is a small country with little in the way of economic power or natural resources and it is of little strategic importance - either to its neighbours or to Western powers.



‘Swaziland is well aware that it is flagrantly able to ignore the standards set by the SADC because it isn’t considered important enough to bother about.’

Msimang concludes, ‘The reality is that, without intervention, the plight of the one million inhabitants of the country will worsen as poverty deepens, restrictions on freedoms tighten, HIV soars and corruption explodes. Surely this is a crisis that the SADC can avert.’



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SWAZI KING SEES NO ZIMBABWE CRISIS

King Mswati III of Swaziland is in hot water for claiming at a news conference that in Zimbabwe ‘things are going well so far’.

He told incredulous reporters that he had heard no reports that things were bad in Zimbabwe.

King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was speaking at the end of an extraordinary summit of the Southern African Development Community in Sandton, South Africa on Saturday (20 June 2009).

The President of South Africa Jacob Zuma had been asked by two leaders of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change party to get the SADC to intervene in their dispute with President Robert Mugabe over many issues that have arisen since Mugabe stole power after last year’s election.

According to a report in the Star, Johannesburg, when a journalist asked how King Mswati could say that things were well in Zimbabwe when there were daily reports of people being abducted and jailed, the Swazi king said ‘nothing official’ had been brought to the SADC’s attention about such things.

If the SADC were informed officially, it would take up these issues, he said.

King Mswati was saved from a pounding by journalists by Zuma who stopped them asking further questions.

‘If we start discussing Zimbabwe now, we will end up with headlines tomorrow as though this was what the summit was about,’ he said.

King Mswati must be the only person in the world who hasn’t heard about the state of Zimbabwe. Even as the SADC was meeting at the weekend, Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was being heckled off the stage in London, UK, by disgruntled Zimbabwean expatriates he had urged to return home to help rebuild their country. They were unhappy about his decision to share power with Mugabe and heckled Tsvangirai so much he was forced to cut short his speech.

Things are so bad in Zimbabwe that Tsvangirai, who let me remind you is prime minister of Zimbabwe, may be prosecuted because he went overseas on an unauthorised trip.

Earlier this month King Mswati was feted by Mugabe in Zimbabwe. At a banquet Mugabe praised the (undemocratic) system of government in Swaziland, where political parties are banned.

Meanwhile in Swaziland, the Swazi Observer newspaper, which is in effect owned by King Mswati, had the headline KING SHINES AT SADC SUMMIT in its edition today (22 Juner 2009) but made no mention of Zimbabwe.

The Observer quoted Barnabas Dlamini, who was illegally appointed Prime Minister of Swaziland by King Mswati, who praised the king’s ‘able leadership, vision, wisdom and guidance’.

STUDENTS AGAINST SWAZILAND KING

I wrote yesterday http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2009/06/swaziland-freedom-fight-goes-on.html (10 June 2009) that Swaziland King Mswati III had little support from the international community – except from Zimbabwe despot, Robert Mugabe.

Now, it seems Mugabe may be a lone voice in his own country.

The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) has voiced ‘its strongest displeasure’ at the visit to Zimbabwe of King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, because of his ‘long history of human rights violations’.

In a media statement ZINASU said, ‘King Mswati continues to use repressive state apparatus to ban political formations and silence dissent for genuine liberation of the Swaziland democratic struggle.

‘PUDEMO [The People’s United Democratic Movement] President Mario Masuku and other civic activists are languishing in jail fighting for the total liberation and democratisation of Swaziland.

‘It is high time that the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) put serious pressure on Mswati for the democratisation of Swaziland. We extend our solidarity to the people of Swaziland for their struggle for democracy.’

ZINASU goes on, ‘It is disturbing that our government is lavishly hosting dictators at a time when the majority of Zimbabweans do not have access to basic social services namely health and education.’

KING NOT FIT TO CHAIR ON ZIM

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and seven other organisations want Swaziland King Mswati III removed from the current talks about the future of Zimbabwe, because of the terror he has unleashed against his own people.

The king is the chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) ‘troika’ which is trying to mediate in the impasse surrounding the Zimbabwean elections.

The organisations delivered a petition to the Swaziland government which said, ‘We continue to note that following the undemocratic elections recently [in Swaziland] and the extravagant bash dubbed 40/40, the Swazi monarchy has never ceased to expose himself and SADC, which put him on the chairpersonship of the organ troika on politics, defence and security, a body entrusted with the promotion and defence of democracy in the region.’

According to a report in the Times of Swaziland on Monday (20 October 2008), the petition outlined human rights violations against the citizens of Swaziland by the kingdom’s authorities. These included the banning of the Southern African Social Forum (SASF) conference which ran in Swaziland last week.

‘We call on SADC to immediately reconsider the position granted to someone who is so undeserving of such an important position, for he has chosen to bash the people he is supposed to protect, that is the Southern African people. We want to send a clear message to the world and in particular to regional leaders, that King Mswati’s brutal example must not be emulated anywhere,’ the petition stated.

It said an example should be made of this kingdom so that other leaders in the region would learn from that example.

The other organisations which were present when delivering the petition were the South African Communist Party (SACP), the students congress SASCO, HURISA, Open Society of Southern Africa (OSISA), the African National Congress Youth League as well as CONGO human rights group FOCUS.