POLICE HALT CIVIC EDUCATION MEET

The following information is being circulated by Afrika Contact.

EX-MINEWORKERS CIVIC EDUCATION MEETING STOPPED BY POLICE AT THE INSTRUCTION OF THE AREA’S TRADITIONAL AUTHORITY



The Swaziland National Ex-Mineworkers Association was yesterday (27 May 2010) stopped from holding its educational meeting in Matsanjeni in the eastern parts of the Shiselweni region. The team that comprised the association’s President and his Coordinator together with the Foundation’s monitoring and evaluating officer were first stopped at a roadblock mounted by the state police a few kilometers away from where the activity was to take place. The car they were driving was searched and upon seeing that nothing seditious was carried by the team, they were released.



On arrival at the venue (Matsanjeni Inkhundla) they found a police car parked at where the meeting was to be held. The organization’s branch coordinator met the team and said that the police were there to stop any meeting that was to be held as there was to be a recruitment session conducted by the country’s army personnel. He said that word from the area’s traditional authority was that no one is allowed to call or hold any meeting when the king has summoned people. It was said that the recruitment activity was commissioned by the king and any activity that counters this is not allowed and the police were there to see to it that nothing happens. The team together with the M&E then decided to hold a short meeting that was to plan for future activities at the same area. It was agreed that our next meeting must be held in a neutral venue outside of the state inkhundla structure. The meeting was then slated for the 17th June 2010.



The M&E then asked the association’s representatives how they view this and the president minced no words in saying that this is a very unfortunate scenario. It shows how inconsiderate the royalty driven tinkhundla system is to the needs of the people. People must always be free to meet and discuss issues that have a direct bearing on their lives at any time and place of their own choosing, the president said. The president said that this will not in anyway deter the association from engaging its membership and the entire people on issues that stall them from exercising their rights and creating democratic awareness.





NB

The Association’s President’s home was yesterday morning (before the Matsanjeni meeting) raided and searched by armed state police officers who said they were acting at the instruction of their superiors. About 15 of them arrived at the early morning hours and knocked, banging the door. The president was awoken by the loud sounds and voices that he heard outside. When he opened the door, he was met by a contingent of armed officers that ordered him in and said they want to search his house. The president demanded a search warrant and upon producing one, he obliged. They searched and took his 1997 calendar that had a photo of the then secretary general of PUDEMO.

SECURITY FORCES TARGET WORKSHOPS

Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini says the kingdom’s security forces should attend workshops and other gatherings uninvited to make sure participants are not talking about democracy.

He says it is the security force’s duty to ensure that ‘under the pretence of free dialogue, there was [no] preaching of violent insurrection’.

Dlamini was speaking at the opening of a ‘mini dialogue’ in the so-called Smart Partnership that he himself set up to discuss Swaziland’s ‘national vision’.

Dlamini, who has an international reputation as an enemy of freedom and democracy, has been pursuing pro-democracy activists in Swaziland and intimidating them to stop them from spreading the word. He has been using the Suppression of Terrorism Act to brand any opposition as ‘terrorist’.

Dlamini so hates the freedom activists that he has branded them all ‘terrorists’ and claims that they are seeking to violently overthrow King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

He told the Smart Partnership that the government ‘as the custodian of law and order, had a responsibility to provide protection where, under the pretence of free dialogue, there was the preaching of violent insurrection’.

The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, quoted him saying, ‘And let us be clear that, where the law and order is at risk, it is important for our security forces to be in evidence, properly monitoring public behaviour and pre-empting the possibility of violence.’

There was ample of evidence of the police ‘pre-empting’ the possibility of violence two weeks ago when dozens of police invaded the funeral of democracy activist Sipho Jele and tore up photographs of the deceased man and confiscated banners from the banned People’s United Democratic Movement.

Police have also attended uninvited workshops and banned meetings from taking place that they didn’t like the look of.

IGNORANCE ON SWAZI DEMOCRACY

I am astonished at the ignorance about the lack of democracy in Swaziland shown by some members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) who are meeting in the kingdom this week.

According to the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, Ernest Britto, Minister for the Environment and Tourism in Gibraltar and Vice Chairperson of the CPA Executive Committee, Kathleen Casey, believe ‘democracy is good’ in the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

Britto even went so far as to say Commonwealth countries are accepting Swaziland as a democratic country.

The two made their comments in the very week that Sipho Jele was arrested for wearing a PUDEMO T-shirt and ended up dead in jail in very suspicious circumstances.

This week also saw a clampdown on civil liberties and freedom of association at the Workers' Day celebrations last Monday (1 May 2010).

Two months ago the United States State Department issued a 11,200-word report that detailed the human rights violations in Swaziland.

Members of the CPA really ought to do their homework before making such ignorant public statements that Swaziland is a democracy.

It is beyond my comprehension why the 35 member executive of the CPA are meeting in Swaziland for three days starting today (10 May 2010) to follow ‘an extensive programme to support the advancement of parliamentary democracy’ through the 54-nation Commonwealth.

Swaziland has no parliamentary democracy. The prime minister Barnabas Dlamini was unconstitutionally selected to his office by the king who also appointed most of the people who sit in Swaziland’s government.

The violations of human rights and democratic freedoms in Swaziland are too numerous to mention here (just about every post in this blog is about the lack of freedom in the kingdom).

There is a campaign at the moment to protest to the CPA about their visit to Swaziland and to try to educate members on the realities of life in Swaziland. To find out more go to the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) Forum here or the SSN Facebook site here.

ARREST FOR WEARING PUDEMO SHIRT

Further evidence that Swaziland state forces are using the Suppression of Terrorism Act (STA) to silence political dissent came this weekend when a man was arrested for wearing a PUDEMO T-shirt.

PUDEMO – the People’s United Democratic Movement – is the main opposition group in Swaziland and has been banned under the STA.

This past weekend a 26-year-old man was arrested and charged under the STA when he was spotted wearing the T-shirt during May Day / Workers’ Day celebrations held by the Swaziland Federations of Trade Unions at the Salesian sports ground on Saturday (1 May 2010).

This is not the first time someone has been arrested under the STA for wearing a PUDEMO shirt. In July 2009 a man was arrested at the ‘people’s dialogue’ meeting.

SWAZI POLICE ILLEGALLY BAN MEETING

The Swaziland state is getting jittery following the student unrest that has swept the kingdom and attracted international attention.

A new clampdown on meetings has started and Swazi police have taken it upon themselves to ban gatherings.

This emerged this week as police, acting on no known authority, banned a youth group workshop. Police said the organisers Vulamehlo Youth Brigade were a banned political organisation.

Just who ‘banned’ them is not clear. Vulamehlo isn’t on the list of organisations Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister banned in November 2008.

Vulamehlo wanted to hold a workshop at the Lutheran Development Services (LDS), Mbabane, today (20 February 2010) but police visited LDS and said the workshop must be cancelled.

A source at LDS said, ‘It came as a shock to us that officers from the Mbabane Police Station stormed our centre and told the lady in charge of bookings that we should not dare allow the meeting to take place.’ The source said it wasn’t up to LDS to ban the meeting. If they wanted it banned, the police would have to do it themselves.

One of the workshop organizers said the meeting wasn’t ‘political’; it was for young people to meet and talk about ‘life skills’.

The police seem intent on banning anything they don’t understand. According to the Swazi News, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, assistant police public relations officer Steven Dlamini said police only ‘advised’ the owners of the building that it will be wise not to host the youth meeting ‘because their organisation was an illegal entity’.

He said, ‘As police we advised the owners of the building because information at our disposal was that their meeting was going to be held at night we did not understand the purpose of holding the meeting at night.’