Swazi police video recorded Saturday’s People’s Dialogue to collect evidence to use against speakers for promoting ‘terrorism’.
This emerged yesterday (20 July 2009) at a court case where one man was charged under the Suppression of Terrorism Act (STA) for shouting the words ‘Viva PUDEMO’ and another was charged with wearing a T-shirt in support of PUDEMO.
PUDEMO – the People’s United Democratic Movement – is banned, along with all other political parties, in Swaziland. Conviction under the STA can result in up to 25 years jail time.
Mbabane High Court was told that the Swazi police revealed that a police officer recorded all the activities during the People’s Dialogue in a video that will be produced in court as evidence.
According to the charge sheet it is alleged that Mphandlana Shongwe, ‘on 18 July 2009, unlawfully and knowingly gave support to terrorist groups (viz) PUDEMO and SWAYOCO by uttering the words ‘Viva PUDEMO, Viva SWAYOCO’ while Norman Xaba is alleged to have, on the same day, gave support to a terrorist group (viz) PUDEMO by wearing a T-shirt with the words ‘PUDEMO’.
MANZINI— Civil society on Saturday (18 July 2009) called for the repeal of the country’s constitution in favour of a new inclusive supreme law.
The members of civil society who come from various organisations in the country said the current cabinet should be dissolved and an interim government set up to pave way for a multi-party system of governance, under the new constitution.
At their social dialogue held at the Bosco Skills Centre in Manzini, they first assembled in groups and discussed specific and various topics in their interests.
Representatives of the groups were mandated to report back to the close to 1 000 people who attended the event, which Musa Hlophe, the co-ordinator of the coalition for concerned civic organisations (SCCCO) described as a process that would go a long way in addressing the ills of Swazi society.
The event cost more or less E100 000 on food, hiring the hall, getting equipment, transport and others, disclosed Hlophe in an interview with the Times SUNDAY.
Meanwhile, the enthusiastic gathering, which included workers from the two main federations, the SFTUand SFL, together with churches, political parties, youth, educators, informal traders, ex-miners and teachers, charged the current constitution lacked a wider stakeholder input.
They said it was also a pity that government defied its own crafted constitution. The director of ceremonies was secretary general of the Council of Swaziland Churches Khangezile Dlamini.
The representative of the group that looked into good governance, S’phasha Dlamini, said impediments that infringed on their fundamental right to hold consultative meetings with rural and urban dwellers should be abolished.
“We resolved that the constitution that we have should be repealed because it does not represent our interests,” charged Dlamini who is a secondary school teacher and secretary general of the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO).
Zamokuhle Lukhele who represented the youth said young men felt political prisoners should be released from prison unconditionally. He did not mention the names of the political prisoners but the crowd, mainly from the section of the youth roared: ‘Release Mario Masuku’.
Also facing charges related to sedition is Thulani Maseko, an attorney and coordinator of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) who is currently out on bail. Maseko was present and chaired the group that discussed good governance.
The civil society called for equal opportunities and respect of the rule of law. They charged that every Swazi should have a title deed for the land on which he or she had set up a structure; rural or urban land. They said chiefs had powers to evict them and they were unable to get loans from banks because they did not have collateral, hence the land could serve as a tangible security for the bank loan.
They vowed to fight privatization, which they described as an entry point for corruption, nepotism and mass retrenchments. They suggested that government should buy food for donations from local farmers, saying it was disappointing to see government and international agencies donating food to Swazis that has been purchased from foreign farmers.
Secretary General of the SFTU Jan Sitholepitied the defiance of the constitution by government.
He said free education should have been introduced this year but government went against a court decision to grant this right to children this year as stipulated in the constitution.
Sithole said the recommendations would be reduced to a declaration and petition that would be presented to government. It was the feeling of the gathering that the recommendations were made known to the public and government.
While the Swaziland media are busy telling us what a success King Mswati III is having on his state visit to Zambia voices of dissent are being raised in the country itself.
The Zambia Post newspaperhas attacked its own president Rupiah Banda for inviting the king, the last absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa, and for paying public tribute to the king by congratulating him on his ‘wise leadership’ and saying that he ensures ‘that the Swazi people benefit from economic development and actively participate in the election of their representatives in the government’.
The Post isn’t taken in at all. In a long and hard hitting editorial the newspaper says, ‘Mswati is running a tyrannical royal dictatorship in Swaziland’ and calls on the Southern African Development Community ‘to put serious pressure on Mswati for the democratisation of Swaziland’.
Swaziland, it reminds us, is a kingdom where political parties are banned and freedom of association is suppressed. The newspaper called the 2008 elections in Swaziland a ‘daylight fraud’.
The Post says, ‘Whilst the Swazi King was entertained to a state banquet here and enjoyed game viewing in one of our national parks in the company of Rupiah, he has subjected the people of Swaziland to hunger and poverty whilst he and his family enjoy a lavish lifestyle.’
The newspaper goes on to say that while the king and his family enjoy fabulous wealth the majority of Swazi people are poor and do not have access to basic services.
‘Swaziland is a neo-colonial and semi-feudal enclave ruled by an absolute monarchy together with his family. It is a country that is naturally endowed with abundant resources, but is suffering from the crisis of a royal kwashiorkor, called the Tinkhundla system. This system by definition is about the entrenchment of royal hegemony in all spheres of Swazi society, thus turning the people into objects of royal pity and plunder. This is the essence of royal rule, through imposed hegemony, where the King is everything. He is the chancellor of the university, he is the commander-in-chief of the army, he is the patron of thousands of NGOs that front for his hegemony in the name of serving the poor, he is a head of state and more than anything else, a very key businessman, with huge economic interests in every sector of Swazi society.
‘His hands are full of activity that reinforces his greed and entrenches his monopoly over every sphere of Swazi society, not least the economy. This basic truth is important to always remember and recite in order to capture the real essence and structure of Swaziland, and why it is performing. It is obviously suffering from the heavy weight of royal plunder, lack of innovation and creativity, and more than anything else, greed and cancerous corruption, which had permeated every sector of Swazi society and has destroyed its moral fibre.’
And that’s only half of it. To read the full editorial click here.
He was wearing a T-shirt calling for the release from jail of Mario Masuku,president of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO).
Norman Xabawas charged under the Suppression of Terrorism Act (STA) which allows for prison sentences of up to 25 years on conviction.
Also arrested and charged under the STA at the same event was Mphandlana Shongwe, who is reported to have ‘chanted slogans’ in sympathy with PUDEMO.
The arrests come as no real surprise in Swaziland where the STA is being used to oppress freedom of speech. Amnesty International, among other human rights organisations, has condemned the use of the act, introduced last year, to stop any criticism of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, Barnabas Dlamini, the illegally-appointed prime minister and the government.
Dlamini has even gone so far as to threaten journalists with the STA if they publish reports about banned political parties in Swaziland.
It probably comes as no surprise that the arrests were made yesterday by plain clothed policemen who infiltrated the People’s Dialogue, which was called by churches, trade unions and civil society organisations to discuss issues in Swaziland.
Although organisers made it clear the meeting was not about challenging the power of the state, it was widely condemned by supporters of the status quo in Swaziland because it was convened as an alternative to an official ‘smart partnership’ meeting due to take place next month which will be attended by the king and the prime minister.
Supporters of the People’s Dialogue believe previous ‘smart partnerships’ had no value because they did not achieve anything.
Asking the majority of people around the world what they know about Swaziland is likely to draw a blank stare. But Swaziland is a country with a strong history of political struggle against formidable odds. Despite the determined suppression of democratic expression by the country's government, the last few years have seen a resurgence in civil society's drive for greater freedom, something which will pave the way for progressively greater interest from the international community in coming years.
These are the thoughts of Jan Sithole, secretary general of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions, writing in Pambazuka News ahead of the first ever Swaziland ‘People’s Dialogue’ that takes place tomorrow (18 July 2009). The dialogue will cover HIV/AIDS, health, education, gender, youth, governance, human rights, privatisation, food sovereignty, the environment, the informal sector and other related concerns.
