A reported
threat by Swaziland’s Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini that workers’ leaders
should be strangled when they return to the kingdom from the US Africa Summit
has been condemned by prodemocracy campaigners.
According to a report
in the Times of Swaziland newspaper,
the Prime Minister said that Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) General Secretary, Vincent
Ncongwane and human rights lawyer Sipho Gumedze, should be strangled because
they spoke against his government in Washington.
Swaziland is not a democracy and Dlamini was not
elected PM. He and all his government ministers were directly appointed PM by
King Mswati III, who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
In June 2014, Swaziland lost
its preferential trading status under the US Africa Growth Opportunities
Act (AGOA) because of its appalling human rights record.
The Times reported that Dlamini told the Swazi
Parliament in a debate about AGOA that the workers’ leaders had gone to Washington
to discuss workers’ rights without first telling the government they were going.
He was reported saying, ‘They leave your constituencies and do not even inform
you where they are going and once they come back and you find out that they are
from your constituency you must strangle them.’
Prodemocracy activists reacted with anger to the
statement. In Swaziland campaigners are routinely beaten and arrested by
police. In May 2010 Sipho
Jele was killed in custody by state forces. He had been arrested for
wearing a T-shirt with the name of the banned political party PUDEMO written on
it.
Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International
Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said, ‘We call on governments to
immediately urge the Swazi government to publicly withdraw its threat and to
ensure the safety of these courageous activists upon their return. Further, we
urge other countries which grant trade preferences to Swaziland to join the US
in initiating procedures to withdraw them until such time as fundamental worker
rights are respected in law and practice in Swaziland.’
Burrow added, ‘Mr Dlamini has absolutely no
one to blame for the potential loss of these [AGOA] benefits but his own
government.’
Labour Start has started an online letter
writing campaign to PM Dlamini calling on him to ‘publicly and immediately
rescind the threat and ensure the safety of those leaders upon their return’.
Dlamini has made violent threats against political
enemies before. In 2010 Dlamini faced condemnation
from within Swaziland and the international community after he said that he
wanted to use ‘sipakatane’ (otherwise known as ‘bastinado’, a
form of torture that involves flogging the bare soles of a person’s feet with a
spiked wooden or metal implement to temporarily or permanently cripple them) on people who campaigned
against his government.
Dlamini had been annoyed that trade unionists from
South Africa had visited Swaziland to show solidarity with Swazis fighting for
their human rights as part of a Global
Day of Action for democracy in Swaziland.
See also
SWAZI TORTURE PM
DECLARES WAR
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