SWAZILAND A ‘TICKING TIME BOMB’

Swaziland is a ‘ticking time bomb’ as the Swazi army prepares to set up military bases across the kingdom.

People will not stand for it and will push for democracy in the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, according to the editor of one of Swaziland’s few independent newspapers who is predicting ‘evil people’ are going to turn the kingdom ‘into one that is ungovernable’.

Mbongeni Mbingo, editor of the Times Sunday, said the deployment of the army across Swaziland might provoke people to demand democracy.

Writing in his own newspaper on Sunday (23 March 2008) Mbingo said,

‘It is now clear that there are people who are out to destroy this country. These are evil people who have their evil dreams of turning this country into one that is ungovernable. And you wonder what it is they will achieve when the country is in the ruins!’

He added, ‘And it is not the people from PUDEMO [a banned political party] or other progressive formations we have to fear now, it is the people who worm themselves around the king and proclaim undying love for him. They are a danger to our peace and prosperity.

‘But they must be warned that their action will not serve anything but to destroy this country – and that time is nigh.’

On the previous Monday (17 Mach 2008), protesting bus drivers and conductors had blocked off the centre of Manzini -Swaziland’s second city. Police used brutal force against protestors.

Mbingo wrote,

‘The patience of the people, as witnessed on Monday with the protests at the Manzini bus rank when Manzini came to a standstill, is wearing thin, and now it will not take long before things really get out of hand.

‘The danger about this protest on Monday is that those people have realised they can take matters into their own hands and win. It must not be perceived that it was the bus conductors and drivers who are lawless people who did this, but these are people in our society who believe they have been pushed to the edge, and could not take it any longer.

‘It is a warning that sooner or later, this whole country will ground to a standstill.

‘But somehow, miraculously even, people don’t realise this, or are intentionally pushing the people to revolt, because they have their own selfish ends to meet.’

Mbingo went on, ‘The protests on Monday are a big warning to everyone that this generation of people is not going to allow things to be run as they were, and these people will no longer accept being treated as subjects, but they are people who have their rights that need to be protected – and respected.’

Mbingo went on to say there was no reason to deploy the army since there was no national emergency at present. If there were to be a state of emergency some time soon it would be caused by the army.

‘Unfortunately, this is a bad move that will backfire badly, because if anything the army on our streets does not do anything to scare any more, rather it pushes the people to realising that a full democracy is on the horizon,’ Mbingo said.

‘If government and the ruling elite don’t take action or indeed notice, the tide will turn in time and this country will seriously get into ruin.

‘It’s been an accident waiting to happen, but now I get the feeling it is only a matter of time.’

See also
SWAZILAND ‘TO BE MILITARY STATE’
SWAZI POLICE ‘KILL BABY WITH TEARGAS’