More details of the police action to stop democracy protesters blockading the border between Swaziland and South Africa are emerging.
Reuters news agency says armed police ‘pulled labour activists from buses and cars at a roadblock en route to a border crossing with South Africa, taking union leaders into vans and sending others back to the capital Mbabane.’
Jan Sithole, the general secretary of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions, told Reuters by telephone, "We are at Piggs Peak prison inside the back of a van and don't know why.
"This is detention without trial and execution of an unlawful order," he said.
Reuters reports, ‘The unions, backed by South Africa's powerful COSATU labour federation, had vowed to block traffic at the border, a commercial artery between the two nations.’
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has a reporter Thulani Mthewa, at the border. He said some 200 people - both South African and Swazi - had begun a protest on the South African side of the border, but the demonstration on the Swazi side had been blocked.
Riot police have been deployed on both sides of the border crossing, the BBC says.
The secretary-general of the Swaziland Federation of Labour, Vincent Ncongwane, told the BBC protesters wanted to demonstrate that tomorrow’s elections would not be inclusive.
"We still have in Swaziland this myth that you can have a democracy where there isn't the participation of other political parties," he told the BBC.
The Swaziland Solidarity Network is reporting that the following trade unionists and activists have been arrested.
1. Mario Masuku- PUDEMO President
2. Jan Sithole- SFTU General Secretary.
3.Vincent Dlamini- SNACS General Secretary and PUDEMO CEC member
4.Jabulani Dlamini - Acting Deputy Secretary General -PUDEMO
5. Themba Mabuza- National Oganiser Swaziland Youth Congress SWAYOCO- PUDEMO YL
6. Thabile Zwane- Secretayr General- SWAYOCO-PUDEMO YL
7.Sibusiso Mtjali - SFL
8. Charles Zwane- SNAT
9. Eric Dlamini- SNAT
See also
ARMED POLICE ARREST PROTESTERS
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