The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and seven other organisations want Swaziland King Mswati III removed from the current talks about the future of Zimbabwe, because of the terror he has unleashed against his own people.
The king is the chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) ‘troika’ which is trying to mediate in the impasse surrounding the Zimbabwean elections.
The organisations delivered a petition to the Swaziland government which said, ‘We continue to note that following the undemocratic elections recently and the extravagant bash dubbed 40/40, the Swazi monarchy has never ceased to expose himself and SADC, which put him on the chairpersonship of the organ troika on politics, defence and security, a body entrusted with the promotion and defence of democracy in the region.’
According to a report in the Times of Swaziland yesterday (20 October 2008), the petition outlined human rights violations against the citizens of Swaziland by the kingdom’s authorities. These included the banning of the Southern African Social Forum (SASF) conference which ran in Swaziland last week..
‘We call on SADC to immediately reconsider the position granted to someone who is so undeserving of such an important position, for he has chosen to bash the people he is supposed to protect, that is the Southern African people. We want to send a clear message to the world and in particular to regional leaders, that King Mswati’s brutal example must not be emulated anywhere,’ the petition stated.
It said an example should be made of this kingdom so that other leaders in the region would learn from that example.
The other organisations which were present when delivering the petition were the South African Communist Party (SACP), the students congress SASCO, HURISA, Open Society of Southern Africa (OSISA), the African National Congress Youth League as well as CONGO human rights group FOCUS.
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