Swaziland Solidarity Network
Statement
27 October 2011
Australian workers are spot on
ACTU, Australian Council of Trade Unions, has acknowledged that Swaziland is the worst country in the world when it comes to abuse of human and industrial rights.
In the organisation’s official website, the president of the organisation Ged Kearney, has called for the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting to suspend Swaziland for “wholesale violations of democratic rights.”
Pointing out the fact that worker’s right cannot be separated from basic human rights, the president went on to castigate the Commonwealth for hypocritically pretending to be an organization that fosters democracy amongst its members, whereas it has failed to champion the democratic rights of citizens of some of its member states.
The democratic forces in the country and our alliance structures have failed to understand how Zimbabwe was suspended from the organisation for abusing human rights, but nothing was done to address the Swazi issue.
Is this because King Mswati chooses to evict his own poor subjects while Mugabe took land from the lily white farmers of British origin? We need answers to these questions. This seriously undermines the Commonwealth’s credibility as a non-racial, impartial and democratic institution that respects national sovereignty for its sake.
We have long called for the Swazi regime to be suspended from international bodies and we are happy that other organisations outside our alliance are finally responding to these grave double standards.
Issued by the Swaziland Solidarity Network [SSN]
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