Hundreds marched
at Malkerns in Swaziland / eSwatini to protest the forced eviction of
people last year who have been left homeless and destitute.
It happened
on Saturday (18 May 2019) and was jointly organised by a variety of civil
society organisations.
Times
Sunday,
reported one of the evicted people saying, ‘We eat from the bins as we do not have homes and
cannot practice farming.’
The newspaper
also reported Mhlatase Dlamini saying, ‘Our
houses were brought down and our belongings were taken and dumped. My children
are all over and eat from dustbins.’
In April 2018, Dozens of people, including 33
children, were left homeless after their homes at Embetseni were demolished
using bulldozers in the presence of 20 armed police.
At the time Amnesty International called to people
across the world to protest. Amnesty said the evictions were in violation
of international human rights standards.
In
a statement it said four homesteads with 61 people, including 33 children,
were forcibly evicted from a farming area. It said, ‘Representatives of a
private farming company that owns the land together with the Sheriff of the
High Court of Mbabane and armed local police officers were present during the demolition
of the homesteads. They arrived in the morning and told the families to remove
their belongings from their homes if they did not want them destroyed during
the demolition.
Afterwards, bulldozers demolished the four homesteads.’
Afterwards, bulldozers demolished the four homesteads.’
The Swazi High Court had in July 2017 ordered their
eviction.
Amnesty added, ‘In violation of international human
rights standards, residents of the homesteads were not given adequate advance
notice of the eviction and were not provided with alternative housing thus
rendering them homeless, and at risk of other human rights violations.’
Forced evictions across Swaziland, where King Mswati
III rules as an absolute monarch, are common. Farmers have been evicted from their
land to expand the monarchy-controlled sugar industry for decades.
American independent watchdog organization Freedom
House stated
in a press release from 2013 that the Swazi police ‘are
increasing pressure on farmers resisting their unlawful evictions from land
that they have occupied for generations.” A report
from the organization on Swaziland from the same year concluded
that, “in Swaziland, property is insecure, and rightful owners have no
effective redress in the legal system which places the king above all laws.’
Photograph
of the demonstration sourced from Facebook.
See also
Evicted
farmers take on Swaziland absolute monarch to get their land back
Bulldozers
move in to evict families
Homes
destroyed for king’s vanity project
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2014/09/homes-destroyed-for-kings-vanity.html
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