The International Trade Union Confederation has
condemned police brutality during last week’s
public sector strike in Swaziland (eSwatini).
Previously the ITUC had criticised other police attacks
on workers. It also declared that the tiny southern African kingdom, which is ruled
by King Mswati III as an absolute monarch, had one of the worst records on
workers’ rights in the world.
More than 30 people were injured when
police opened fire with rubber bullets. They also used water cannon and teargas
on protestors during a three day strike for a cost-of-living salary increase.
ITUC General Secretary Sharan
Burrow said in a statement on Tuesday (8 October 2019),‘Respect for
workers’ rights, good faith dialogue and a government that responds to people’s
needs and concerns – just like any other country, this is what Eswatini needs,
not state violence against the people. Eswatini’s King Mswati pledged to us
earlier this year to build these bridges, yet now we are seeing the government
pulling all stops to undermine them.’
In a letter
addressed to Swazi Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini, the ITUC highlighted past
commitments to establishing dialogue. It added, ‘The use of violence, even for
purported reasons of internal security, constitutes a serious violation of
human and trade union rights.’
Burrow said, ‘The government claimed that the strike
was a threat to national interests. If the Swazi people asking for decent
working conditions is against this government’s version of “national interest”,
then the government has got it totally wrong.’
In the letter to the PM, ITUC, which represents 207
million workers across 163 countries, called for an ‘urgent and impartial
investigation’ into the police shootings.
It added King Mswati had made a commitment at a
meeting with the ITUC at the International Labour Conference in Geneva in June
to engage in good faith in dialogue to improve industrial relations. ‘The
violence and repression against the protesters and the legal obstacles for
strike actions and protests undermine this commitment,’ ITUC said.
Swaziland has one of the worst
records in the world for workers’ rights, according to an
ITUC report. Reviewing the year
2018, ITUC said ‘police brutality reached
unprecedented levels’ and ‘security forces fired live ammunition at protesting
workers’.
In September 2018 police fired
live bullets, rubber bullets and teargas at workers and demonstrators who
had been legally protesting during a three-day strike. The streets of Manzini,
the kingdom’s main commercial city, were turned into a ‘battlefield’, according
to local media. The Swazi Observer, a
newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, said the bus rank in Swaziland’s
major commercial city was ‘turned into a warzone as stun grenades, teargas,
teasers and rubber bullets became the order of the day’.
The Times
of Swaziland , the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, called
it an ‘open battlefield’.
The ITUC said there was no guarantee of workers’
rights in Swaziland and it was getting
worse. It put Swaziland near the bottom of 145 countries in its Global Rights Index for 2019 that ranked
countries on the degree of respect for workers’ rights in law and in practice.
In July
2018 the ITUC protested to the Swaziland Government after police attacked
peaceful demonstrators in the kingdom’s capital Mbabane. Four people were
seriously injured, with two left critical, after police fired stun grenades,
rubber bullets and water cannon.
The demonstration organised by the Trade Union
Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) was over accusations that millions of dollars
had been removed from the national pension fund by the government which was not
elected but chosen by King Mswati.
Pictures
show the wounds suffered by two of the protestors. Sourced from Facebook
See also
Police
fire stun grenades at protest
Two
critical after police attack
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