The way the story of the first day of Swaziland’s two-day national strike is being told in the news media is deeply divided.
The Swazi newspapers, TV, and radio, primarily see it as a story of chaos, looting and disruption. While for the foreign media the strike is a demonstration in favour of democracy.
Trade unionists and their supporters are on a two day strike in support of five demands (detailed at the end of this posting). Yesterday (Wednesday) saw a mass demonstration in Swaziland’s second city Manzini. Today, the protest moves to the streets of the kingdom’s capital, Mbabane.
On Wednesday night Swaziland’s Channel S TV reported the Manzini demonstration as a series of traffic jams, looting and destruction. According to Channel S, there was violence with ‘shops destroyed’ causing ‘hundreds of emalangeni’ worth of damage. No verbal or filmed evidence of destroyed shops was given and when one considers that one hundred emalengeni is worth about fourteen US dollars or seven British pounds the alleged damage was very small beer indeed.
What we have here is a gross exaggeration on the part of Channel S, presumably to distract viewers’ attention from the main purpose of the demonstration. Channel S filmed a peaceful demonstration and was unable to offer any footage of rioting, looting or damage. The reporter’s commentary was at odds to the visual evidence.
State-controlled SBIS radio also concentrated on disruption, quoting a police spokesman saying that marchers threw stones at police officers, broke shop windows and stole clothes.
In contrast to Channel S and SBIS, Swazi TV made no mention of disruption or violence and concentrated on an interview with a trade union leader who outlined the main objectives of the strike.
On Thursday, reports in both the
Swazi Observer and the
Times of Swaziland were of ‘chaos’.
The
Observer reported that business in Manzini was halted for two hours. The newspaper quotes a single businessman who condemns the strike.
In a separate news
report, ‘Shops looted, cops beaten up’ the
Observer states, ‘Over five shops, including Manzini Standard Bank, were looted yesterday as some workers resorted to violent action during the protest march. Two police officers were also harassed.’
The only person quoted in the report is the police public relations spokesman.
In a third
report, the
Observer, quotes an anonymous source as saying that employees at one company who did not want to join the strike were harassed.
The
Times of Swaziland also saw chaos, headlining its main report, ‘Strike Chaos in Manzini’. The report began, ‘At least one person was injured when police clashed with protesters yesterday at the hub as tempers flared during the first lap of the national mass action.’
The
Times was the only news outlet that I have seen that reported the following.
‘Police had difficulty controlling some of the marchers, who were forcing shops to close and they would occasionally exchange heated words with them.It was during one of the arguments that a young PUDEMO (Peoples United Democratic Movement) member was grabbed and beaten.After the beating was meted out to him, he was lucky as some of the senior police officers later whisked him away from those with batons to a police vehicle that was parked at a distance.While the comrade was being told to get in the car, he first refused and was heard saying he would rather die than get into the blue police vehicle, but eventually did.He was rushed to the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital (RFM) after sustaining some injuries.The PUDEMO member, according to the Secretary General Sphasha Dlamini, was brought by the police to the hospital, but another group of police officers came and took him to the Manzini Police station.This happened before the PUDEMO comrade had been treated for injuries on his face, head and body.’
The reporting in the foreign media was in contrast to that in Swaziland. For them this was a story about workers demonstrating in favour of democracy.
This report, headlined ‘Swazi strikers march in push for multi-party democracy’, from the international news agency AFP is typical. It starts,
‘Thousands of striking public sector workers brought Swaziland's second city to a standstill on Wednesday as they took to the streets to demand the introduction of multi-party democracy.‘Schools and government factories were closed, while hospitals and banks were forced to run skeleton services during a strike called by the country's main trade union body to denounce the current system of government which ensures that absolute power resides in the hands of King Mswati III.’This report appeared in a number of newspapers across South Africa the following day, including the
Cape TimesThe
Reuters news agency took a similar line. In a report headlined ‘Swazi unions protest for democratic reforms’, it reported,
‘Thousands of opposition party and trade union members staged a protest in Swaziland's largest city on Wednesday to demand democratic reforms in sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy.
‘Mario Masuku, president of the banned opposition People’s United Movement, said workers and students took part in a strike and a protest march in the commercial capital Manzini to press the government to introduce multi-party elections in 2008.
‘“We are demanding that the next elections in 2008 be open and democratic multi-party elections, otherwise we will not accept it and will make the elections impossible,’” Masuku said.
BBC World Service radio described the demonstration as a strike against the Swazi King Mswati III. There may be some embarrassed people at Swaziland’s SBIS radio station as the BBC report was broadcast as part of the Focus on Africa programme from the BBC which SBIS broadcasts on its own airwaves each weekday. Such criticism of the king is not allowed anywhere near SBIS.
The workers’ demands are:
1. Taxation of terminal benefits and other benefits
Workers demand the changes per attached write up to be effected from the 1st July 2007. In this demand, they say government should desist from increasing its revenue base by taxing benefits, even where such would have adverse effect to some lowly paid workers.
2. Amendment of the SNPF Order
Workers propose the amendment, without further delay, to allow payment of SNPF benefits to all employees who have been retrenched, on production of such confirmation from the employer.
3. Application of part X111 of the Employment Act of 1980 of the tender board on public contracts
The Section calls for ensuring that contractors/service providers paid out of public funds adhere to basic minimum standards as provided for in the various Wages Orders.
4. Consultation with the public on privatisation
In the mediation by CMAC during the 2003 protest action notice, government was to discuss this issue with the unions. It promised to provide its privatisation policy, where after, it would then engage the unions. The policy was provided, but no meeting or workshop on this topic ever took place. All we have heard is that government is rolling out its privatisation process," the union says.
Government is proceeding with the privatisation policy without proper consultation even in line with the policy it adopted.
5. 2008 Parliamentary election to be held under a multi-party system.
