BBC: 'TENSION MOUNTS IN SWAZILAND'

Tension is mounting in Swaziland as police step up security ahead of the ‘uprising’ planned for tomorrow (12 April 2011), BBC Monitoring reports today.

This is its report released this morning.

SOURCE

Road blocks and police patrols have become common features in Swaziland's two major cities of Mbabane and Manzini in recent days as the Swazi government braces itself for political protest action to call for reforms, starting this week. Police and prison officers are leaving no stone unturned as they step up car searches.

"I've never been through so much security scrutiny since I started visiting Swaziland seven years ago," said Zanele Nkosi, a South African from Pretoria who was visiting friends over the weekend.

She went through three roadblocks from Oshoek border post as she drove to Manzini, where warders and police checked her car. "I was further surprised by the roadblocks, which are also conducted at night," she said. She was also shocked to see security officers keeping surveillance at the overhead bridges that she passed.

Frustration among the Swazis is also becoming palpable as the roadblocks lengthen the commuting time between the two cities. "I now have to leave home an hour earlier than I used to so that I can get to work on time," complained Sindi Matsenjwa, a shop assistant in Mbabane.

Tension is mounting in the kingdom as civil society organizations led by trade unions prepare to take to the streets for four days, starting tomorrow, to force the government led by Prime Minister Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini out of office.

This follows a fiscal crisis that started last year, which saw the government proposing to cut salaries for politicians and public servants. Politicians have agreed to a 10 per cent wage cut from this month, while public servants remain opposed to a 4.5 per cent reduction.

"This government has failed to run the country and it must go," said Muzi Mhlanga, the secretary general of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT). "We want multiparty democracy."

The prime minister said the protest action was illegal and that the no-work-no-pay rule would apply, urging the private sector to follow suit.

In fact, the government is worried that this protest action coincides with a push for regime change mobilized through Facebook. The unions have distanced themselves from this push although their concerns are similar.

"A number of attempts have been made to try and persuade the labour federations and SNAT to shift their protest action to another date so that there is no confusion of overlap of issues between the two groups," Minister of Labour and Social Security Magobetane Mamba said in a statement over the weekend.

The labour movement refused to budge, arguing that it could only call off the protest action if the government addressed its concerns.

"April 12 is of sentimental value to many Swazis given the history of this date," said Vincent Ncongwane, the secretary-general of the Swaziland Federation of Labour. The late King Sobhuza II banned political parties and put in place the Tinkhundla system on April 12, 1973.

BBC Monitoring.

SENATE COUNTS DAYS TO UPRISING

Senators in Swaziland don’t know what to do about the ‘uprising’ planned for 12 April.

The best they can come up with is to invite the ‘organisers’ to appear on state-controlled television and radio to tell what is on their minds.

The ‘uprising’ is being coordinated by a Facebook group called the April 12 Uprising. On its site it is very clear that its wish is to ‘topple’ King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

Swazi senators discussed the ‘uprising’ yesterday (22 March 2011) and, according to media reports in Swaziland, they didn’t know what the demands of the group were.

They didn’t know? Either the senators simply haven’t done their homework (just go to the site. Click here) or the newspapers are too scared to tell their readers that there are Swazi people who want to get rid of King Mswati.

The senators are assuming that the ‘uprising’ will consist of a march, but the exact activities for the day have not been disclosed by organisers.

According to the Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, senators called on Magobetane Mamba, Minister of Labour and Social Security, to do something and quickly. There are only 20 days until the ‘uprising’, they said.

Senator Bhutana Dlamini asked, ‘... what has the minister done to engage those who intend to march to ensure that he gets their side of the story and see if anything could be done?’

Senator Themba Msibi, said, ‘As legislators, we need to know what you are doing pertaining the march that has become the talk of the day.’

The Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the kingdom, quoted him saying, ‘Will government deploy police or guard the whole country? What will happen?’

The Minister didn’t know what to do. ‘The big question is what exactly those perpetrating for the demonstration really want? We have written to them with a view of hearing what they want.’

All he could come up with was to suggest that the leaders of the ‘march’ could go on local radio and television where they would say what their demands were and give people the chance to respond.

The Times quoted Mamba saying, ‘Let me ask those who are aggrieved to write to the ministry and tell us of their problems. We should not hear about news of the uprising in the media.’

So, what happens next? What is the point of the ‘uprising’ organisers talking to government when their demands are for King Mswati to go and for a new democratic system be put in his place in Swaziland?

Not much room for negotiations there.

See also

FACEBOOK SCARES SWAZILAND’S ELITE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/03/facebook-scares-swazilands-elite.html

GOVERNMENT MUST RECOGNISE SNUS

The Swazi Government must recognise the Swaziland National Union of Students (SNUS) as one of the legitimate voices of youth in the kingdom.

Yesterday (10 February 2011), Minister of Labour and Social Security Magobetane Mamba, refused to accept a petition from SNUS because it is not officially recognized by the state.

This is technically true and is a situation that the Swaziland Government must rectify at all possible speed.

Whether the minister likes it or not, SNUS has a mass support in the kingdom, ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. On Tuesday, between 500 and 3,000 students (depending on who you read) marched through the Swazi capital, Mbabane, to deliver a petition protesting about a new policy on scholarships that the government intends to implement.

Students from tertiary instructions, including the usually conservative Southern Africa Nazarene University, defied college authorities to take part in the march.

One of their complaints was that students had not been consulted in the process that decided the new scholarship rules. This was revealed to be true yesterday when Minister Mamba said he would distribute copies of the scholarship policy to student representative councils in educational institutions across Swaziland. Clearly, he had not previously done so and it follows that students wouldn’t have been able to give their views on the policy.

The SNUS also accused Mamba of being arrogant in his dealings with students. The offhand way Mamba dismissed the students as irrelevant tends to support the SNUS case.

According to a report in the Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in Swaziland, today Mamba ‘kicked’ SNUS President Maxwell Dlamini out of a meeting, accusing SNUS of being an ‘illegal student organisation’.

The Times quotes Mamba saying, ‘I will not make any responses on the contents of the said petition until I am given proof that SNUS is a properly registered union.’

The solution is simple: register the SNUS. It is clear that SNUS commands support among students and that it can mount large-scale protests in the kingdom.

SNUS deserves to be part of the consultation process. Mamba is a very short-sighted politician if he doesn’t recognise that it is in the government’s interest to have the SNUS on board.

As the former US President LBJ once put it, ‘It’s better to have them in the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.’

SWAZI GOVERNMENT EXPOSED – AGAIN

It looks like the Swaziland Minister of Labour and Social Security has been exposed in the court of public opinion.

Magobetane Mamba went to appear before a committee of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland, to defend Swaziland’s ‘reputation’ when it came to labour rights.

The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, reported that Mamba was ‘taken aback’ when representatives of Swaziland trade unions said ‘human rights were undermined in Swaziland, to the extent of refusing workers a right to protest’.

Mamba has a very short memory. You only have to think about how police fired teargas and rubber bullets at textile workers who were engaged in a perfectly lawful strike in March 2008 to see that Mamba is simply not telling the truth. (Click here for reports on the textile dispute).

Mamba told the Observer, ‘We made the committee on industrial matters aware that Swaziland allows industrial protest action to take place, but only if workers abide by the law.

‘We told the committee that labour organisation chiefs had never been arrested for labour related issues, but had been taken in for questioning for political statements they had made.

Mamba said most of the allegations by the labour organisations lacked evidence and were exaggerated.

But the ILO wasn’t born yesterday. In its official report of the meeting it ‘noted with concern’ (diplomatic-speak for ‘thoroughly condemns’) the acts of violence ‘carried out by the security forces and the detention of workers for exercising their right to strike’.

The ILO went on to forcefully remind the Swaziland Government of the importance of ‘the full respect of basic civil liberties such as freedom of expression, of assembly and of the press’.

The ILO told the Swaziland Government it was its responsibility ‘to ensure respect for the principle according to which the trade union movement can only develop in a climate free from violence, threat or fear’.

The ILO went n to demand that the Swazi Government release any people in the kingdom who have been detained ‘for having exercised their civil liberties’.

To read more on the ILO response to the Swaziland Government click here.