POLICE ATTACK ANOTHER UNION MEETING

Police in Swaziland have broken up two meetings of the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) in as many weeks in a clampdown on groups advocating for democracy.

More than 300 plain-clothed police forced participants to end a union executive board meeting in the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Center on 14 March 2014 and blocked the gates to the building. Muzi Mhlanga, SNAT secretary general, was assaulted and had to seek medical care, according to TUCOSWA.

TUCOSWA Secretary General Vincent Ncongwane said, ‘The police came in as if they were coming to fight an army. They actually manhandled us, stopping anyone coming in or going out of the venue.’

Ncongwane added, ‘We were squashed between various policemen who were trying to read the emails we were sending [to international labour allies]. Police also demanded their phones because union leaders were taking photos of the police “without their permission. They said their orders are to crush any TUCOSWA meeting.’

Swaziland police also broke up a national union meeting on 28 February, on the grounds that workers were discussing ‘democracy’.

The Solidarity Center reported, ‘Over the past three years, Swaziland authorities have refused to grant legal registration to TUCOSWA, most recently denying the federation’s December 2014 application under the country’s recently amended Industrial Relations Act. In August 2014, some in the Swazi government falsely accused Ncongwane and human rights lawyer Sipho Gumedze of taking a stand against trade benefits for Swaziland when they were in Washington to attend the US Africa Leaders’ Summit Civil Society Forum.

The Solidarity Center said, ‘TUCOSWA is receiving key support from the country’s religious leaders. A coalition of Christian churches called for the registration and recognition of TUCOSWA as part of its broader call for multiparty democracy to address the Swaziland’s political, social and economic crises.

‘In June 2014 the US government took the rare step of suspending African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade benefits for Swaziland, citing the Swazi government’s systematic violations of fundamental worker rights, including refusal to legally recognize TUCOSWA. Swaziland’s trade unions support AGOA, but maintain that the country must meet benchmarks of the agreement, which include respecting human rights and labour rights.

‘The 2014 US State Department human rights report cited serious human rights violations in Swaziland, including arbitrary or unlawful killings by the government or its agents; severely restricted freedom of assembly, including violence against protestors; jailing of trade union leaders; the deregistration of TUCOSWA and the banning of strikes.’

See also

SWAZI POLICE HALT DEMOCRACY MEETING

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2015/03/swazi-police-halt-democracy-meeting.html

POLICE MAKE ILLEGAL HOUSE ARREST

A senior trade union leader in Swaziland was illegally placed under house arrest today (1 May 2013) by police who wanted to prevent him attending a May Day rally.

Muzi Mhlanga, the secretary general of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), was about to leave his home to attend a rally at the Salesian Sports Ground, Manzini, when he realised six policemen were on the doorstep of his home to prevent him leaving.

They had neither court order nor warrant to place him under house arrest.

Mhlanga told his Facebook followers, ‘I am under house arrests. I was about to leave for the May Day commemoration when I heard that there were six police officers outside my house who wanted to see me.’

He added that he was told, ‘that they have been ordered to make sure that I do not go out of my house.  They are now sitting at the entrance as I speak.’

Police across Swaziland have ben preventing leaders of the campaign for democracy in the kingdom from attending May Day celebrations. Mario Masuku, president of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) was taken in by police after he refused to obey instructions not to leave his house.

Earlier this week the Swazi Industrial Court banned the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) from organising May Day activities. The court said TUCOSWA was not a legally-recognised labour organisation.

SNAT in a statement following Mhlanga’s house arrest said, ‘The Swaziland Government doesn’t allow workers to freely celebrate the Workers’ Day.

‘The Minister for Labour, in the Government Radio, yesterday denied that the Government was against workers celebrating the Workers’ Day, but they will not allow the day celebrated under the banner of the new federation, TUCOSWA. They say workers can celebrate Workers Day as individual Unions, not to come together under the new federation TUCOSWA.

‘A number of other leaders in the labour movement have been under house arrest, some were forced to go back to their homes. Clearly the government will go all the way to make sure the new federation TUCOSWA does not operate.’

Protests have been growing in recent weeks across Swaziland against national elections due to take place later this year. Political parties are banned from taking part in the election and the parliament that will be elected has no power. King Mswati III rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

On 12 April, democrats wanted to mark the 40th anniversary of King Sobhuza’s Royal Decree that in 1973 turned Swaziland from a democracy to a kingdom ruled by an autocratic monarch, by holding a public meeting to discuss the forthcoming national election.

Armed police and riot troops, acting without a court order, physically blocked the restaurant in Manzini where the meeting was to take place. The police said the meeting was a threat to state security.

A week later, on 19 April, the 45th birthday of King Mswati III, who presently rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, a youth group tried to hold a meeting at Msunduza Township in Mbabane to discuss the election. Again, police forced the meeting to close. Organisers of the meeting have been charged with sedition.

See also

LEADERS ARRESTED ON MAY DAY

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/05/leaders-arrested-on-may-day.html

POLICE VIOLENCE ‘EXPECTED’ ON MAY DAY

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/05/police-violence-expected-on-may-day.html

SWAZI POLICE BEAT TRADE UNIONISTS

Two trade unionists in Swaziland were arrested and beaten by police at a May Day rally.

They were arrested because they were holding a banner with markings of the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA), a labour organisation that is not recognised by the Swazi Government.

The Centre for Human Rights, Swaziland, reported the two men, ‘were violently arrested, beaten up and later released without charge by state police in Swaziland’.

The Centre named the two as Muzi Mhlanga, who is Secretary General of the Swaziland National Teachers’ Association (SNAT), and another member of the union identified only as ‘Oscar’.

The Centre said the two were arrested at a May Day rally in Manzini, the main commercial city in the kingdom, ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

In a statement the Centre said the men, ‘were arrested after police pounced on toyi-toying workers who were carrying a banner with TUCOSWA markings’.

It added, ‘The two were taken to the Manzini Regional Police Headquarters where they were detained for two hours. They were later called into an office and asked what their business was at the police headquarters, to which they responded that they had not gone there voluntarily, but were brought in by the police.

‘According to Mhlanga, who was interviewed by the Centre after his release, five plain clothed police officers pounced on them as soon as the van delivered them at the regional headquarters.

‘Mhlanga was shoved to the floor, and beaten by these members of the law enforcement agency. During the fall he sustained injuries to his knees and face. During the interview, Mhlanga spotted a visibly swollen face, especially around his eyes. Oscar on the other hand sustained injuries while state police dragged him and threw him into the police van which sped off immediately. Ironically, no charges were preferred against the two.’

The Centre said the two would bring charges against the police officers.

NO RIGHTS FOR GAYS: JUSTICE MINISTER

Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, says Swaziland will not give human rights to gay people, because they don’t exist in the kingdom.

Or, he concedes, if they do exist there are too few of them to worry about.

Gamedze was responding to criticism of Swaziland by a United Nations working group on human rights that said the kingdom should enact equality laws for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people.

He told the Times Sunday newspaper government would not recognise and legalise same-sex marriages because homosexuals either do not exist or form a minority in Swaziland.

The newspaper reported Gamedzesaying it was hard to introduce rights for people who did not exist. If they existed, he said, they were very few – ‘very very few’.

The newspaper reported Gamedze saying, ‘It was difficult for government to formulate a policy on homosexuals or enact a law to recognise them because they actually formed a minority if ever they existed.’

The minister said the position of Swaziland on homosexuals was that ‘the numbers do not permit us to start processing a policy’.

Gamedze’s ignorance is breath-taking, because, of course, there is no state in the world where LGBT people are in a majority, but that doesn’t stop other countries, such as South Africa, enacting laws to ensure members of this community have their rights. In a democracy it is up to the majority to ensure that minorities have the same rights as everyone else.

Gamedze showed further ignorance when he told the Times Sunday that there was no LGBTgroup in Swaziland that was asking for recognition. In fact one group called HOOP (House of Our Pride), had reported to the very same UN working group that had criticised the Swazi government.

HOOP had said LGBT‘are hugely discriminated against in the Swazi community, as they are not recognized at community meetings and their points are often not minuted at these meetings nor are they allowed to take part in community services’.

Police often ridicule LGBTpeople if they report they have been victims of violent crime, HOOP reported

HOOP is calling on the Government to include LGBT issues in its agenda to help to increase the acceptance of LGBT, even at community levels in Swaziland.

Not everyone in Swaziland is as ignorant as Gamedze.

Muzi Mhlanga, the Secretary General of the Labour Coordinating Council (LCC), told the Times Sunday the kingdom’s three main labour organisations backed human rights for LGBT people.

He said that rights for gays and lesbians were discussed everywhere they attended conferences. He said the LGBT community should not be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation.

He said, ‘We would definitely fight for a [union] member who has been fired or expelled from school or work on the basis of sexual orientation.’

See also

SWAZI MINISTER LIES TO UN ON GAYS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/10/swazi-minister-lies-to-un-on-gays.html

GAY PREJUDICE RIFE IN SWAZILAND

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/gay-prejudice-rife-in-swaziland.html

SWAZILAND HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/swaziland-human-rights-report.html

EDUCATION GAINS ‘UNDER THREAT’

Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) message addressed to Education International

16 September 2011

SOURCE

Dear [Education International] Secretary General,

The Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) informs Education International (EI) that our gains in as so far as Education For All in Swaziland is under very serious threat. SNAT has been very instrumental in making sure that Free Primary Education is introduced such that we were part of civil society when government was forced to introduce it in 2009. This year all school going children from grade 1 to grade 3 are attending school without paying school fees even though there are few schools which demand top up. In the Secondary from grade 4 to grade 12 government introduced grants (bursaries) for Orphans and Vulnerable Children. This has been going on for more than five years now, but this year due to the Economic Crisis we are facing government has failed to give money for both programmes.

Our members who are School Head teachers have found it difficult to run schools due to shortage of basic teaching material and to pay for Support Staff as they currently not under the government payroll. There have been a lot of unfulfilled promises from government on when the money was going to be deposited into the schools accounts. Some schools were forced to close early for the second term on 12 August with hope that when schools open for third term on 13 September funds would be available. We held a number of meetings with the Ministry of Education officials to no avail.

We then gave government an ultimatum that the money should be deposited in the schools accounts by the 14th of September failing which we would march to demand the payment. We were joined by University students on Thursday 15 September to deliver petitions to the Ministry of Education & Training where the money for Free Primary Education is disbursed and Deputy Prime Minister Office where the money for OVC's is disbursed.

There is a lot of confusion in our schools as some Head teachers have taken a decision not to open schools while we have told our members to go back to school to avoid a situation where government will charge us with being in an illegal strike. We have told our members to be at their duty stations until further notice. We will inform your office if the conditions change.

Yours sincerely

Muzi Gladwell Mhlanga
SNAT General Secretary

See also

TEACHERS PROTEST CLOSED SCHOOLS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/teachers-protest-closed-schools.html