PLAN FOR BORDER BLOCKAGE AT OSHOEK

South African trade unions plan a blockade of the border gate with Swaziland at Oshoek on Friday (11 May 2018) in an ongoing campaign for the release of Amos Mbedzi.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) are leading the protest.

Mbedzi, a South African, was sentenced to 85 years and six months in jail (with 25 years to be served) in Swaziland in 2012 after conviction by the Swaziland High Court on five charges including sedition and murder.

He had been arrested following an attempt to blow up a bridge near the Lozitha royal residence in September 2008. Two people with him died from injuries caused when the bomb exploded prematurely.

King Mswati III, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, had been expected to use the bridge later in the day. 

Judge Bheki Maphalala said Mbedzi, ‘was engaged in violent revolution to overthrow the State’.

Mbedzi was described at the time by the AFP news agency as a part of the Umbane People’s Liberation Army, ‘a secret militant group linked to the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), which sought to undermine elections that year [2008] until Swaziland allowed a multi-party vote’. Political parties are banned from taking part in elections.

The sentence caused outrage among pro-democracy groups who see Mbedzi as a victim of King Mswati.

The People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), a pro-democracy organization banned in Swaziland, called Mbedzi’s sentence, ‘an open expression and declaration by the royal regime of its unwillingness to accommodate diverging views on the country’s political direction and future’.

The Communist Party of Swaziland called the attempt to blow up the bridge, ‘a brave and principled act of struggle against the illegal Mswati regime’. 

The Swaziland Solidarity Network said of the sentence, ‘This is a clear declaration of war to the forces of democracy in Swaziland. When people are left with no option to protect their human rights, they are bound to explore all possible means to realise them.’

See also

RELEASE AMOS MBEDZI CAMPAIGN

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/release-amos-mbedzi-campaign.html

AMOS MBEDZI FULL JUDGEMENT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2012/08/amos-mbedzi-full-judgement.html

NEHAWU SUPPORTS SWAZI ACTION

National Education Health & Allied Workers Union, South Africa

Statement

2 September 2011

NEHAWU supports the Swaziland Global Week of Action

NEHAWU offers its total support to the planned Swaziland Global week of action set to take place between the 5-9th of September 2011. Our union will be mobilizing workers and encouraging all South Africans to support the people of Swaziland in their fight for social equality and economic emancipation.

We are also concerned by the reports coming out of the Swazi Kingdom that the royal family has done nothing to moderate their wasteful expenditure even though they have asked South Africa to lend them R2.4 billion because of their country’s precarious financial condition.

We find it abominable that Mswati and his rapacious family are incessantly throwing parties and taking expensive vacations while many poor man and women of Swaziland are forced to go to bed hungry and are struggling to afford medication in a country ravaged by the Aids pandemic.

This global week of action should be used by all freedom loving people of the world to send a clear message to the ruling Swaziland elite that their time is coming and the world will not sit idle while they brutally oppress the entire nation.

The people of Swaziland need to be more united now than ever before if they have any hope of bringing democracy to their country. It is a material fact that progress can only be achieved through action and sometimes confrontation, so the people of Swaziland owe it to themselves and the next generation to make a united stand against this corrupt and brutal dictatorship.

The Arab Spring has shown that it is possible to stand up and depose even the best armed and well resourced tyrants, as long as the working class is united in their quest for freedom. The world dictators’ illusion of invincibility has been shattered by the force of resistance and perseverance of a working class that is fed up with rampant corruption and brutal oppression. It is time for the world to act against this medieval system that allows people to rule over others using only their birthright as a qualification.

The union is fully behind the struggle to emancipate the oppressed people of Swaziland and we call on all people around the world to support the efforts of the working class to free themselves from the clutches of this brutal and corrupt regime.