HOW SWAZI STATE HARASSES ACTIVISTS

Mphandlana Shongwe, a political activist charged with treason and sedition in Swaziland for among other things chanting the names of banned political parties, has been on bail for twelve years awaiting trial.

His case highlights how the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, harasses dissenters.

Shongwe, aged 57, has been reporting to police once a month as part of his bail conditions. He also had to pay E6,000 bail money. He is accused of committing treason in 2006 and sedition in 2009. His 2006 charge arises from a period when there were a number of lighted bottles of petrol thrown at government and official buildings. The 2009 case involves Shongwe allegedly shouting ‘Viva Pudemo! Viva Swayoco!’ at a public meeting. The People’s United Democratic Party (Pudemo) is a prodemocracy political party. The Swaziland Youth Congress (Swayoco) is Pudemo’s youth wing. Both are banned in Swaziland under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.

Political parties are banned from taking part in elections and the King appoints the Prime Minister and government ministers. 

Shongwe told the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland (8 April 2018), ‘I have been travelling to Manzini Police Station for the past 12 years to show face that I’m still around. This is injustice at its worse form.’

Shongwe, who has the nickname ‘Victim’ and was a founding member of Pudemo has history as a political activist. 

In a profile published in March 2016, Peter Kenworthy wrote, ‘Along with eleven other activists, including PudemoPresident Mario Masuku, Victim was arrested and charged with treason in 1990.

‘Amongst the charges was conspiring to form a political party with a military wing with the intention of overthrowing King Mswati’s hand-picked government, organising trade unions and holding political meetings where overthrowing this government was discussed.

‘But as several prosecution witnesses claimed that their statements had been made under threats, and other prosecution witnesses’ statements seemed rehearsed, the judge ruled that any treasonable or subversive activities had not been proved.

‘Victim was given a six month-sentence, for a couple of minor charges, instead of the yearlong sentences that the prosecutor had called for. And instead of crushing the movement, the trial had given Pudemo and Victim a public face both in Swaziland and beyond.

‘The High Court had also proved that there was no armed insurrection being planned by Pudemo, but that the organisation was simply concerned with bringing true democracy to Swaziland.

‘As he had already been in jail for this duration, Victim was released immediately.’

Kenworthy added, ‘“It was that trial that registered the people’s movement, and from thereon we have been in and out of courts but never looked back”, Victim says of the importance of the trial.

‘Another effect of the trial was that the state increased the victimisation of Pudemo leaders. President Mario Masuku was dismissed in the local bank he had worked in for 18 years, Victim was expelled from college, and many others suffered a similar fate.

‘In fact it only took a couple of weeks for the police to detain Victim again, this time on consecutive detention orders without him and his two co-detainees being told what the charges against them were.

‘The trio went on a hunger strike that only ended after several weeks of agony, a royal pardon, and after Victim had suffered from heart failure and was told by a doctor that he could easily die.

‘Since the hunger strike, Victim has been in and out of prison and has been constantly harassed and on occasion beaten up and tortured by the police. He has also remained unemployed because of his Pudemo activism.

‘In 1994 he was arrested for demonstrating peacefully against the government, and became an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience. In 2006 he was beaten unconscious by police under interrogation and dumped in a hospital bleeding profusely. In 2009 he was arrested for shouting slogans wearing a Pudemo t-shirt, and charged with terrorism. And the list goes on,’ Kenworthy reported.

In 2010, Shongwe was one of four activists arrested just before they were due to speak at a May Day rally at the Salesian Sports Ground. Police said they arrested the four because it was a function especially for workers and the speakers being were not workers.

Shongwe, one of the leaders of the Swaziland Democracy Campaign, said at the time he was subjected to house arrest. He said after being interrogated for two hours, he was taken to his home where he was warned to remain indoors. He said he was ordered to make a statement in writing, explaining why he attended the Workers’ Day because he was not a worker. The four were taken to the Manzini Regional Police Headquarters. A police spokesperson said the four were not charged but were held for questioning.

                                            Mphandlana Shongwe

See also

MAN IN JAIL 10 YEARS AWAITING TRIAL

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/man-in-jail-10-years-awaiting-trial.html

 

VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/victim-of-circumstances.html

 

ARRESTED FOR BEING UNEMPLOYED

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/arrested-for-being-unemployed.html

 

SWAZI DEMOCRACY LEADER IN COURT

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/swazi-democracy-leader-in-court.html

 

ARMED POLICE INVADE FREEDOM SUMMIT

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/armed-police-invade-freedom-summit.html

 

BARBARIC POLICE AT WORKERS' DAY

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/barbaric-police-at-workers-day.html

VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES

Kenworthy News Media, 4 March 2016

SOURCE

“I am a victim of circumstances”, says activist Mphandlana ‘Victim’ Shongwe of the nickname he is known by because of the decades of state harassment he has endured in his homeland, Swaziland. “But what has kept me going is the desire to be free”, writes Kenworthy News Media.

“Victim” is the name that Mphandlana Shongwe – a founding member of Swaziland’s democratic movement, PUDEMO – is commonly known by in the small absolute monarchy of Swaziland. He was given his nickname, after reflecting on his life in Matsapha Central Prison, while awaiting trial for treason in 1990. 

It was here he started counting the many setbacks he had experienced. He has been expelled from college, been denied a living by the government because of his activism, been arrested on many occasions for trivial “offences” such as shouting “viva PUDEMO” and wearing a PUDEMO-t-shirt, and been held in solitary confinement, beaten up and tortured by the police on several occasions.

More sadness than joy
As with most other ordinary Swazis, Victim had to choose at an early age whether or not to accept the enforced poverty and cultural control that is a fundamental part of King Mswati’s Swaziland.

“My introduction to poverty and oppression at a tender age had prepared me for a life of activism”, Victim says of his childhood. “My life has seen more sadness than joy, more funerals than weddings, and more visits to police cells than parties”.

And he has had a life of struggle for justice and democracy that neither his daughter, his daughter’s mother nor his own mother have been able to understand.

Uneasy beginnings
Victim, who was born on the 27th of September 1960, did not have an easy childhood. When he was six, his father was arrested and charged with murder and died a few years later in prison. His mother suffered from a stroke that left her temporarily paralysed and meant she had to return to her parents’ homestead.

Victim ended up in a mission school, where he got his first introduction to oppression and the struggle to end it. Firstly, by being on the receiving end of whippings by his teachers, and secondly by hearing about the 1976 Soweto uprising in neighbouring South Africa in history lessons.

Victim and his classmate Richard, who were two of the top students, both listened attentively. Later in life, they would put the learnings of these lessons to very different use when they met on the streets of Manzini and Mbabane, Victim as a political activist, Richard as a police officer.

No independent thinking
It was in high school that Victim first started to reflect on the influence of the unreflective “banking model” of teaching that was, and is still, employed as the manner of teaching in many schools in Swaziland.

“As students, we lacked independent thinking. We were treated as if we were empty containers which needed to be filled up with knowledge. I would later discover that this was intentional in order to keep the Swazi student docile. The school curriculum was designed, as it is still designed, to produce a student who accepts things as they are without question”, Victim says of his high school days.

He began to link the problem of Swaziland’s educational system with the broader lack of democracy, leadership and direction in Swaziland, and as a result of these reflections, Victim ended up taking a teacher’s degree after having finishing high school.

No sleep ‘till justice
It was at teacher’s training college, that Victim truly became aware of the injustices of the Tinkundla-system of Swaziland’s absolute monarchy. And it was at here that he started his “career” as a more-or-less full time activist.

“When people went to sleep, we went to distribute pamphlets”, he says of this period of his life.

It was as a result of Victim’s involvement in a seemingly endless row of door-to-door campaigns, pamphlet distributions and political meetings that the he ended up facing a long prison sentence for the first, but by no means the last, time.

Treason trial
Along with eleven other activists, including PUDEMO President Mario Masuku, Victim was arrested and charged with treason in 1990.

Amongst the charges was conspiring to form a political party with a military wing with the intention of overthrowing King Mswati’s hand-picked government, organising trade unions and holding political meetings where overthrowing this government was discussed.

But as several prosecution witnesses claimed that their statements had been made under threats, and other prosecution witnesses’ statements seemed rehearsed, the judge ruled that any treasonable or subversive activities had not been proved.

A public face
Victim was given a six month-sentence, for a couple of minor charges, instead of the yearlong sentences that the prosecutor had called for. And instead of crushing the movement, the trial had given PUDEMO and Victim a public face both in Swaziland and beyond.

The High Court had also proved that there was no armed insurrection being planned by PUDEMO, but that the organisation was simply concerned with bringing true democracy to Swaziland.

As he had already been in jail for this duration, Victim was released immediately.

“It was that trial that registered the people’s movement, and from thereon we have been in and out of courts but never looked back”, Victim says of the importance of the trial.

The usual suspect
Another effect of the trial was that the state increased the victimisation of PUDEMO leaders. President Mario Masuku was dismissed in the local bank he had worked in for 18 years, Victim was expelled from college, and many others suffered a similar fate.

In fact it only took a couple of weeks for the police to detain Victim again, this time on consecutive detention orders without him and his two co-detainees being told what the charges against them were.

The trio went on a hunger strike that only ended after several weeks of agony, a royal pardon, and after Victim had suffered from heart failure and was told by a doctor that he could easily die.

A bright future?
Since the hunger strike, Victim has been in and out of prison and has been constantly harassed and on occasion beaten up and tortured by the police. He has also remained unemployed because of his PUDEMO activism.

In 1994 he was arrested for demonstrating peacefully against the government, and became an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience. In 2006 he was beaten unconscious by police under interrogation and dumped in a hospital bleeding profusely. In 2009 he was arrested for shouting slogans wearing a PUDEMO t-shirt, and charged with terrorism. And the list goes on.
 

“Long prison terms are a risk that anyone who stands up against the system face”, says Victim. “But every time I face danger, I recall the words of ANC member Solomon Mahlangu, who, when leaving the court to be hanged by the apartheid regime in 1979, said: ‘Mama, tell my people that I love them and my blood shall nourish the tree of freedom’”.

No personal agenda
And regardless of the setbacks and endless victimisation, Victim is today a free man in an unfree country (although out on bail since 2006, and having to report to the police station every Friday).

He is optimistic about the future of Swaziland and believes that it is a matter of years, not decades, before it will become a democracy.

But Victim also warns of the dangers of the struggle for democracy and freedom, the closer victory seems at hand.

“The hour before dawn is a period where some people start pushing personal agendas at the expense of progress. And any agenda which excludes group representation is bound to keep the status quo intact”, he says, alluding to the fact that the struggle is not about personal gain but a constant fight for a better future for everyone.

Not on a silver plate
He also insists that it is obvious that democracy will not be delivered on a silver plate or necessarily or automatically follow a collapse of King Mswati’s Tinkundla-regime.

“There is no scenario in history where the ruling class voluntarily handed over power to the oppressed”, Victim emphasises.

“The country is where it is today because people were quiet when they were supposed to speak. But change will only come when the people of Swaziland choose to die on the streets, so to speak, if necessary. There has never been a time when I thought of giving up the struggle and I have never looked back with despair, although I have nothing in material form except the willpower to hold, even when there is nothing to hold on to”.

This article is based on Mphandlana “Victim” Shongwes book “The Last Mile”, as well as on conversations and correspondence between the author and Shongwe.

Swaziland has been an absolute monarchy since 1973, where the King Sobhuza declared a State of Emergency that banned all political parties and centralised all power within the monarchy. 

The 2005 constitution reinforces this by leaving freedom of speech and control of virtually all aspects of government and the judiciary at the mercy of the king, as does the Suppression of Terrorism Act, an “inherently repressive act” according to Amnesty International, which defines terrorism in very sweeping terms. 

Swazi legislation thus leaves almost no political space for the population but gives the police and security forces almost unlimited powers to clamp down heavily on peaceful demonstrations and meetings deemed to be “political”.

NO PETITIONS IN TODAY’S PROTEST

The following is a news report from the Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the kingdom, about the protest march taking place in Mbabane today (17 November 2010).

SOURCE

No petitions in today’s march

MBABANE – The country’s organised labour unions will proceed with today’s ‘encouragement demonstration’ to be held in the capital city.

However, this time around, there will be no petitions to be delivered to any government ministry, secretary general of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), Muzi Mhlanga said yesterday.

Instead, he said they would only deliver speeches at certain points around town while carrying on with the demonstration.

SNAT is one of the organisers of the demonstration, alongside the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) and the Swaziland Federation of Labour (SFL). Mhlanga said they expected every worker, as well as the unemployed, to be part of the demonstration because the issues that would be addressed touched on every person’s livelihood.

"We will be demonstrating tomorrow (today 17 November 2010), definitely. We will meet at the Coronation Park in the morning and then march around town but no petition will be delivered," Mhlanga said.

He went on: "We will address issues like the Public Service Bill, the E55 SEC charge as well as Circular No.1 of 2010 [that gives the Prime Minister and MPs massive pay-offs at the next national elections]. These issues affect everyone, so we expect all people to be part of the demonstration."

Mhlanga said transport to the demonstration has been made available by the different organising unions for members to be able to attend the protest.

"We expect teachers to attend in large numbers. SNAT has prepared transport and we hope other organisations have done the same. Teachers who need to know more about transport details can call SNAT offices," Mhlanga said.

Today’s ‘encouragement demonstration’ is a substitute for the three-day mass protest action that was set to commence this morning until Friday.

The mass protest was called-off as labour unions agreed to give negotiations with government a chance to continue.

Mduduzi Gina, the SFTU Secretary General, said the decision to shelve the three-day mass action was to allow for negotiations to continue between government and the labour unions pertaining to the issues that had given rise to the proposed demonstration in the first place.

Gina said during meetings of the Labour Advisory Board, government had shown progress in so far as addressing some of the issues on the table is concerned.

Mphandlana’s bid to stop cops

MANZINI-Political activist, Mphandlana Shongwe, who has in the past been blocked from attending demonstrations, has since decided to file an urgent application interdicting the police from blocking his participation in the marches.

Shongwe yesterday told this newspaper that he had received legal assistance in drafting papers he will personally file in the court very early today interdicting the police from harassing him during demonstrations.

Shongwe said he should have served the police yesterday but found that by the time he finished drafting his papers they had closed their offices at the Attorney General offices.

When asked who will represent him, Shongwe said he will represent himself.

In the recent past, Shongwe has been forcefully removed whenever there were demonstrations. He is either taken out of the locality where the action takes place or further house arrests.

The Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC) has called a one day mass demonstration today.

MORE ARRESTS IN STATE CRACKDOWN

Swaziland state forces are cracking down on pro-democracy campaigners in the kingdom. Five activists were arrested earlier today (11 June 2010) and have not yet been released,

The Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC) reports the following incidents of harassment by the Swazi police force unleashed by Barnabas Dlamini, the illegally-appointed Prime Minister of Swaziland.

1. Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF) Secretary General, Vincent Ncongwane’s house was broken into and a laptop was stolen on the 30th May, the night he was supposed to have left for the ongoing Geneva Conference. No arrests have been made.

2. Bheki Dlamini, a Trade Unionist and former Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO) leader’s house was raided by the police on the 2nd June.

3. Themba Shiba, a SWAYOCO member and activist’s house was also raided by the police on the 2nd June.

4. Ndlavela Dlamini, the President of the Swaziland Ex-Mineworkers Association’s house was raided by the police on the 4th June.

5. Sydney Nyembe, the coordinator of the Swaziland Economic Justice Network’s house was raided on the 4th June.

6. George Hleta, a SWAYOCO member’s house was raided by the police also on the 4th June.

7. Alex Langwenya, the National Organising Secretary of the SUDF’s house was bombed on the night of the 8th June. The bomb used was a commercial one and of the capacity that could only be in the possession of the police or army and not a mere citizen. Of note is that Langwenya, his wife, and brother were arrested and not permitted legal representation. The question that arises is why they were arrested? Other victims of the recent spate of bombings, which include the police themselves and MPs, have not been arrested. Langwenya has subsequently been charged under the Suppression of Terrorism Act for materials found in his possession as immediately the police arrived at his home they proceeded to raid it.

8. Bheki Dlamini, a volunteer with the Foundation for Socio-Economic Justice’s house was raided by the police on the 8th June.

9. Mphandlana Shongwe, a member of the SDC Swaziland Chapter’s house was raided by the police in the morning of the 11th June.

10. Mary Pais Da Silva, the SDC Swaziland Chapter’s Convener’s mother received members of the police force at her home in the morning of the 11th June. Mary was not home and the police did not proceed to raid the place whose intention it had been to do so.

11. Also in the morning of the 11th June, a contingent of police officers was spotted proceeding to the home of Dr. Sikelela Dlamini, the SDC Swaziland Chapter’s Secretary. They probably got lost on the way and were unable to carry out their mission.

12. In morning of the 11th June, the following were taken into custody and have not been released as yet:
a) Thabile Zwane, Secretary General of SWAYOCO.
b) Zonke Dlamini and another unidentified male, both members of SWAYOCO.
c) Thabani Mdluli, a SWAYOCO member.
d) Machawe, a vibrant SNUS member.

13. The following are being kept under close surveillance by the police:
a) Sicelo Mkhonta, a SWAYOCO member.
b) Sicelo Vilane, a SWAYOCO member.
c) Thantaza Silolo, a SWAYOCO member.
d) Themba Shiba, a SWAYOCO member.

The SDC says these raids are carried out without any search or arrest warrants.

It says, ‘This is arbitrary abuse of power, lack of respect for the rule of law as well as untold human rights violation.’

DID POLICE LIE ON ACTIVIST'S DEATH?

The family of the democracy activist found dead in jail have called for an independent post mortem to discover how he died.

Police say Sipho Jele hanged himself with a blanket in a toilet at the Sidvwashini Remand Centre, but – considering the history of police violence against suspects – this explanation is not accepted by the wider community.

Jele, a democracy activist and member of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), had been arrested on Monday (1 May 2010) at a Workers’ Day celebration because he was wearing a PUDEMO T-shirt. By the next day he was dead.

Political activist Mphandlana Shongwe told the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, Jele could not have committed suicide because he was once in prison.

He said Jele was one of the suspected bombers who were arrested in 2006 for allegedly bombing a number of buildings around the country.

He also said he doubted that he committed suicide because he was used to torture.

Jele’s aunt Juliet Jele said she suspected foul play surrounding the death of her nephew, because he never showed any signs that he was having problems, which might make him decide to end his life.

‘I need an explanation from the police on how my nephew died,’ she said.

She said the police were rushing her to have Jele’s body buried. She said, ‘The family is yet to meet to discuss what to do next on the matter, but the police should give me an explanation why my son died like this. As a family, we want our own doctor.’