VARSITY STRIKERS FEAR ‘SCAB LABOUR’

Workers in dispute at the university in Swaziland that has been chosen by King Mswati III to host his ‘University of Transformation’ have asked their counterparts in Botswana not to take their jobs while they are on strike.

About 100 non-academic staff at Limkokwing University in Mbabane started a strike on Monday 9 January 2017 protesting about working conditions and short-term contracts.

The Swaziland Union of Non-Academic Staff for Higher Education Institutions (SUNASHI) wrote to workers at Limkokwing in Botswana fearing that the Swaziland management would bring in workers from Botswana to do their jobs. 

The Sunday Standard newspaper in Botswana reported this week (15 January 2017) that four years ago when there was a dispute at Limkokwing in Lesotho, workers were sent from Botswana as ‘scab labour’.

Now, the newspaper reported, SUNASHI has written to workers at Limkokwing Botswana to say if they go to Mbabane they would undermine the strike.

The letter read in part, ‘Your coming to Swaziland might therefore be used to defeat the legitimate display of worker power of the planned strike.

‘Secondly, it might constitute an illegal entry into Swaziland to work when you have no legal status to work in this jurisdiction.

‘Thirdly, it might contribute to chaos and violence that may take place upon the striking workers learning about your presence on the Swaziland campus.’

Limkokwing University is a private university that was chosen by King Mswati to house a University of Transformation that would take students from across the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region. The Swazi King, who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, became chair of SADC in August 2016. He pledged the university would be operating by August 2017.

The strike at Limkokwing Swaziland was suspended on 12 January 2017, pending further talks between management and workers.

See also

STRIKE AT SWAZI KING’S SADC UNIVERSITY

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2017/01/strike-at-swazi-kings-sadc-university.html

 

KING’S NEW UNWORKABLE UNIVERSITY

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2016/09/kings-new-unworkable-university.html

 

NEW SWAZI UNIVERSITY SUBSTANDARD

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-swazi-university-substandard.html

‘STAND UP TO SWAZI KING’, UNIONS URGED

Trade unions across the southern African region have been urged to stand up to Swaziland’s autocratic King Mswati III in an attempt to bring democracy to the kingdom.

Southern African Development Community (SADC) unions have been told they should put the King ‘on the spot’.

King Mswati rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch; political parties are barred from taking part in elections; opposition groups are banned and dissidents arrested under the Suppression of terrorism Act. The King chooses the government.

Workers’ rights are suppressed. In June2015 the kingdom was named among the top ten worst countries in the world for workers’ rights, in a report published by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

The Southern African Trade Union Coordinating Council, meeting in Gaborone, Botswana, heard that King Mswati was resisting pressure to introduce democratic changes. The Sunday Standard newspaper in Botswana reported this week (16 August 2015), ‘Henry Malumo from Action Aid International said that all forms of pressure that have been brought to bear on the kingdom have not yielded positive results. On such a basis, he suggested that it was time to change track.’

The Standard reported him saying, ‘Everybody knows what is happening in Swaziland but unfortunately the government doesn’t feel the heat. It is time to put the King himself on the spot. It doesn’t have to be the people of Swaziland themselves, but us.’

The newspaper reported, ‘Malumo said that in solidarity with their Swaziland counterparts, some South African trade unionists were urging the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) which is “closer to the African National Congress”, to put pressure on the kingdom.

‘”The South African government is the one that is sustaining the kingdom,” he said.’

See also

KINGDOM IN WORLD’S TOP WORST FOR WORKERS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2015/06/kingdom-in-top-ten-worst-for-workers.html

BOGUS SWAZILAND TERROR FEARS

When will the Times of Swaziland stop insulting the intelligence of its readers over al-Qaeda terrorist threats in the kingdom?

The Times and its companion newspapers have been running articles designed to raise the level of fear among Swazis that they are in immediate threat from ‘Asians’ or ‘Muslims’ who are secretly in Swaziland plotting destruction.

The latest episode in this fantasy comes in the Times today (26 January 2010). The newspaper reports that the Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal has been in Swaziland ‘recruiting young men who would act as suicide bombers during the FIFA Football World Cup to be hosted by South Africa in June’.

These so-called ‘suicide bombers’ are, the Times tells us, ‘Muslim extremists who would cause terror at the upcoming world showpiece’.

And what’s the Times’ evidence for this? It copied the story down from the City Press newspaper in South Africa.

And where did the City Press get the story? It copied it down from the Sunday Standard newspaper in Botswana.

Do you remember the Standard? Obviously the journalists at the Times don’t. The Standard is the newspaper that in early 2009 told us that al Qaeda terrorists may be in Swaziland disguised as secondhand car salesmen.

They weren’t and they aren’t.

The Standard went further and reported that al Qaeda terrorists were infiltrating Botswana and 10 nations across the world, ‘Brazil, Namibia, South Africa, Malaysia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Lesotho, Mauritius, Swaziland, and Trinidad and Tobago’.

Nonsense. But the Swaziland journalists fell for it (that time it was mainly the Swazi Observer).

Still the Swazi journalists don’t stop and think. They are going great damage to ‘Asians’ and ‘Muslims’ by spreading a fear that they may be terrorists.

They are also playing into the hands of the repressive regime led by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. Every time the media raise fear it gives the anti-democratic supporters of the king the excuse to clamp down on legitimate dissent in the kingdom.

BOGUS TERROR SCARE IN SWAZILAND

Swazis are being urged to jump at shadows following an absurd claim in a newspaper owned by King Mswati III that al Qaeda terrorists may be in Swaziland disguised as secondhand car salesmen.

The Swazi Observer reports today (3 February 2009) that ‘sleeper cells’ may already be in place ‘and ready to act’.

The Observer report relies heavily (a polite way of saying is copied almost word for word) from a story published in the Botswana Sunday Standard this weekend (1 February 2009). The Standard claimed that al Qaeda terrorists were infiltrating Botswana and 10 nations across the world, ‘Brazil, Namibia, South Africa, Malaysia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Lesotho, Mauritius, Swaziland, and Trinidad and Tobago’.

According to the Observer, Swazi Police Public Relations Officer (PRO) Superintended Vusi Masuku said they would follow-up the allegations. ‘We will apply all forms of investigations available to prove and disprove the reports,’ he said.

Of course, the Observer nor the Standard really explain why a supposed international terrorist ring would want to be in Swaziland, although the Standard does allude to the fact that Botswana and Swaziland are close to South Africa which might be a target for terrorist action during the FIFA World Cup next year.

It’s not much of an explanation, since most of the countries in the list given by the newspapers are nowhere near South Africa.

Although we might be tempted to laugh off the newspapers’ claims, there is something more sinister going on here. Since October 2008 with the illegal appointment of Barnabas Dlamini as Prime Minister, there has been a clampdown on free speech in Swaziland (there was never much to begin with) and a Suppression of Terrorism Act has been implemented to ban organisations critical of the government and the non-democratic structures in Swaziland.

The actions of the Swazi Government have caused outrage both inside Swaziland and in the international community for being heavy handed and anti-democratic. In response the government has said it needs to do these things in order to save Swazis from terrorism.

Up to now we have been told that the so-called ‘terrorist threat’ comes from within Swaziland. People close to the ground have laughed openly at the absurdity of the suggestion, so now it is extremely convenient that the Swazi Government can claim that an international threat exists and who better to blame than al Qaeda (a supposed international network of terrorists?)

The message that the people of Swaziland will be asked to swallow is that they must allow the government a free hand to tackle this new terrorist threat and if that means rounding up dissidents, then so be it.

The Swazi people are not alone in being duped about the dangers of al Qaeda. A convenient mythology about the group has grown since the World Trade Center bombings in 2001 as a fear of a phantom enemy has been allowed to grow by politicians desperate to maintain their power.

A documentary on al Qaeda shown by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 2004 concluded that al Qaeda ‘is not an organised international network. It does not have members or a leader. It does not have “sleeper cells”. It does not have an overall strategy. In fact, it barely exists at all, except as an idea about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence.’

If the Swazi Observer really is a ‘newspaper’ and not a propaganda sheet for the king and the anti-democratic forces in Swaziland it needs to retract its story pronto.

‘OFF WITH SWAZI KING’S HEAD’

There has been a lot of media coverage of Swaziland these past few days. Most of it has centred on the extravagancies of the 40/40 celebrations when set against the harsh poverty of most people’s lives in the kingdom.

The role that King Mswati III has played in reducing Swaziland to a beggar state prompted one newspaper columnist to call for drastic action.

This is what ‘Loose Canon’ in the Botswana Sunday Standard had to say yesterday (7 September 2008).

Little Swaziland has not drawn any lessons from the most civilised place on earth [Europe]. There they still have a monarchy where the king wields absolute power. I am convinced there must be some intelligent people in the tiny kingdom who are not impressed by the system. Quite why they don’t remove the king baffles me. Do they genuinely believe that simply because he was born at a certain address, the bloke is entitled to run their lives? I think it is high time the people of the tiny kingdom borrowed a leaf from the Europeans. They must either hang the king or chop off his head in the centre of his village.

To read more click here.

See also

40/40 CELEBRATION