Day 6. Maidens waiting to deposit bundles of reeds at royal kraal. I saw others arriving with broken-looking stalks earlier that looked far more genuine. I don't know where these bundles came from but they look very uniform. I was told maidens found it difficult to collect enough reeds this year after a mysterious fire destroyed most of the reed plantation.
Picture from Swazi Shado. For more pictures, click here.
Both Swazi daily papers featured, as front page news, the story of a woman who gave birth to a snake. This is apparently normal if you are an ex-devil worshipper, married to a cop. The only way the stories differ between papers is that in the Times she gave birth to a 7 headed snake, and in the Observer, a 2 headed one. Well, that and in the Times she also got a T-shirt from the devil while in the underworld and in the Observer she came away with a hairpiece manufactured in hell.
Inkhosikati LaDube, the 12th wife of Swaziland’s King Mswati III, who was caught in an adulterous affairwith Ndumiso Mamba, the then Justice Minister, has been seen in public for the first time in almost a year.
LaDube is thought to have been kept ‘locked up’ in one of the many palaces owned by King Mswati, sub-saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
The Swazi Shado blog today (12 July 2011) reports laDube has been seen in public and has even given an interview on fashion tips to the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland.
Swazi Shado reports that LaDube was spotted at a fashion show two weeks ago and both Swaziland’s daily newspapers published a photo of her in a pale blue sari (but without mentioning why her appearance was significant).
The Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, was rebuked by the King’s Office for publishing the report. None of the Swazi media (print or broadcast) reported on the sex scandal when it broke in August 2010.
As for her partner in crime, the erstwhile advisor to the king and top businessman, Ndumiso Mamba, he is still keeping a very, very low profile. He was not sentenced to death or locked away for life as many predicted,but is occasionally spotted at church with his wife, Swazi Shado reports.
There are moments when the energy around change is palpable in Swaziland. Wednesday, at the Mbabane Industrial Court was one of those times. From 2pm on members of the SNAT teachers’ union as well as a myriad other unions and political activists began arriving to pack the court where a panel of judges was listening to arguments from unions and the state as to whether a proposed strike and protest action could go ahead.
The teacher-led strike was supposed to have begun Wed am (22 June 2011) and last until Fri but the government filed a last-minute interdict to stop it. I counted at least 200 people in court. Sadly it all seemed to hinge on one piece of missing paper – the results of SNAT’s secret ballot that had to be filed with the Labour Office before a certain date for the strike to be legal.
The unions’ lawyer said it had been, but the paper could not be found in evidence. On the other hand, the presiding judge pointed out, the state’s argument was full of holes so, in the end, a compromise had to be bashed out.
The unions agreed not to strike for now and to go back to a mediation forum with government for another 7 days. Their members, who are itching to go out onto the streets so angry are they about proposed pay cuts etc, filed out meekly, agreeing justice had been done. The industrial court seemed a serious, fair place as opposed to the other courtrooms I have been in lately.
The police top brass put in an appearance – not inside court; but outside on the steps in case anyone thought of taking the toyi-toyi too far I guess. Maybe they were just bored from patrolling the streets to make sure no one thought of marching or striking.
I had no idea it was illegal to interview teachers in Swaziland but apparently it is. I was speaking to 4 teachers – 2 of whom had spent much of Tuesday in police custody – when we were surrounded by policemen. They frogmarched us out of Nandos before I could even alert my journo buddies I was being taken or finish my coffee. I guess that is what freaked me out the most as they quickly took my cellphone, accreditation letter and notebook so that I could not call my office or even alert the colleague I was with.
I was quickly released once we got to the station and my interrogation panel read my accrediation letter but of course, by then they had gone through my notebook. The teachers were not so lucky. I know enough Siswati to have understood the interrogation team did not appreciate their attitude (they refused to speak when spoken to).
I have no information as to their whereabouts. One is Dominic Nxumalo, one of the SNAT leadership – a clearly spoken man with an angular, striking face, another was Futhile Dlamini also of the SNAT exec. I don’t know the other two womens’ names.
Anyways, Dominic had just been reflecting on the reasons this week’s protest got so thoroughly squashed when we were so rudely interrupted. “Maybe this time government had the upper hand because we did not have the strategies to counter them,” he said, “Sometimes we win, other times we lose”. The last I saw of him he was sitting in the police station and looked like he would be there a while.
When I left Manzini several weary hours later, the teacher’s union offices were completely surrounded by police. The smell of teargas still hung in the ear and you could hear those inside singing. The teachers said they would not leave until their leaders were freed. Their secretary general, Muzi Mhlanga had been under house arrest since the morning.
I have since heard that, after several tense hours during which no one was sure whether the teachers would be beaten on their way out (as they apparently were yesterday), the police agreed they could be transported home in cars belonging to the union rather than in police vans, while others will spend the night at a centre belonging to the catholic church.
