POLICE UNIVERSITY VIOLENCE WAS A ‘WAR’

A student leader in Swaziland has described police violence at the kingdom’s main university as a ‘war’.

Maxwell Dlamini, President of the Student Representative Council (SRC) at the University of Swaziland (Uniswa), was commenting after police raided dormitories and dragged students from their rooms. Later they beat up the students at local police stations.

Students had wanted examinations due to start on Monday (18 November 2013) postponed. They said a long-running dispute between students and the university that had closed the campus earlier in the semester meant that teaching could not be completed before the exams started.

Armed police stood guard outside examination halls on Monday as the Uniswa Administration attempted to hold the exams.

Dlamini was reported in the students’ own on-line newspaper Uniswa Today saying, ‘The university together with the police who, instead of engaging us in a dialogue but resorted to bringing heavily armed police, actually raged the war.’

He added, ‘One must condemn the violence perpetrated by the university administration in collaboration with the police. If you do not want to engage in critical dialogue with the hope that you will use the police to silence people who want to raise issues, there is bound to be conflict.’

Dlamini said things would have turned out differently if the university had not brought in state security.

‘I do not want to believe that the students were perpetrating any violence. When you come into the institution of higher learning armed with [teargas] canisters it means you are preparing for war – you are actually instigating violence. I believe that had there been no police officers at the university things would have turned out very differently.’

See also

STUDENTS UNDER SIEGE BY ARMED POLICE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/11/students-under-siege-by-armed-police.html

POLICE FLEE ROOMS AS POLICE ATTACK

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/11/students-flee-rooms-as-police-attack.html

STUDENTS UNDER SIEGE BY ARMED POLICE

Armed police guarded the entrances to examination halls at the University of Swaziland to stop students disrupting exams.

This followed a series of attacks by police, using teargas, on student dormitories. Security forces arrested student leaders and beat them at local police stations.

The police action described in local media as ‘unprecedented’ was a reaction to student protests that the examinations should not go ahead because lecturers at the university had not finished teaching their courses following a series of disruptions during the present semester. The university’s Kwaluseni campus had been closed for part of the semester.

Students failed to get a High Court order to postpone the start of the exams.

Monday (18 November 2013) was the first day of examinations at the university. In the hours before exams started armed police using teargas raided dormitories, searching for leaders of the university’s Student Representative Council (SRC). An unidentified number of students were taken to police stations in the early hours of Monday.

Uniswa Today, an online newspaper, reported SRC Vice President Anthony Mthembu, was taken from his dorm room to Malkerns police station with other students, where they were forced to confess to arson and vandalism at the university.

Uniswa Today reported him saying, ‘They isolated me to a cell with the Station Commander and about seven cops forced me to identify students who set the Info Centre on fire and vandalized the exam rooms.’

He added, ‘They said they wanted names but [I] told them it was dark and couldn’t identify them. One grabbed me by the neck, the other put my head in between his knees and another grabbed me by the arms and twisted them.

‘The remaining ones sjombocked me, from head to toe, while the Station Commander uttered insults which I had long forgotten existed. They said they will beat me to pulp and can even shoot me because I'm pretending to be Jesus and dying for other's sins. They said as Vice President, I should know every student of the university.

‘They asked me once again and I mentioned no names but “the students”. They tortured me again, this lasted for about an hour. They then took me to another room wherein they said I should write a statement in which I narrated the ordeal as in above.’

Mthembu and other students were released at 5.30 am to return back to the university.

Police Public Relations Officer Superintendent Wendy Hleta denied police assaulted Mthembu. The Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, reported her saying, ‘Mthembu was questioned alone because the police wanted to reason with him’.

See also

STUDENTS FLEE ROOMS AS POLICE ATTACK

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/11/students-flee-rooms-as-police-attack.html

STUDENTS FLEE ROOMS AS POLICE ATTACK

Students at the University of Swaziland (UNISWA) have been urged to leave their dormitory rooms for fear of being victims of police violence. One student leader had teargas thrown into his room by state security police.

Student leaders made the plea today (18 November 2013) after police raided campuses of the university and attacked students in their rooms.

Student representative Council President Maxwell Dlamini said police had raided a residence block at the UNISWA Kwaluseni Campus and were trying to force students out of their rooms. Students have been protesting about examinations and wanted them postponed.

Dozens of armed police were reported to be at the university during the past weekend.

A report published today in UNISWA Today, a student on-line newspaper site, said, ‘Three hours from now students were supposed to sit for their first examination paper. As this report is written, the S-block has become a jail since students can’t leave the residence. Anyone who is leaving his dormitory is being captured. Police have even started raiding the dormitories, the intention is unknown.’

In a separate report UNISWA Today said a university warden at the UNISWA Luyengo Campus allowed officers of the Swaziland state security force OSSU to raid all dormitory rooms  and to sjambock ‘all students who are found having squatted in other’s rooms’.

SRC Vice President Anthony Mthembu, writing on UNISWA Today said, ‘The operation started at 2330hrs and ended at about 3am. He also ordered that all SRC members be arrested as they are “ring leaders”. To ensure that he gave them our room numbers and a master key.

‘They arrived at my room at around 01.30 and tried opening my door but couldn't since I had inserted my key inside and fully twisted it. They threatened to camp outside my room and asked me where Max [Maxwell Dlamini, SRC President] is.

‘I resisted to which they threw teargas in my room, that I resisted too, but they tried to break in and my roomate opened. The squabble lasted for about 45 minutes. Upon opening they clapped me and alleged that there are petrol bombs in my room.

‘They searched all my suitcases, CPU and monitor cartons, cabinets, washing basket and anything you can think of. They even came to an extent of mistaking a wireless mouse for a “bomb”’

Students were then taken to police stations for questioning.