Police in
Swaziland shot a woman in the head with a rubber bullet as they fired on workers
protesting for a pay rise.
They also
fired teargas that spread for 100 metres.
It
happened at a Poly Pack factory at Ngwenya where workers were asking for a 20 percent pay rise,
according to local meda reports.
In a
detailed account the Swazi
Observer
reported on Friday (10 November 2017), ‘The shot is said to have been fired by one plain
clothed police officer.’
It added the shooting was
done, ‘in an effort to disperse the workers from the premises of the company’.
The woman identified only
as ‘Nelly from Motshane’ was taken by ambulance to Mbabane Government Hospital.
Workers were protesting
because management at the company that makes sacks would not listen to their
request for more pay.
Negotiations on the pay
increase are reported to have started in July 2017. Two weeks ago workers were
prevented from striking by the Industrial Court. However, members of the Amalgamated
Trade Unions of Swaziland (ATUSWA) decided to strike on Thursday after
employers offered a wage increase but only to selected workers.
When workers blocked a company car from entering the
premises and set fire to it police, including members of the Operational Support Service Unit (OSSU), intervened.
The Observer
reported, ‘They ended up using teargas, which could be inhaled from as far as
approximately 100 metres away.’
It added, ‘Rubber bullets were also used to remove the
workers from near the premises of the company.
‘The workers did not want to be dispersed from near
the premises as they would regroup, with an intention of going back from where
they were dispersed. The police ended up taking about 40 workers for
questioning. Some are said to have been arrested from nearby homesteads, where
they had run to hide.’
Nelly was reportedly treated and released from
hospital, but is one of those workers arrested.
Police in Swaziland, where King Mswati III rules as
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and political parties are banned
from contesting elections, often intervene on behalf of management in labour
disputes.
In February 2017, police
fired live gunshots and teargas at Juris Manufacturing in Nhlangano where
workers had been locked out during a dispute. There had been a long-running row
at the factory about management style and accusations of racism by one boss in
particular.
In September 2016, media in Swaziland reported women
strikers were ambushed by armed police and ‘brutally
attacked’ at the Plantation Forest Company, near Pigg’s Peak. Police had
previously used
rubber bullets and teargas against the strikers and had fired
live rounds to disperse a crowd.
In 2013, the Open Society Initiative for Southern
Africa (OSISA) reported that Swaziland was becoming a police and military
state.
It said things had become so bad in the kingdom that
police were unable to accept that peaceful political and social dissent was a
vital element of a healthy democratic process, and should not be viewed as a
crime.
These complaints were made by OSISA at an African Commission on Human and Peoples'
Rights (ACHPR) meeting in The Gambia on 10 April 2013.
OSISA said, ‘There are also reliable reports of a
general militarization of the country through the deployment of the Swazi army,
police and correctional services to clamp down on any peaceful protest action
by labour or civil society organisations ahead of the country’s undemocratic
elections.’
OSISA was commenting on the trend in Southern Africa
for police and security services to be increasingly violent and abusive of
human rights.
In particular, OSISA highlighted how the police
continued to clamp down on dissenting voices and the legitimate public
activities of opposition political parties prior to, during and after
elections.
In a statement
OSISA said in February 2013 a battalion of armed police invaded the Our
Lady of Assumption Cathedral in Manzini and forced
the congregation to vacate the church alleging that the service ‘intended
to sabotage the country’s general elections’.
OSISA added, ‘A month later, a heavily
armed group of police backed up by the Operational Support Services Unit
prevented members of the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) from
holding a peaceful commemoration prayer in celebration of the federation’s
anniversary. In both instances there was no court order giving the police the
legal authority to halt the prayers.’
In 2015, Swaziland was named as one of the ten worst
countries for working people in the world, in a report from
the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).
See also
MORE
POLICE GUNS AGAINST WORKERS
POLICE
FIRE RUBBER BULLETS ON STRIKERS
POLICE
FIRE SHOTS AT WORKERS’ PROTEST
KINGDOM
ONE OF WORST IN WORLD FOR WORKERS
