PUDEMO President Mario Masuku stopped by police at the
Swaziland border.
Picture: PUDEMO Facebook page)
Leaders of Swaziland’s political opposition were stopped from
crossing the border into South Africa to join a protest against the holding
of political prisoners.
The People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) said
police told them that an order to bar them from crossing the border had been
issued but did not say by who and how it was drafted.
The Observer on Saturday
newspaper in Swaziland reported those stopped had authentic travelling
documents.
PUDEMO President Mario Masuku was among those stopped
at the Ngwenya border crossing on Friday (11 May 2018). On the other side at
Oshoek about 300 South African trade unionists and others had assembled to
protest the imprisonment in Swaziland of Amos Mbedzi and other political prisoners.
PUDEMO is banned in Swaziland where King Mswati III rules
as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and political parties cannot
contest elections.
Mbedzi, a South African, was sentenced
to 85 years and six months in jail (with 25 years to be served) in
Swaziland in 2012 after conviction by the Swaziland High Court on five charges
including sedition and murder.
He had been arrested following an attempt to blow up a
bridge near the Lozitha royal residence in September 2008. Two people with him
died from injuries caused when the bomb exploded prematurely.
There was heavy police presence at the border while
the protests went on the other side for about two hours.
Meetings on all topics are routinely banned in
Swaziland. 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 in 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.
As recently as September 2017, police stopped a
pro-democracy meeting taking place, saying they had not given organisers
permission to meet. It happened during a Global Week of Action for democracy in
the kingdom. About 100 people reportedly intended to meet at the Mater Dolorosa
School in the kingdom’s capital, Mbabane.
In 2013, after police broke up a meeting to discuss
the pending election, the meeting’s joint
organisers, the Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF) and the Swaziland
Democracy Campaign (SDC) said Swaziland no longer had a national police
service, but instead had ‘a private militia with no other purpose but to serve
the unjust, dictatorial, unSwazi and ungodly, semi-feudal royal Tinkhundla
system of misrule’.
In April 2015, a planned rally to mark the anniversary
of the royal decree that turned Swaziland from a democracy to a kingdom ruled
by an autocratic monarch was abandoned
amid fears that police would attack participants. In February and March,
large numbers of police disbanded meetings of the Trade Union Congress of
Swaziland (TUCOSWA), injuring at least one union leader.
In 2014, police
illegally abducted prodemocracy leaders and drove them up to 30 kilometres
away, and dumped them to prevent them taking part in a meeting calling for
freedom in the kingdom. Police staged roadblocks on all major roads leading to
Swaziland’s main commercial city, Manzini, where protests were to be held. They
also physically blocked halls to prevent meetings taking place. Earlier in the day police had announced on
state radio that meetings would not be allowed to take place.
In 2012, four
days of public protest were planned by trade unions and other prodemocracy
organisations. They were brutally suppressed by police and state forces and had
to be abandoned.
In 2011,
a group using Facebook, called for an uprising to depose the King. State forces
took this call seriously and many prodemocracy leaders were arrested. Police
and security forces prevented people from travelling into towns and cities to
take part in demonstrations. Again, the protests were abandoned.
See also
RELEASE
AMOS MBEDZI CAMPAIGN
SWAZI
POLICE NOW ‘A PRIVATE MILITIA’
SWAZILAND
‘BECOMING MILITARY STATE’
POLICE
THREAT TO DEMOCRATIC STATE
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