Hundreds Arrested As Government Cracks Down On Public Protests

SW Radio Africa (London)

Alex Bell

12 April 2011

Hundreds of people were arrested on Tuesday as the government in Swaziland moved to crack down on planned public protests against the regime of King Mswati III, an ally of Robert Mugabe.

The demonstration in Swaziland’s largest urban centre, Manzini, was called in protest over the lack of freedoms in the country and the worsening economic crisis, which has seen the broke government announcing that it would have to cut civil servants’ salaries. Despite this, the government went ahead and rewarded its politicians with generous increases in allowances, resulting in widespread public anger.

Pro-democracy groups called for three days of protest beginning Tuesday, 38 years since King Mswati III’s father, King Sobhuza II, suspended the country’s constitution, abolished parliament and established an absolute monarchy.

But the country’s Prime Minister, Sibusiso Dlamini, issued a statement last week saying the planned protests were illegal, and from Monday night security forces launched a brutal clampdown on public mass action, arresting at least five protest leaders.

On Tuesday morning more protest leaders, including leading trade union activists and other civil society leaders, were all arrested, along with some journalists, including two South African reporters and a photographer. The entire leadership of the Labor Coordinating Council was also detained.

The government also went out of its way to ensure that protests by the public would have a hard time forming, by ordering commercial bus owners not to allow groups to hire buses to take to the protest hubs in Manzini. Buses that were running to Manzini were being stopped and all their passengers were detained at police stations. Students were also confined to their campuses, and anyone wearing union or political tee-shirts or caps was warned to remove the clothing, or risk arrest.

Earlier in the day more than 150 paramilitary police surrounded Freedom Square in Manzini, separating any groups of two or more people. Police officers stationed at the four different protest venues meanwhile carried on rounding up protesters throughout Tuesday and the situation turned chaotic. Police were seen beating protesters with clubs in an attempt to stop the mass action, and soon started firing rubber bullets to disperse the crowds.

Stephen Faulkner, from the Swaziland Democracy Campaign, told SW Radio Africa on Tuesday that about 400 people had been arrested since Monday night, explaining that many were beaten. But he said that none of the brutality and repression had convinced people to stop the protests, saying: “It is all having the opposite effect.”

Faulkner called the security clampdown the “largest security mobilisation that has taken place in Swaziland for decades.” He said people were surprised by the level of repression the security forces have been using in reaction to the protests, but he insisted this will not stop the planned three days of mass action from continuing.

“What the regime is doing today is adding fuel to the fire of democratic change from below. Nothing will be quite the same ever again in Swaziland, and the days of the regime are numbered,” Faulkner said.

A wave of anti-government protests have swept through North Africa in recent months, but the Swazi protest is the first civic uprising in the Southern African region. Similar action had been called for in Zimbabwe earlier this year, but increased police intimidation ensured that such protests were quelled before they began.

Leaders in the rest of the region have now been called on to intervene in Swaziland so that the will of the people is not crushed by government forces. The regional bloc, SADC, has also been called on to take a tough stance with Swazi leaders, as it recently appeared to do in Zimbabwe. A SADC Troika summit recently strongly criticised the political crisis in Zimbabwe, and pledged to draft a roadmap towards free, fair and credible elections.

Political analyst Professor John Makumbe told SW Radio Africa’s Diaspora Diaries programme that Swaziland is now a real test for SADC, to prove that its pro-democracy comments on Zimbabwe are more than just rhetoric. But he said that SADC has a poor record of intervention in such crises, and expressed doubt that the regional bloc will intervene there.

He added that Zimbabweans should also keep a close eye on what is happening in Swaziland, saying: “It would actually be embarrassing if Zimbabwe doesn’t do anything now that Swaziland has started it off.”

“There will be a real push now for Zimbabwe democratic forces to flex their muscles against ongoing repression in the country,” Makumbe said.

Meanwhile international solidarity messages for Swaziland have been increasing throughout the day and world trade unions, human rights groups and political organisations have voiced their support for the protest. In South Africa, members of the trade union federation COSATU traveled to the Swazi border to show their support. At the same time, the South African Communist Party, COSATU and other anti-regime activists staged a solidarity protest at the Swazi embassy in South Africa. Another demonstration was also planned at the Oshoek Border Post in Mpumalanga.

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