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Africa News afrol News
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Africa News afrol News
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afrol.com, 7 November - Riots against the autocratic rule of King Mswati III are reported from the Swazi capital Mbabane and neighbouring South Africa. In Swaziland, alarming reports document that the Government is attacking national and foreign media, covering the protests. The Swazi government has threatened to get tough with foreign journalists, reports the IRIN humanitarian information news agency. The threat came after Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini on October 28 announced a ban on all future meetings of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) and the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), and after student protests at the University of Swaziland were quelled by police firing rubber bullets. The riots that were suppressed in Mbabane continued yesterday in South Africa's Mpumulanga Province. Demonstrators said they were fed up with what they see as the increasingly autocratic royal rule of 32-year-old King Mswati III. "This is a turning point in the history of Swaziland. We have come to liberate ourselves," a political activist from Manzini told the BBC. The massed gathering reportedly represented a cross-section of Swazi society. Meanwhile, in Swaziland, a warning to journalists came from Musa Ndlangamandla, an advisor to King Mswati III. He said that authorities intended to "take drastic actions against correspondents of the foreign media". The government-owned "Swazi News" published the threat and said Ndlangamandla warned that "action will be taken soon". A spokesperson for the police, Leckhia Magagula, said she had received orders not to speak to any member of the foreign media. Announcing the ban on mass meetings in a radio broadcast, Dlamini warned the leaders of the SFTU and SNAT that "there will be bloodshed" if they continued with any planned mass meetings. Accusing the unions of discussing politics and not labour issues, Dlamini said the ban would stay in force until SNAT and the SFTU met with the government to discuss their grievances. Unions in Swaziland said they would challenge the government's ban on mass meetings. IRIN reports that at least fourteen people have been injured in Swaziland over the past two weeks in conflicts between unions and the police.
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