April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

governments. I can only think of a few countries on the continent that
don't need to be overthrown or at the very least need a complete overhaul
– possibly the same thing. Swaziland is the site of the first uprisings in
southern Africa, so it will be interesting to see if there is any overspill into
South Africa and Zimbabwe, which have had many uprisings over the past
few years.
SWAZILAND: COMMONERS, UNITE! MSWATI, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN!
Tuesday 12 April was the planned day of protests in Swaziland. The
Facebook page of Swaziland Solidarity Network Forum has been an
important source documenting and reporting on the Swazi uprisings. The
forum reported as early as 4 April that the Swazi government was going to
target trade unionists and student organisations in the lead up to the 12
April protests.
Richard Rooney notes that: ‘Labour unions and civic society organisations
in Swaziland have placed themselves on alert after what is being described
“as credible information” was received that they are about to be raided by
Swazi state authorities in an attempt to disrupt the “uprising” scheduled
for next Tuesday (12 April 2011).’
This was later confirmed to be true as reports began to emerge of the
arrest and torture of one of the activists:
‘A Swazi activist said Thursday that he had been detained and beaten as
police interrogated him about plans to organise protests next week against
King Mswati III, Africa’s last absolute monarch. Nkolisi Ngcamphalana,
national organiser for the youth wing of the banned opposition People’s
United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), told AFP that he was detained
Tuesday night and held for 24 hours. He said police beat him, placed
plastic bags over his head, and then interrogated him about calls for
national protests on Tuesday. “They grilled me about the April 12 uprising,
and they kicked and beat me,” he said shortly after his release. “Right
now they are outside my house. They are intimidating my family,” he said.
“They threatened me with death.”’
On 11 April, Swazi Shado blog wrote: ‘Where is Maxwell?’, referring to
Maxwell Dlamini ‘one of the main organisers’, who had gone missing. He
had gone to South Africa to plan the demonstrations and was last seen at a
police roadblock.
The government’s – or rather the King’s – response has been to try and
intimidate people by publishing photos of the armed forces on the front
page of the Swazi Observer which he partly owns.
Swazi April 12th blog provide some background to the Swazi uprising which
is turning into the most organised and sustained protests outside of North
Africa:
‘The only eternal and total enemy of our people is the system of
governance which has rendered our people divided, poor and powerless.
This system, administered by a family which labels itself “closer to god:”
than all Swazis, is the Absolute Monarchy orTinkhundla. Playing One Swazi
Against the Other....The monarchy plays ordinary Swazis against
themselves by being perched at the summit of power. It keeps a large
percentage of the population literate but untrained for quality jobs. This is
the reserve of poor people from which the security personnel are hired.
‘In a country with no unemployment and no poverty, this system would fail
because no sane Swazi would willingly offer himself to be used to guard