Last week, Swaziland’s acting Prime Minister Dr Sishayi Nxumalo and Minister of Information Prince Khuzulwandle, accompanied by heavily armed police, went into state-run radio and television newsrooms and withdrew items about a clash between police and striking teachers.
Swaziland has since early this year been going through a spate of strikes by private and public employees who have not only demanded better wages and conditions of service, but have also been asking authorities to allow free political activity in the country. A current teachers’ strike is already in its third week. Authorities have, since civil unrest started early this year, censored news about strikers clashing with armed police. Statements by union leaders have also been removed from news bulletins.
Radio Swaziland’s evening radio news transmission was disrupted. by the visit. At one point, the prime minister interrupted the live bulletin, and ordered the newscaster to stop reading. The prime minister then took the newscaster’s scripts and removed reports on the strike before transmission resumed.
A video recording on armed police confronting unarmed civilians was also reportedly removed from the bulletin. — Misa
@ Police delays enrage hijack victim
Nicholas Leonsins, a victim of a brutal hijacking, has claimed that police ineptitude has added insult to his injury. Angella Johnson reports
Nicholas Leonsins is an angry man. In fact, he is steaming with the kind of impotent fury that erupts when one survives a violent hijacking only to told by the police: “you’ve got the car back, so why are you still complaining?”
Leonsins, a publishing director, was complaining because his Pajero 4X4 was recovered within 90 minutes of the hijacking by a private security company, in the driveway of a white Witbank resident.
Yet two weeks on, no one had been arrested.
“I just don’t understand it,” Leonsins said. “Netstar tracking company was able to trace the car because it had a tracking device. they found it in Witbank at a private residence with the number plates changed.
“Now don’t tell me that person thought he or she was buying a legitimate car at about 10pm. So why have no charges been laid? Even if it is receiving stolen property?”
He claims it was only after a friend contacted National Police Commissioner George Fivaz and complained about police inaction that the incident was treated seriously.
Leonsins’s nightmare began on June 11 when he arrived at his Johannesburg home at about 8.30pm. Leaving the engine running, he went to open the padlock on his gates.
When he turned around there was a black man hiding behind one of the white columns of his gate.”He said: `Come here,’ and beckoned me over,” said Leonsins.
He stood transfixed. “I didn’t recognise him and was suspicious”. The man repeated his request, this time also demanding the gate keys.
“I gave them to him and started to run up the driveway, but half way I either tripped or was tripped.” As he lay helplessly on the driveway, the young gunman pointed his weapon and fired at almost point-blank range.
Fortunately for Leonsins he had already started to roll away. The bullet scraped the back of his neck and the top of his skull, leaving powdermark residues.
“It was only by the grace of God that I had the presence of mind to get up and run towards the garden hedges,” he explained. With blood streaming down his back, he made it to some bushes and hid.
As the thieves — he saw two, but neighbours say five men had been loitering outside his home — screeched off with the Pajero, Leonsins managed to scamble to his front door and alert his wife.
She hit the panic button. The security and paramedics arrived almost instantly. The police arrived about 15 minutes later.
“They seemed very unconcerned about what happened and didn’t hold out much hope of my car being returned until I told them about the tracking device,” Leonsins said.
Meanwhile Netstar had a helicopter and security car already following the vehicle as it rocketed along the N1 highway to Pretoria and beyond.
It was two days later that a policeman remarked that he should just be happy that his car had been returned to him.
He is altogether unimpressed by the police’s approach to detective work.
“It was an attempted murder as well as a hijacking for heaven’s sake,” cried Leonsins.
“They didn’t even take a statement from me until the 24th [13 days after the incident]. I call that slapdash police work. They won’t combat crime with that kind of don’t-give-a-damn attitude.”
Leonsins, who has a wife and three young children, has joined the dissilusioned masses.
He no longer expects the police to protect him, but has employed a private security guard to man his gates for R1 100 per week.
His car tracking had already cost R3 000 to buy and R140 each month. “on top of that I paid R200 per month for security at the house. How much more do they expect individuals to fork out in order to feel safe. what’s the point of paying taxes?”
He feels violated and blames the government for the creeping of crime to his front door. “I don’t think they are addressing this problem. I can sense this rampant escalation of violence.”
A close aunt was murdered in her home two years ago and a cousin hijacked at gunpoint recently. “The death penalty is the only way to stop these thugs,” he insists.
In his mind, it is as if something chronic has poisoned the society and drastic surgery is needed to cut it out. “If necessary, we should call out the troops, declare a state of emergency. Anything is better than what we have now.”
A police spokesman said the police could not comment on the case as it was being investigated.