Pro-democracy activists in Swaziland and the South African trade union federation Cosatu plan to blockade the country’s border with South Africa next week.
The protest, scheduled from Tuesday, was timed to coincide with the four-day Commonwealth Global Smart Partnership summit to be held in the kingdom, Swaziland Solidarity Network spokesperson Bongani Masuku said on Wednesday.
The summit is a Commonwealth initiative aimed at promoting technology. Hosted this year by the Swazi government, it was held in Malaysia in 2002.
Masuku said the planned blockade of border posts was a protest against the continued arrests of political and union leaders in Swaziland, the absence of the rule of law and the abuse of women ”as instruments of satisfying endless royal sexual appetites”.
The blockades, to be staged on the South African side of the border, would be coupled with mass action inside Swaziland.
He did not expect harsh reaction from the South African police ”because they know how to co-operate with people”.
”But from the Swazi police we don’t expect any mercy.”
Cosatu’s Mpumalanga provincial secretary Norman Mokoena said the blockade would be carried out with individual members’ cars, trucks and buses.
”We just want it to be absolutely messy,” he said.
News of the blockade follows renewed controversy over Swazi monarch Mswati III’s multi-million-dollar personal jet. Pressure from critics at home and international donors prompted the king to announce last year he would stop the purchase.
However German news agency Deutsche Presse Aguntur, quoting a source in Mswati’s office, reported this week that the plane would be used to ferry some heads of state from Johannesburg to attend the summit.
Swaziland’s Attorney General Phesheya Dlamini last month expressed outrage over the ”extremely fraudulent” expenditure of $1-million on a marquee and other material for the summit which could have been obtained for free from the Commonwealth.
He charged the king’s cronies with misusing the Mswati name to get government business. – Sapa