Police break up reform protests in Swaziland

Manzini, Tuesday

Swazi police used batons to beat some 1,000 teachers and students today and arrested scores of activists to stop a banned march against Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III.

Police stormed the teachers’ union offices where a group of teachers and students had sought refuge after officers fired teargas and water cannons to stop them marching to the main city of Manzini.

“Police are now beating the teachers. They are are throwing teargas and beating teachers. People are running helter skelter. Police are beating us with batons,” said Smangele Mmema, a member of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers, one of the main groups behind the protest movement.

Manzini had ground to a halt by mid-afternoon, according to the Swaziland Solidarity Network, a pro-democracy organisation based in South Africa, as the military was sent following clashes between police and protesters.

Security forces also set up roadblocks and turned away buses of protesters trying to reach Manzini, and detained at least six journalists.

The king is accused of bankrupting state coffers with his luxurious lifestyle while asking Swazis to tighten their belts amid a fiscal crisis that has seen the government move to slash civil servants’ pay.

Eleven protest leaders were arrested when their bus was stopped at a police roadblock on its way from the capital Mbabane to Manzini, 50 kilometres away, according to Muzi Mhlanga, a teachers’ union leader and key organiser who was among those arrested.

Turned away

Union leader Vincent Dlamini of the National Association of Public Servants and Allied Workers Union said about 500 members of his organisation were turned away from Manzini.

“Some people have been dumped in remote areas. People have been detained, we are trying to assist those that have been harassed and traumatised,” he said. (AFP)