Eswatini Labour Insight

PICTURE: SWADNU DEPUTY PRESIDENT STHEMBISO SIMELANE  SWADNU VICE PRESIDENT RCANTS HIS EXPERIENCE OF BEING DETAINED FOR PARTICIPATING IN A PEACEFUL PROTEST IN MANZINI,ESWATINI.  On Friday 15th July 2021 a protest action was called in Manzini, eSwatini  strategically coinciding with a national meeting called by the King at his residence at Lobamba. Early indications from transport returning to Lobamba from fetching the public coming back empty painted a scary picture for the King who wanted to use the meeting to demonstrate his popularity after unprecedented protests had brought the country to a standstill in previous weeks. Above all else this caused the state to move swiftly to violently suppressed the protest action.  One of the participants of the protest action and later a victim of state brutality on the day was the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) Vice President Sthembiso Kwazi Simelane. We at the Swazi Labour Insight caught up with him to  talk about his experiences on

SATUCC/ITUC-AFRICA WEBINAR - MOBILISING SOLIDARITY AND SUPPORT FOR ESWATINI PEOPLES STRUGGLES FOR GENUINE DEMOCRATISATION 09/07/21 PRESENTATION BY TUCOSWA ACTING SECRETARY GENERAL MDUDUZI GINA (pictured below) Introduction. In April 1973, the King abrogated the independence constitution which had a bill of rights inclusive of the rights for the citizens to participate in the election of a government. The King decreed that the Constitution “ has permitted the importation into our country of highly undesirable political practices alien to, and incompatible with the way of life in our society and designed to disrupt and destroy our own peaceful and constructive and essentially democratic methods of political activity; increasingly this element causes hostility , bitterness and unrest in our peaceful society”. The King thereafter bestowed absolute powers upon himself. He declared that he was from then assuming supreme power in that, “ all Legislative , Executive and Judicial powe