[WSF-Discuss] SWAZILAND: Govt fails to stop "terrorist" meeting

[CACIM]

*SWAZILAND: Govt fails to stop "terrorist" meeting*
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King Mswati III

MBABANE, 20 October 2008 (IRIN) - An international conference of NGOs
dedicated to social change took place in Swaziland despite the government
banning the meeting on grounds of public safety; it had alleged some of the
delegates were supporters of terrorism.

The Southern African Social Forum (SASF) holds its annual meeting in a
different country each year. The greatest attendance was achieved in 2005,
when the forum convened in Zimbabwe and 4,000 people participated.

This year only about 200 delegates convened in Manzini, Swaziland's
commercial hub, from 16 to 19 October, after a High Court ruling overturned
the government's ban.

The low attendance was attributed to confusion by foreign delegates over the
government's original restriction, announced by Acting Prime Minister Bheki
Dlamini, and the reluctance of local groups to attend a function officially
disallowed by their political leaders.

The first day of the forum also conflicted with King Mswati's summoning of
Swazis to a meeting at the traditional royal village at Ludzidzini, where he
angrily denounced political radicals, alleging that they had vowed a
campaign of bombings to press for democratic reform. He said such elements
would be "strangled". Mswati is sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch.

No political group has claimed responsibility for a bomb blast last month at
a road bridge close to King Mswati's Lozitha palace, in which two of the
bombers died and one was wounded in the premature explosion.

One of the deceased was a member of the People's United Democratic Movement
(PUDEMO), one of the country's banned political parties, but PUDEMO denied
any organisational involvement. At least two South African nationals were
among the bombers.

Acting Prime Minister Dlamini, a member of the royal clan and regarded as a
hardliner, ordered the SASF meeting to be banned on the grounds that
participating labour groups - South Africa's Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU) and the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) - had
approved of the 21 September explosion.

*Bombing campaign*

Dlamini alleged that a campaign of bombings was sanctioned to press for
political reform at an August 2008 meeting of labour groups in South Africa.
"Soon after the [highway bombing] incident, supporters of the bombers came
out, congratulating the bombers for their so-called 'heroic' act. Some of
the formations are the very ones that will be participating in the Southern
African Social Forum," he told a press conference.

"The Swaziland government is not aware of any government in the world that
would sit and fold its arms, and allow strategies that would negatively
affect the peace and security of the country concerned to be developed
within its own borders."

Dlamini told the forum's Swaziland sponsor, the Coordinating Assembly of
Non-Government Organisations (CANGO), an umbrella body of the country's
NGOs, to inform SASF delegates that the conference was cancelled.

Instead, CANGO's director, Emmanuel Ndlangamandla, along with the SFTU and
the Swaziland Federation of Labour, successfully petitioned the High Court
to overturn the prohibition. The court declared that the government had
acted beyond its power by imposing the ban, which was unconstitutional.

However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs revoked an agreement with CANGO
allowing them to use Manzini's International Trade Fair, which the ministry
runs, for the SASF meeting. The delegates convened in marquees on the sports
ground of a Manzini high school, where they discussed poverty alleviation
strategies, HIV/AIDS issues and other humanitarian matters.

The forum's historic anti-capitalism thrust, established at its outset, was
fuelled by the current global economic crisis, which delegates said would
negatively impact on the poor in African nations.

"We were told that your coming would cause anarchy in the Kingdom of
Swaziland," Comfort Mabuza, chairman of the CANGO board of directors, said
in his address to the delegates. "We were told that bombs would explode, but
no bombs exploded and there was no anarchy."

However, the police reported that a bomb was discovered and removed on
Friday beneath a highway bridge in Ezulwini, five kilometres east of the
capital, Mbabane. SASF officials said they had no knowledge of the
incident.

jh/oa/he

*Themes:* (IRIN) Governance <http://www.irinnews.org/Theme.aspx?Theme=GOV>,
(IRIN) Human Rights <http://www.irinnews.org/Theme.aspx?Theme=HUM>

[ENDS]

*Report can be found online at:*
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81011

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
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