Communist Party of Swaziland is participating in the 20th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties

The Communist Party of Swaziland today joined 90 political parties in the 20th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. The Meeting this year is held in Athens Greece. It will end with the celebration of the Centenary of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) on Sunday 25 November 2018.

The International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties this year is guided by the theme “The contemporary working class and its alliance. The tasks of its political vanguard – the Communist and Worker’s Parties – in the struggle against exploitation and imperialist wars, for the rights of the workers and of the peoples, for peace, for socialism”.

Our Party is represented in the Meeting by our International Organiser, Comrade Njabulo Dlamini. He will present the message of our Party to the Meeting.

Comrade Njabulo Dlamini (green top), the International Organiser of the Communist Party of Swaziland, at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, held in Athens, Greece. He is flanked by delegates from the Communist Party of China (right) and from the Workers Party of Korea (left) 

The Communist Party of Swaziland extends solidarity to the people of Venezuela who are engaged in a fight against USA-led sanctions. We also call for the end of the illegal economic embargo against Cuba. We will also make our contribution in support of the people of Western Sahara who are still colonised by Morocco. We support the people of Palestine in their gallant fight against the occupation of their territory by Zionist Israel. The Communist Party of Swaziland also supports all efforts for the reunification of Korea, a process which should be led by the Korean USA.

Finally, we will actively participate in all collective efforts for the freedom of all African peoples, including the fight for African sovereignty.

Issued by the Communist Party of Swaziland

See below more pictures from the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties

Alert on Swaziland - Comrade Maxwell Myeni’s case resumes at the Manzini Magistrate’s Court tomorrow

The trial of Comrade Maxwell ‘Zondiyinkundla’ Myeni resumes tomorrow, Tuesday 20 November 2018, at the Manzini Magistrate’s Court at 09h00. He was taken hostage by the notorious royal police at his home in Lavumisa on the night of Sunday 26 August 2018. He was later charged for wrestling with a gun-wielding policeman, Raphael Sikheshekheshe Maseko, on 24 August during a teachers’ peaceful protest action. Armed royal police officers had intended to mow down peacefully protesting teachers that day in Manzini.

Comrade Maxwell has been out on bail since 28 August 2018.

His arrest followed the splashing of over E1 billion (about US$70 million) by Mswati to celebrate his 50^th birthday in April 2018 whilst almost 70 percent of the people of Swaziland languished in abject poverty.

The Communist Party of Swaziland calls upon all workers to cram the Manzini Magistrate’s Court and show support to him and defend the right of workers and the people of Swaziland to protest.

The arrest of Comrade Maxwell, a leader in the Swaziland National Association of Teachers, was a desperate attempt by the Mswati regime to crush the spirit of high resolve and militancy among the workers of Swaziland. The regime erroneously believed that workers would tone down their defiance campaign and acquiesce to the order “from the throne” that sought to ban all public gatherings in a bid to force the nation to partake in the sham tinkhundla elections. By that time Mswati had already unleashed terror on 24 August 2018 against peacefully protesting teachers as he gave a ‘shoot to kill order’ that resulted in the severe injury of Comrade William “Ma-Willies” Dlamini, a teacher at Salesian High School in Manzini, who was shot by a live bullet.

It has been revealed that the regime has been able to deploy some rats within the trade union movement to pressure Comrade Maxwell to offer an unconditional apology to the dictator Mswati and offer him cattle to show remorse for his heroic acts of preventing bloodshed. In all truth, this is not a case against Comrade Maxwell only. It is also, and in the main, a case against all workers of Swaziland. It is an attack on the people’s rights to freedom of association, assembly and movement. Therefore, the idea that he has to apologise for participating in the 24 august 2018 protest action that demanded a cost of living adjustment is not only aimed at subduing workers’ militancy, but also to isolate him.

But Comrade Maxwell remains unwavering. The same applies to many workers. It was through the undying spirit of defiance and resistance displayed by the thousands of workers of Swaziland that forced the regime to grant him bail. The regime is afraid of the workers’ potential. It will employ all tricks in its dictatorial book to dampen their spirit, even to the level of using agents it has planted within the trade union movement.

The Communist Party of Swaziland calls upon all workers of Swaziland to rally behind Comrade Maxwell at this trying moment. We also call for international solidarity with the struggles of workers in Swaziland. It is only through massive support that the leader will be absolved from the six trumped-up charges against him by the autocratic Mswati regime.

Issued by the Communist Party of Swaziland

Contact:

Kenneth Kunene

General Secretary

+27 72 594 3971

Or

Njabulo Dlamini

International Organiser

Mobile: +2687 603 9844

Email: cpswa.org@gmail.com

Facebook: Communist Party Of Swaziland – CPS

Twitter: @CPSwaziland

Invitation of union leaders to a meeting without agenda by Mswati’s prime minister an attempt to fool and pacify workers

In a bid to pacify workers, Mswati’s new prime minister, Ambrose Dlamini, has invited leaders of public sector unions for “just a greeting” today, Friday 9 November 2018. Other than this greeting session, the meeting has no agenda. It follows the same fashion as the hated royal-kraal meetings which are convened by Mswati without any agenda or any serious intention to resolve the problems of the people. Everything about the prime minister’s intentions is shrouded in secrecy and speculation.

This has all the hallmarks of the regime’s evil attempts to weaken workers’ struggles by, first, separating workers from the leaders, and, secondly, attempting to coerce or buy the leaders into some secretive pact(s) which workers would not be aware of and on which they would not have been consulted. The regime’s objective is to make union leaders see some reasonableness that Mswati’s government is unable to accede to workers’ demands, and thus influence the leaders to convince workers into naively believing that the government cares about their plight. If this becomes successful, the workers will be frustrated and unconditionally return to work. In the end, none of the demands raised by workers would have been met. They would be postponed indefinitely.

Workers waged militant struggles against the Mswati regime this year, 2018, raising concrete demands, including a 6.55 percent cost of living adjustment, the end of the arbitrary colonial style evictions that have been happening in Swaziland, and many others. Substantially, Mswati feels threated by the resoluteness of the workers and is now playing a divide-and-rule game.

It is therefore of extreme importance that union leaders carefully consider this open invitation by Mswati’s puppet and be united on how to approach the matter. By this “just to greet” meeting, the regime is attempting to deceitfully impose its own agenda on workers. The leaders have no choice but to show a united force, but revolutionary unity. Since it appears that they will be attending the fake meeting, they have to remember the interests of the rank and file workforce and impose a workers’ agenda in that meeting. The meeting should be forced to transform, there and then, into a real workers’ meeting, no longer merely a peaceful tea and biscuits session, which serves the regime’s interests.

The Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) will continue to support the struggles of workers in all their facets. Specifically, the CPS will continue its campaign of mobilising workers from the shop floor, engaging them on the Swaziland revolution. Our 2018-1019 Red October campaign is focused on maximum mobilisation in the maximum number of sites against the Mswati regime. Workers are naturally a part of this campaign of the Communist Party.

Issued by the Communist Party of Swaziland

Contact:

Kenneth Kunene

General Secretary

+27 72 594 3971

Or

Njabulo Dlamini

International Organiser

Mobile: +2687 603 9844

Email: cpswa.org@gmail.com

Facebook: Communist Party Of Swaziland – CPS

Twitter: @CPSwaziland

Dictator Mswati shows who is in charge by detaining a journalist for sticking to good journalism principles

The first big thing that Swaziland’s absolute monarch decided to do shortly after his discredited tinkhundla elections was to detain a journalist. Yesterday, Wednesday 7 November 2018, the royal Swaziland police's Organised Crime Unit detained seasoned journalist Musa Ndlangamandla in Mbabane, accusing him of aligning himself with organisations that call for democracy. They harassed, intimidated and threatened him, and are already preparing documents for his prosecution.

This notorious police gang, also known as “Tingculungculu”, accused Ndlangamandla of having engaged in acts of collaboration with the democratic movement in 2011, when he was the Chief Editor of the Swazi Observer newspaper. That was before he slipped out of the country to preserve his life after word got out that Mswati wanted his head delivered in a bowl, simply for covering news related to Swaziland’s progressive forces. That year his office at the Swazi Observer premises was raided by this police unit.

When the Organised Crime Unit was introduced in 2009, after the enactment of the Suppression of Terrorism Act of 2008, the then police commissioner declared that the unit would deal with the “growing phenomenon of organised syndicated crime and terrorism.” It is now a fact accepted by all that the Mswati regime regards all efforts aimed at the democratisation of Swaziland as nothing but terrorist acts, thus automatically falling within these categories. Hence Ndlangamandla’s good journalism ethics are categorised by the Mswati autocracy as serious enough to attract the attention of a specialised police unit like the Tingculungculu, as terrorist acts.

This is not the first time the Mswati regime has clamped down on journalists. In 2014, the Mswati regime arrested and convicted The Nation magazine editor, Bheki Makhubu, together with human rights lawyer, Thulani Maseko, for being critical of the system. In February this year, members of Mswati’s Correctional Services (prison warders) attacked a journalist when he took photographs of them travelling on the backs of overcrowded vehicles. In September this year, police assaulted a journalist and demanded he delete photographs he took of them attacking and shooting at striking textile workers. In a report titled “Assessment of Media Development in Swaziland”, seven in ten journalists interviewed by UNESCO in Swaziland said they had faced attempts from politicians or advertisers to interfere with what they were writing.

The detaining of journalist Musa Ndlangamandla should therefore be openly condemned by all democracy loving people across the globe.

This should also be a wake-up call to those who were slumbering under the illusion that things would be different under Mswati’s newly appointed prime minister. Swaziland remains undemocratic. It is still ruled by a dictator, sub-Saharan Africa’s last remaining absolute monarch. The tinkhundla system is nothing but a dictatorship of the monarch. The 2018 tinkhundla elections were nothing but a sham, a wasteful game by Mswati, for his benefit. Those elections, as previous ones, resulted in a puppet parliament for the dictator to implement his anti-people decisions.

The journey towards freedom of the media in Swaziland must at one and the same time be linked with the journey towards democracy. There can never a free media in Swaziland as long as the tinkhundla system prevails. Mswati tightly controls the media and punishes journalists and media houses for publishing anything seen as critical of the royal family and his government.

The regime must be overthrown! For this to happen, the people must unite and isolate the absolute monarch!

Issued by the Communist Party of Swaziland

Contact:

Kenneth Kunene

General Secretary

+27 72 594 3971

Or

Njabulo Dlamini

International Organiser

Mobile: +2687 603 9844

Email: cpswa.org@gmail.com

Facebook: Communist Party Of Swaziland – CPS

Twitter: @CPSwaziland