Politikk med livet som innsats

Medlemmene i AUFs søsterorganisasjon SWAYOCO utsettes stadig for nye undertrykkelser fra den diktatoriske kongen. Ledende tillitsvalgte i organisasjonen har opplevd brutal vold fra regimet, blitt utsatt for årevis i fengsel uten dom og ikke minst vært ofre for utstrakt bruk av tortur i fengsel. Her kan du lese det nyeste brevet fra SWAYOCO om den horrible situasjonen for Swazilands politiske aktivister.

Warm revolutionary greetings senior leadership, the entire board and all structures of AUF.

We are writing this letter to express our appreciation for your continued support for the struggle of young people in Swaziland. And further update you about the challenges we are meeting as we mobilize for democratic change. With the strengthening of our partnership, SWAYOCO is growing and positively influencing the lives of young people in pursuit of human rights and democracy. Universities have been an important theatre of youth struggles in the past few weeks. Mainly because of poor government support for tertiary education. The lack of sufficient public support to education is happening at a period whereby the King Mswati has bought himself and his wives 120 luxurious cars.

The mobilization of students has resulted in class boycotts and protests in different campuses across the country. At some point all public funded universities and colleges we closed.

Unfortunately, the student voice has been brutally crushed by the undemocratic government, through arrests, brutal crashing of protests by the police, torture and victimization of student activists and leaders by the administration in universities.

We currently have four students from the Southern Africa Nazarene University (SANU) who were arrested and are currently out on bail pending the conclusion of their trials. The whole Student Representative Council (SRC) at SANU was suspended together with one student (who is not in the SRC). Some of them have appeared in the disciplinary tribunal but are still yet to receive the verdicts. The Secretary General of SANU’s SRC who is also SWAYOCO political commissar is also one of those suspended. This means these suspended student leaders are not allowed to take the on-going examinations.

Whilst they await their verdicts from the disciplinary tribunal, we are anticipating a suspension and or expulsion from university.

During the brutal crackdown by the police several students were injured. Unfortunately, one SANU student was shot. She is missing the on-going examinations because of her injuries, forcing her to drop out of tertiary for the rest of the year. We also doubt she will get a scholarship when she reapplies next year.

To further show the crackdown on SWAYOCO and student activism, our Secretary for Gender Affairs has had her government scholarship withdrawn for next year without a valid reason. The students are also facing are backlash from the government and the university administrations because of the increased student activism in universities. SWAYOCO’s work is part of the activation of students. Hence, we are not surprised by the government crackdown on SWAYOCO leadership that is still in universities.

As the leadership we are not deterred by the action of the government, however we are more than committed to work hard to change our country into a democracy where everyone shall be treated with dignity despite their political views. Nevertheless, we are not taking the attack laying down, we are aware that we have to respond in a pragmatic way to provide support for those who are victimized. A failure to show compassion by supporting those who have been victimized shall demoralize our activists and potentially destroy SWAYOCO.

We hope our letter will reach your solidarity spirit.