Sipakatane' threat was a winner for mass stay-away

A combination of gaffes between Prime Minister Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini typical of dancing on the graves of enemies and pockets of brutality against the peaceful protesters by the police conspired to turn the focus on the causality of the protest march and its possible impact towards accelerating the achievements of its stated goals as articulated by the workers’ eight demands to government.

As I see it, the prime minister’s ‘sipakatane’ threats against political dissenters and foreigners interfering in domestic political affairs of this the Kingdom of eSwatini immediately upon setting foot on Swazi soil fresh from attending the second-term inauguration of Paul Kagame in Kigali as Rwandan President after a landslide victory in a presidential election boycotted by opposition candidates in fear of their safety, dissipated any doubts whatsoever as to what lengths the government would go to crush those it perceived as enemies of the Tinkhundla system of governance. Indeed his overall demeanour on the day once more served to lend credence to Lord Acton’s observations a century ago, when he said, "all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

At a time when the PM should have been circumspect and the voice of reason by extending the olive branch to calm tempers and emotions on both sides while encouraging workers to come to the negotiating table, his utterances suggested that he was spoiling for a fight. In the event his stance left one in no doubt why the police suddenly became violent on the second and final installment of the mass stay-away in Mbabane City when they suddenly manhandled and unleashed disproportionate force against unarmed and peaceful protesters. Surely, the police must have got a cue from the PM’s militant talk.

As I see it, it was also condescending as well as it was patronising for the PM to attempt to sanitise if not confuse issues by suggesting that foreign influences might be to blame for the protest action. The so-called foreigners were invited here by their colleagues not that they imposed themselves.

The truth is workers are initially united under domestic then regional and global federations and their modus operandi being "an injury to one is an injury to all". Therefore, there is nothing sinister in workers collaborating and supporting each other across borders as the PM would have us believe, and government’s assumed role of shepherding Swazi workers from interacting with colleagues from across the region and the rest of the world is counter productive. That the world is now a global village also means the notion that sovereignty of nations gave their respective governments exclusive rights to oppress their citizens had long become obsolete.

It also became obvious that when the PM made references to foreigners whose countries were in chaos he was in fact talking about South Africans, a statement that was not warranted considering the historical and umbilical connections that tie the two nations together.

Not only did the Kingdom of eSwatini and its people, including the ruling elite, play a vital role in the liberation struggle against apartheid in South Africa but we also have relatives on either side of the border. Given this background, it is presumptuous to think that South Africans would abstain from participating in the total emancipation of their friends, relatives and neighbours for fear of being accused of interfering in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country. Ordinarily, no government should be allowed to use the refuge of sovereignty to oppress and deny the people their inalienable fundamental human rights and freedoms as the case is here.

But even much worse than alluding to the fact that foreigners were politically tainting Swazi citizens, was the PM’s threat of unleashing the infamous sipakatane, a weapon of torture used by the Portuguese colonial masters against the so-called natives in neighbouring Mozambique, against the dissenting "noisy minority" and foreigners. The epoch of sipakatane might have long gone but it will never be erased from history books or from the memories of those Mozambicans exposed to this inhuman torture. And the very thought that a fellow African, in the name of our PM, might derive pleasure in emulating former oppressive colonial masters by unleashing this weapon of torture against his own people who are perceived to be enemies of the Tinkhundla political system is not just sickening but nauseating.

As I see it, leaders from either side of our common borders should be sensitive about their actions and utterances, especially they should try and avoid those that are likely to cause tensions between nations. For the PM is an intelligent man to have assumed that his insensitive sipakatane talk would endear him or this nation to the Mozambicans. No, its likely consequences could be diplomatic tensions and strained relations between the two nations, an achievement that is certainly not worth any celebration, if this was the PM’s intention.

As it were, just where did the talk of sipakatane come from? I do not believe it just came from out of the blue! Has this torture method been on Cabinet’s table for discussion as a potent weapon to use against the noisy dissenting minority, as the PM would have us believe? Not surprisingly, the PM seems to derive pleasure and satisfaction in the suffering of others. Take the sipakatane talk and his utterances at last week’s official opening of the Hluthi police station and Magistrate’s Court by His Majesty King Mswati III, coming hot on the heels of the other. This newspaper quoted him as salivating over an isolated interrogation room at the new police station that almost suggested he was endorsing police torture of suspects during interrogation. Otherwise he would not have said the things he was quoted as having said.

As to the success or otherwise of the two day mass stay away, I am of the opinion
that it was a success not based on the number of protesters who participated but for a number of other factors. As I see it the PM’s torture talk combined with the behaviour of the police force catapulted what could easily have been a low-key event into international headlines courtesy of the international media that assembled to cover the mass stay-away.

For the PM’s torture talk reinforced the belief that the obtaining political hegemony employed force to shore itself up and to silence and whip the people into conformity.

Then the police played no small role in ensuring that the event attracted the international glare it deserved by first detaining and harassing foreigners, including genuine tourists, as well as unleashing disproportionate force against the unarmed and peaceful protesters. Even organisers of the protest action could not have bargained for anything better especially since the foreigners also included Danish citizens whose voices on the state of affairs in this country will carry a lot of weight around the globe. As is the norm, this country would once more be thrust into the global limelight all for the wrong reasons.

Talk of cutting your nose to spite your face… the script can never be any better!

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