SWAZILAND: Faceless bombers sow insecurity

SWAZILAND: Faceless bombers sow insecurity

MBABANE, 14 June 2010 (IRIN) - No individual or group in Swaziland has
admitted responsibility for a spate of recent bombings against government
and opposition party targets, but their actions are creating a sense of
instability in the aid-dependent southern African state.

"The bombings have not caused any casualties as yet, but they are so
frequent now and all over the place that we are asking, 'What is happening
in Swaziland?'" an NGO programme officer, who declined to be identified,
told IRIN. So far the bombing campaign has not disrupted the activities of
aid organizations.

Sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch rules Swaziland, where a growing
pro-democracy movement has demanded political reform but received little
support from democratic neighbours South Africa and Mozambique.

King Mswati III currently serves on the Troika on Politics, Defence and
Security Co-operation of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
and has been leading the regional body's efforts to re-establish democratic
norms in the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar after the unlawful transfer
of power there in 2009.

Swazi police said commercial explosives were detonated on 10 June in the
bathroom at the Magistrate's Court in the commercial hub, Manzini, and that
in the past month the residences of two members of parliament had been
petrol bombed, as well as the homes of three police officers in separate
attacks.

Political activist Alex LaNgwenya's home in Bhunya, 80km south of the
capital, Mbabane, was bombed on 8 June; the explosives were so powerful that
damage was caused to homes in an adjacent workers' compound.

LaNgwenya is a leader of the Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO) of the
People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), pro-democracy group. He and
family members all survived the attack, and have denied allegations that the
bomb was made by PUDEMO and exploded inadvertently on the premises.

In 2008 two PUDEMO members were killed by an explosion at a bridge about a
kilometre from one of Mswati's palaces. Police alleged that the three men
involved - Musa Dlamini and a South African, Jack Govender, who were killed,
as well as another South African, Amos Mbedzi, who survived the blast - had
planned to destroy the bridge.

The Suppression of Terrorism Act of 2008 was enacted soon after the
incident, and PUDEMO and SWAYOCO were banned as terrorist organizations.
Several members of PUDEMO and SWAYOCO were alleged to have carried out a
bombing campaign and detained. Anyone found guilty of belonging to a
terrorist organization is liable to a prison sentence not exceeding 10
years.

Bombings have increased in intensity since 1995, when a petrol bomb
extensively damaged the Houses of Parliament in Lobamba, 20km east of
Mbabane. No person or organisation has ever acknowledged any involvement in
a bombing incident.

Sipho Jele, 34, one of several PUDEMO members on bail after being arrested
in 2006 on various bombing charges, was again arrested on May Day 2010 for
wearing a PUDEMO T-shirt. He died in police custody.

The South Africa-based Swazi Solidarity Network (SSN) said in a statement
on 14 June that the Swazi security forces were using the bombings as a
screen to "conduct illegal raids and arbitrary detentions of known political
activists".

The SSN said police had detained more than 10 SWAYOCO members, arrested
another on charges of bombing the two MPs houses, and had raided the home of
PUDEMO president Mario Masuku on 14 June.

The question of who the perpetrators of the bombings are has sharply
divided Swazis; some insist it is the work of political opposition groups,
while others maintain the incidents are being coordinated by elements within
the government to justify greater use of the terrorism act against
pro-democracy activists.

"We are confident that, working hand in hand with the entire security
apparatus of the nation, we shall have positive results," Prime Minister
Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini told Parliament recently. "We are confident that
arrests would soon be made and a clear message sent to everyone that
terrorism in all its forms would not be tolerated."

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