Commissioner of Police Isaac Magagula said soldiers would be available to help workers who wanted to go into work to defy the strike.
The government had already said
it would sack any striker
who did not return to work by today (24 July 2012). Now the police
commissioner has warned that troops will be on hand to ‘ensure
the safety’ of people wanting to go back to work.
Teachers and public service workers are on strike for a
4.5 percent salary increase. Over the past weeks Swazi police have attacked
peaceful protestors with teargas, rubber bullets and batons in an attempt to
stop them gathering and marching.
Strikers have also been voicing concerns over the lack of
democracy in Swaziland, which is ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s
last absolute monarch.
Magagula met with senior army personnel at the weekend
and later told a press conference soldiers and members of the kingdom’s correctional
service would be deployed ‘to maintain law and order and to safeguard [workers’]
safety. In particular, to ensure that they are not harassed and intimidated in
anyway.’
He also banned works from trying to go into workplaces to
explain the reasons for their strike. He said anyone who did so ‘would be met
with the full extent and might of the law’.
National Public Service and Allied Workers Union
Secretary General, Vincent Dlamini, said the involvement of soldiers is
unacceptable as the civil servants are not fighting with anyone, but want what
is due to them.
See also
STRIKING TEACHERS TO BE SACKED
POLICE SHOOT INNOCENT BYSTANDER
POLICE ATTACK STRIKERS: SCORES INJURED
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