The largest political opposition party and rights groups in Eswatini are dissatisfied with a fact-finding mission sent by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to the protest-hit small southern African kingdom formerly known as Swaziland
JOHANNESBURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th July, 2021) The largest political opposition party and rights groups in Eswatini are dissatisfied with a fact-finding mission sent by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to the protest-hit small southern African kingdom formerly known as Swaziland.
The SADC sent a fact-finding mission to the small African kingdom on Sunday. The president of the opposition People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), Mlungisi Makhanya, told Sputnik on Monday that the mission had made no attempts to reach out to the families of those killed, injured or detained in the protests.
"So far, as PUDEMO, we are concerned there was no real fact finding mission yesterday but a typical SADC attempt to sanitise and serve [King] Mswati's regime. We are continuing to mobilise our people to intensify the struggle for the total emancipation of our people," Makhanya stated.
The ministers from three SADC nations only met with government officials, "some loyal leeches and some civil society imposters," the politician told Sputnik, noting that Eswatini's delegation welcoming the mission included the king's son representing the ministry of defense, the king's brother representing home affairs, and the monarch's brother-in-law representing church groups, among others.
The Swaziland Solidarity Network, in turn, claimed that the kingdom's government "is so desperate to hide its role in the massacre of unarmed protestors that it is resorting to childish charlatanry."
"It has been reported that the minister of home affairs, Thuli Dladla, tried to hoodwink the mission by organizing a team of royal praise-singers to pretend to be the legitimate voice of the Mass Democratic Movement and the country's civic groups. These praise singers spent the entire Sunday afternoon sugar-coating the decades of royal abuse on the population," the civil rights group said in a statement on Sunday.
Reports by opposition political movements have suggested that between 40 and 69 people died during the protests in Eswatini since late June. The government, in turn, said it was investigating the number of deaths and condemned what it called misinformation on the issue.
