King Mswati’s police in Swaziland have charged 22-year-old Sambulo Shongwe, a member of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS), with multiple counts of assault after arresting and torturing him twice this month. He was released on bail on July 17. Sambulo is also the National Political Educator of the Swaziland National Union of Students (SNUS).
Six heavily armed policemen first arrested Sambulo on July 11 from the dormitory of the University of Swaziland in the capital Mbabane, where he studies environmental science.
“They brutally tortured him that night at the Mbabane police station. They suffocated him, knowing that he suffers from asthma,” Simphiwe Dlamini, international secretary of the CPS, told Peoples Dispatch.
On July 12, he was seen limping after a night of torture when he was produced before the Mbabane Magistrate court which remanded him to Sdvwashini prison. He was accused of assaulting security guards at the University of Swaziland on four different occasions and another guard at the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology.
The University of Swaziland has been rocked by several protests and strikes over the last year by students demanding scholarships and allowances. “The security guards in the university have been informing the police about student leaders. They have even been used by the state as witnesses to frame many student activists,” claimed Simphiwe.
At times, when the angry students confront the guards, it leads to scuffles. In one incident, when the students tore down and burnt the monarchist flag, raising slogans against the King and calling for democracy, “the security guards had joined the police in physically attacking the students, and students held their ground and fought back,” said Simphiwe.
Earlier in March, the guards at Limkokwing University of Creative Technology let in goons armed with knives and other weapons to attack protesting students, leading to a scuffle when the students went to confront the security guards.
“They blame Sambulo for all this, But it wasn’t him. The students themselves are organized and ready to fight for their rights,” Simphiwe maintains.
The police had also charged Sambulo with assaulting a police officer, but that charge was dropped on July 14 at the court which granted him bail at R2,000.
“After payment of the bail we eagerly awaited for his release at the Sdvwashini Prison gate, what shocked us was witnessing about seven armed police officers traveling in three armed police vans grabbing him into a police van and quickly driving off with our comrade to the Manzini direction,” said Manqoba Motsa, another CC member of the CPS.
After re-arresting him on the same charge that had been dropped before the Mbabane Magistrate court, the police tortured him again at the Manzini police station. He was held there through the weekend before being produced at the Manzini Magistrate court on July 17. He was granted bail for another R2,000.
Sambulo was accused of assaulting a police officer on May 12 at this same court during the trial of Mxolisi Ngcamphalala, deputy secretary of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) and deputy general secretary of the CPS. “We were in the courtroom to show solidarity with Comrade Mxolisi,” recalled Simphiwe. “He has been on trial for jaywalking in 2019. This is the only time someone is being tried in court for jaywalking.”
Accused of crossing a road at an unauthorized point, Mxolisi was arrested on January 11, 2019, along with Njabulo Dlamini, SNAT leader and the international organizer of CPS at the time, while they were on their way to a meeting to prepare for a strike by civil servants later that month. The duo were released on bail the same day.
Njabulo died a few months after his release. The CPS suspects he was poisoned by the police while in prison.
Read: Trade unions in Swaziland demand inquiry into death of Njabulo Dlamini
Mxolisi has since been attending the court trial for jaywalking. “They often give us a date, and when we go to the court, they tell us to come back on another date. They do that to drain our limited resources,” said Simphiwe.
On May 12, they were told to leave the courtroom as the judge who was to hear the case was not present, but “we refused to leave. We insisted that the case be heard and closed. We sang protest songs and raised slogans in the courtroom,” Simphiwe said. “The police attacked us and we had to defend ourselves. So there was an exchange of blows. Police accuse Sambulo of attacking them, but it was they who attacked us,” he claimed.
Following this incident, Sambulo was forced to go underground to hide from the police who were looking for him. On June 2, when he attended the funeral of the party’s former National Chairperson Dumisani Fakudze, “the police learned he was there. They tried to barricade us in Manzini, but we outmaneuvered them and Sambulo managed to escape,” Simphiwe said. He added that Sambulo had also been forced to miss his exam because the police were on a constant lookout for him.
Later that month, four other CPS members, including its National Organizing Secretary Bafanabakhe Sacolo, were pulled over by the police and bundled into an army truck where they were tortured before being taken to their homes which were raided for political material. They were released later that day without any charges.
At the time of their arrest, the four members were on their way to attend the trial of another CPS CC member, Mvuselelo Mkhabela, who had been first arrested and tortured in early February. When released on bail, he went right back to campaign against the upcoming parliamentary elections, in which only candidates approved by the King’s chiefs can contest as individuals without representing any party.
All political parties are banned in Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarchy. The CPS accuses that these sham elections are only a means to legitimize the King’s rule.
Later that month, the police shot Mvuselelo in his thigh while he was disrupting a government campaign to convince people to vote in the elections. He was tortured for several hours even as he bled from his bullet wound. He was later taken to a hospital from where he managed to escape.
Read: Shot and tortured by police, Communist Party of Swaziland’s Mvuselelo Mkhabela escapes, calls for continued anti-monarchist resistance
Mvuselelo continued to campaign and participate in the anti-monarchist resistance while still underground, before he was arrested and tortured again in April. He has been in prison since.
“The monarchy is trying to hunt us all down—our comrades are being followed, abducted and tortured. None of us are safe as long as this regime exists,” said Simphiwe. “But we all knew there was a price to pay when we joined the movement. We remain committed on the frontlines of the struggle to liberate Swaziland, because if not us communists, then who?”
