Dear All
Maxwell has just been released on bail and are doing fine.
Many thanks to everyone who supported Maxwell and the other political
prisoners struggle.
Have a nice Weekend.
-
Med venlig hilsen - Best Regards
Morten Nielsen
Afrika Kontakt
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Giv et månedligt bidrag og hjælp os med at fremme
demokratiske, sociale og økonomiske rettigheder i Afrika.
Læs mere om lodtrækningen på www.afrika.dk/capetown
Bliv medlem af Afrika Kontakt.
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Morten Nielsen - Information and Campaigns officer
Africa Contact - Denmark
Blågårdsgade 7B st. th. - DK2200 Copenhagen N - Denmark
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Phone: (+45) 35 35 92 32 (AC) or
Mobil: (+45) 25 39 65 57
www.afrika.dk
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Den 03-02-2012 11:27, Lucky Lukhele skrev:
Govt won’t pay For student activists
Had long-serving public servant and veteran politician, the late Arthur
Khoza been a student today, he might not have acquired tertiary
education because today’s government is pushing a policy which seeks to
prevent any of its critics and their children, particularly in politics,
from getting scholarships.
A former secretary general of the oldest opposition party the Ngwane
National Liberatory Congress (NNLC), Khoza was awarded government
scholarship to pursue his studies at Pius XII University College at
Roma, Lesotho.
He studied towards a Bachelor of Arts in the early 1960s.
He then proceeded to Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute in Winneba,
Ghana under Nkrumah’s scholarships awarded to the Africans in the
liberation struggle.
When King Sobhuza II was looking for the well educated and politically
savvy Swazis to build his think tank, he ordered Khoza’s parents to
bring their son to him who was educated with national funds because he
wanted to use him.
Disturbed for some time by the disruptive factionalism within the NNLC,
Khoza defected to become the king’s interpreter, private secretary and
later a principal secretary in the ministry of agriculture and cooperatives.
His immense contribution to national development and prosperity is
unrivalled. Khoza’s life ran like a red thread through the history of
Swazi politics as he undoubtedly served with diligence and distinction
both King Sobhuza II and King Mswati III until he met his death in 2005.
But, today’s government has abandoned the idea of grooming such
luminaries as Khoza by frustrating students who have a different
political ideology to the Tinkhundla system of government.
Scores of hopeful students watched helplessly as government dashed their
hopes of a bright future by pushing the Scholarship Policy for
Pre-Service Tertiary Education.
This policy provides that the Scholarship Selection Board (SSB) may, at
its discretion, terminate scholarship when “the student is a member,
supports or furthers the activities of a banned entity.”
Empowered by the controversial Suppression of Terrorism Act of 2008,
Prime Minister Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini banned four radical political
entities deemed to be perpetrating terrorist activities in the kingdom.
These included the People’s United Democratic Movement (Pudemo),
Swaziland Youth Congress (Swayoco), Umbane and the South Africa-based
Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) all accused of a spate of bombings of
government structures countrywide.
As a result, the government has received sharp criticism from a wide
spectrum of the populace still holding onto the mantra that education is
a key to a better life.
Renowned educationist, Dr. Ben Dlamini slammed government for being its
own worst enemy by suppressing political thinking and ideas in the
country’s institutions of higher learning.
“This goes to show that our government has lost direction at the height
of the socio-economic and political crises. By introducing such
restrictive measures, it turns out to be the architect of its own
downfall as this fuels the anti-government anger among the majority
youth,” he warned.
The septuagenarian recalled how King Sobhuza II tapped into the
diversity and vibrancy of political minds to build a think tank for his
maiden government after independence.
He said King Sobhuza II and Queen Regent Labotsibeni, who wanted all
Swazis to receive education at all costs, must be turning in their
graves in the face of the undoing of their legacy of education.
They never had problems with well educated and politicised Swazis whom
they deployed to serve the nation.
In the book entitled “Sobhuza II Ngwenyama and King of Swaziland: The
story of a hereditary ruler and his country”, the King is said to have
once told his authorised biographer, Hilda Kuper, that his recipe for
success was a combination of the uneducated and educated or
conservatives and progressives.
The Swaziland National Union of Students (SNUS) also criticised the new
scholarship policy for barring students associated with the banned
political organisations from tertiary education.
SNUS secretary general Samkeliso Ginindza said the present
administration had been on the warpath since the day of the infamous
King Mswati’s ‘akukhanywane’ (throttle) statement at Esibayeni.
In a fit of anger after the aborted Lozitha Bridge bombing in 2008, the
King gave the PM, on his appointment, a clear mandate to comb out the
terrorists threatening national security.
Ginindza accused government of being vindictive towards students in
politics perceived as enemies of the state. In fact he was disappointed
by its disregard of even the international and regional human rights
instruments.
“Government is all out to crush its political critics,” he said, adding:
“The intolerant leadership forgets that people cannot be oppressed
forever as they shall rise one day to free themselves.”
He doubted that the SSB would find it possible to screen students
because the clarion call for political change was on the lips of every
student in the institutions of higher learning.
“Only the princes, princesses and children of the politically connected,
who constitute a minority, don’t want political change. It therefore
means that government must be ready to face the wrath of the majority of
students that will turn against it,” he noted.
When The Nation approached the SSB chairman about the criterion for
identifying students associated with the banned entities, Goodman Kunene
declined to comment.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about because I’ve never seen this
so-called draft and therefore I don’t want to comment on something that
I know nothing about,” he said.
Ginindza revealed that all the students had vowed to support the
pro-democracy groups pushing for multiparty democracy as the only
solution to the deepening economic and political crises.
Swaziland National Teachers Association (SNAT) president Sibongile
Mazibuko shared the same sentiments. She complained that government
wanted to make education a preserve for the children of those in the
higher echelons.
“This self-serving government started off by lowering the quality of
education system by introducing IGCSE. It now wants to bar our children
from tertiary education. The sole purpose of all this is to reduce our
children to nothing but car washers who would serve their privileged
children well educated from abroad,” she said.
Mazibuko urged Swazis to throw out of the window the scholarship policy
designed to stifle the development and prosperity of their children. She
identified a great need for tertiary education to combat poverty and
diseases in a country with a third of its 1.2m population languishing in
poverty.
PUDEMO president Mario Masuku views government’s refusal of scholarship
to his party members as a nothing but the highest degree of political
repression under the undemocratic regime.
He, however, admires the PM as a necessary evil and catalyst for
political change by sowing the seeds of a revolution among the youth of
this country.
“All the youth thrown out of the education system will now have a strong
reason to fight for social justice in a democratic society,” he said.
Masuku remembered that it took the South African apartheid regime to
tamper with education to ignite the 1976 Soweto Uprising. He predicted
similar riots of Swazi students against the repressive regime once the
policy was fully operational.
SWAYOCO deputy president, Sifiso Mabuza, dismissed the scholarship
policy as nothing but a government tool of intimidation and buying loyalty.
He, however, noted that government was courting trouble by pushing a
scholarship policy without the input of the concerned parties.
“We all know that all workers pay taxes and the scholarships are part
of the money that accrued from the taxes. It is cause for public concern
when government awards scholarships selectively because this is a
benefit that accrues from the taxpayers’ money,” he argued.
Efforts by The Nation to get an explanation on the public concerns over
the draft from principal secretary in the ministry of labour and social
security, Nomathemba Hlophe proved futile as she did not respond to
questions submitted to her two months ago.
Government spokesperson Percy Simelane also declined to comment after
his consultation with the ministry of labour and social security.
Regarding politics in society as anathema, the Swazi authorities were
busy mobilising the traditional chiefs to crush political opposition
from the chiefdoms before they even reached the tertiary institutions.
For example, a Mankayane Indvuna recently embarrassed the state when he
told human rights lawyer Mandla Mkhwanazi in the explosives case of
university student Maxwell Dlamini and Emmanuel Ngubeni that he was
objecting to the latter’s bail because ‘they are fighting the King.’
In minister of labour and social security Lufto Dlamini, the leadership
had found the right man for the job as he went around the regions
convincing the chiefs to purge their chiefdoms of political elements.
The minister asked the chiefs to depoliticise the students before
signing their scholarship papers.
However, Khangezile Dlamini, who is a human rights activist and Council
of Swaziland Churches (CSC) executive secretary, complained about
government’s approach of using politics as a barrier to higher education.
She said this would create a leadership vacuum because universities help
produce political scientists and leaders needed to turn the economy around.
“It’s unfortunate that government has cast the net so wide because we’re
all political animals. This idea of being non-aligned or apolitical is a
fallacy because we all have our own political persuasions,” she said.
She noted that the government was in contravention of the international
and regional instruments as well as the Constitution of the Kingdom of
Swaziland adopted in July 2005.
Article 26 (1) of the United Nations Human Rights Declaration
articulates that “...higher education shall be equally accessible to all
on the basis of merit. It goes on to say that the human right to
education entitles every individual to “freedom from discrimination in
all areas and levels of education, and to equal access to continuing
education...”
Dr. Dlamini was concerned that government had turned tertiary
institutions, which were ideally the melting pots of critical ideas,
into glorified high schools.
“We expect university students to be politically savvy not naive because
they are our future leaders. They must remain a conscience of the nation
by engaging in intellectual public debates informed by the
cross-pollination of political theories.
That’s why the tertiary institutions should enjoy unfettered academic
freedom,” he said. Tertiary institutions remain political hotspot.
http://theswazination.com/Education-January-2012.html
--
*Lucky Lukhele- SSN spokesperson*
*Tell:011 339 3621*
*Fax: 0866135762*
*Mobile: 072 502 4141*
*Email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> *
Skype: lucky.lukhele1
website: www.ssnonline.net <http://www.ssnonline.net>
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