SABC News Online
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Swaziland's banned main opposition party today rejected a South African newspaper report that it was mounting a guerrilla force to overthrow the country's monarch.
"This story must go down in history as one of the greatest fairy tale stories that have been told about the Swaziland liberation movement," the Pudemo party said in a statement. A Johannesburg weekend newspaper said this week that Pudemo had organised a guerrilla camp to train fighters to topple King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch.
The South African report was reproduced by newspapers in the tiny kingdom, in a move Pudemo said could be part of a government strategy to amass evidence against Pudemo members accused of a string of petrol bomb attacks.
Political change through peace
Swaziland's government said the reported guerrilla force appeared to be designed "to bring change through the route of maiming, terrorising the population into submission using the gun and other weapons of destruction". Pudemo said the reports were false. "We again take this opportunity to reiterate that our policy is to peacefully bring about political change in Swaziland," the Pudemo statement said. "For more than 20 years, the regime has worked tirelessly to draw our organisation into a violent confrontation but we have maintained that we will not be drawn into such confrontation on the government's terms."
Mswati's lavish lifestyle
The four Pudemo members accused in the petrol bombing case are now out on bail pending trial. Mswati, who regularly makes headlines for his lavish lifestyle and more than a dozen wives, last year signed a new constitution for his kingdom which critics said only served to cement royal power. Swaziland, bordered on three sides by South Africa, suffers from regular food shortages and has the world's highest HIV infection rate with 40% of adults believed to be carrying the virus. - Reuters