Police arrest the Democracy Campaign leaders in Swaziland

Police today disrupted a seminar at Tum's George Hotel in Manzini, Swaziland. The meeting was held by the Swaziland Democracy Campaign and was to be about the history of the democratic movement in Swaziland. There were around 60 participants at the meeting who were met by around 100 police officers, who demanded to have the names of all foreign participants at the meeting. These included three members of Africa Contact's Swaziland group and several people from South Africa, including representatives from the South African Municipality Workers Union, Public Services International, and Cosatu among others. The participants of the meeting defied this order from the police, and instead started singing struggle songs, one of which proclaimed that "we want mulitiparty democracy" in seSwati. Soon after most of the foreign delegation bolted out of the back door thereby evading the police. At this time police were already beginning to arrest members of the rest of the delegation. At 3.30 most of the organisers of the weeks event had been arrested and been brought away by the police for questioning.