Morten Nielsen: Eyewitness account of Swazi police brutality

Account of police detention, Manzini, Swaziland 7 September 2010, Morten Nielsen, Information Officer, Africa Contact

Monday 6 September 2010
In connection with a bi-annual project project evaluation visit, I and three other members of Africa Contact's Swaziland group visited our partner, the Foundation for Socio Economic Justice (FSEJ) from the 29 August to 7 September.
The visit had been planned six months in advance. We had met with our our partners, FSEJ, in Johannesburg for a two-day meeting before arriving in Swaziland. We encountered no problems when entering Swaziland and our stay there was without incident until September 6. At no time until then were we approached by the local authorities or the police. We are normally tailed/followed by the police when visiting our partners in Swaziland.

Monday evening, 5 September, we were informed by the union movement that there would be a seminar the following day that would include several papers by, amongst others, two professors from the University. This seminar was to begin at 2 pm but we arrived at the meeting at around 3 pm. After having dropped us of at the Tum's George Hotel where the seminar was to be held, the coordinator of FSEJ drove back to his office. Approximately ten minutes after we had arrived, a couple of police officers enter the conference room, where around 60 people were in attendance. We quickly realised that that they wanted to detain all foreigners in the room. We were seated right next to a sliding door near the back of the room and we sneaked out of the room together with several other of the foreign guests approximately 15 minutes after the police had arrived. In the meantime I had informed our partner that he was to pick us up outside the hotel in his car. We leave the hotel and get in the car without being stopped by the plain clothed and uniformed police officers standing outside the conference room. We then make the short drive to our partners office which is nearby the hotel.

Tuesday 7 September 2010
 Tuesday was the day we were to leave Swaziland and return home. We had bought a plane ticket from the airport at 4 pm which meant that we had to be at the airport at around 2 pm. We had not planned to take part in today's Global March that had been arranged by the democracy movement. The reason for this is simple. There were police and military personnel everywhere, apparently looking for any foreigners that would be joining the march. As we were going to have our breakfast at our hotel at around 8 am, were were met by two members of the local unions movement. They told us that the police were looking for us and were heading in our direction. We therefore went immediately to our partners office, not far from the hotel.

At around 9 am, we were told that the police had searched the offices of SFTU (the union movement) and arrested all foreign national on sight.
At around 9.20, FSEJ's coordinator returns to the office and tells us that the police are on their way up the stairs leading to the office where we are presently seated, and that at least 100 police officers have surrounded the building below the office. We decide to open the door voluntarily when they arrive. We are all to seated behind desks when they arrive.
The following events are chaotic, to say the least. One group of people, who I believe to be plain clothed police officers, enter the office shouting and screaming. They immediately start beating up one of the local employees of FSEJ, after which I see my Danish colleague fall to the floor and try to grab hold of his spectacles. Suddenly, I feel two hands tightening around my throat and a man yelling into my face. At the same time I am being hit and slapped on the head. Around 12 plain clothed officers are now in the small office. The grip around my neck is loosed after a little while – although it feels like a long time. The many angry man (I also believe there was a woman present) continue yelling orders at us, however. We are also threatened, some of these threats being death threats. We are told that we will never return to Denmark and that today will be our last. We are told to grab our suitcases and follow them to a minibus parked downstairs next to the office. Here we are pushed into the minibus, whilst still being shouted and screamed at, and driven at high speed to what I believe to be a police station.
Upon arrival we are told to take our suitcases with us up the back stairs. We are made to stand in a dark hallway with a group of plain clothed policemen standing in front of us. They continue with the threats to kill us. They hit anyone who attempts to speak. A couple of the senior police officers in uniform try to intervene but are told to mind their own business by the plain clothed officers. After what feels like an eternity, we are told to take our suitcases into a large room where a large group of officers are seated round a table.

After having done as we are told, we are taken down the back stairs to the yard below the office. There is a large group of heavily armed police officers in the yard. They are all carrying truncheons and firearms. They form a circle around us and start yelling at us. The atmosphere is very tense and I am certain that we are in for a beating. Our two partners try to diffuse the situation by socialising with the most agitated of them. This disarms them, so to speak, and apart from one of our partners being slapped around a little, we are not physically harmed. But the threats continue as they start to elaborate upon how they are going to kill us.
All five of us are then taken to a police van and put in the back. The group of officers are now standing outside the police van. They continue to threaten us, in English as well as in Swazi. This is meant for our two partners. They are told that they will die, that the local chief has been told that they are “political”, and that they will therefore be evicted from their homes and land. They are also told that they will be strangled and buried alive. A group of South Africans are seated in the police van right next to ours. It must be very warm for them in the sun without food or water.

We notice that they have started taking the people from the other van for interrogation one at a time,  and that they return after 15-20 minutes. At around 1 pm they start taking us for interrogation. They start with Lone, they Peter, and finally me. When I arrive in the upstairs hallway they are still interrogating Lone. They order me to take my camera and delete all the pictures on it. I am seated in a small office together with Peter and an elderly police officer. He tries to coerce me into supporting his local church financially, and whilst I delete the pictures he asks for my home address so he can contact me. This all seems rather surreal. After Peter has left the office, another officer enters and starts screaming and shouting at me – I have no idea why. Maybe because I had asked to go to the toilet.

I am then taken for interrogation. I am stood in front of a large table facing seven people or so, two or three of them women. They start shouting at me to stand right in front of them. They also tell the women present to leave the room. During the interrogation, everyone ask me questions at the same time and all demand that I answer them. They want to know who we have met with and why. When I ask for a lawyer and to be able to speak with the Danish embassy they become very angry and tell me that I will be killed. I point out that we are meant to be flying out of Swaziland that very day and that we therefore could not have participated in the Global March. They ask us why we have met with “terrorists”. My answer is that if the people we have met with are so obviously terrorists, why aren't they in jail or being charged with terrorism. I told the officers that we had met with all organisations that had wanted to meet with us, and that we wished to have as broad and nuanced an understanding of the situation in Swaziland as possible. Everything I say is being written down by all the officers present. I have no idea who they are as no-one introduced themselves. All the officers are plain clothed except for one uniformed woman. After having been interrogated I am told that I will not be going back to Denmark and that they will personally see to it that my life will end in the most painful way possible. For the duration of the interrogation, pictures are taken of me with my own camera. I am subsequently told to delete these pictures. I am  then given a handwritten piece of paper and told to sign it. I do as I am told even though I cannot read the contents without my glasses. They threaten to kill me several times as I am been escorted to the van.

After having been seated in the van for half an hour or so, we and the people in the other van are all taken back to the large room where we had been interrogated. Our two partners from FSEJ remain in the van. Here we are made to check our baggage to see if anything is missing. I ask for my camera back and am given it. We all have our pictures taken whilst holding a piece of paper with our names on it. A police officer starts downplaying the events of the last five hours or so, which makes me and one of the South Africans insist that downplaying their violent and threatening conduct is not tenable or reasonable.
It was now over 2 pm, which was the check in time at the airport. Upon learning this, the police officers rushed us to the airport in the van with a civilian car as an escort.
In the airport, our mobiles were returned to us and we were told that we no longer were welcome in Swaziland.

This account has been sent to the Danish Embassy in Pretoria, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Danish Citizens Information Desk (Borgerservice).