Africa-Press – Eswatini. “We were used as hit men by one of the political formations’ leaders.”
This was said by one of the alleged members of the solidarity forces during a Facebook livestream. The division between exiled underground forces and leaders of the political movement is glaringly showing over repeated allegations made on social media. Through the Facebook livestream made on Monday, the underground forces alleged that they were sometimes used as hit men by one of the political formations’ leaders in exile, who wanted them to eliminate one of the people involved in their quest to democratise Eswatini. While making the allegation, the self-proclaimed struggle soldier narrated that the bone of contention was that his counterpart was not in agreement with the political party leader, who is referred to as ‘Bhabuli’ in the video.
Camp
He detailed that they had to move out of a camp under ‘Bhabuli’ and find their own place to stay in, because they could not carry out the dirty work he was allegedly assigning them to do.
He said this was mainly because it was puzzling to them that everyone who did not see eye-to-eye with him had to be eliminated. He also alleged that ‘Bhabuli’ issued a number of such orders, to eliminate people who were not in agreement with him, so much that his behaviour triggered curiosity among them on the death of one of the longest-serving struggle stalwarts, whose killer remains unknown to this day. “If they observed that one had power, they ordered us to eliminate that person. We have unanswered questions on the death of Thulani Maseko after he made a statement on donor funding.
“These unanswered questions were triggered by the behaviour of this leader, who was now happy, calling for the elimination of people who said anything that he did not endorse or if they observed that one had power or influence,” he said. The ‘struggle soldier’ also narrated that, at some point, the safety of incarcerated self-styled commander Thabo Kunene hung in the balance, because they were not in agreement on some issues, such that ‘Bhabuli’, together with other leaders they referred to as ‘Litafula lelisetulu’, mistreated him. He revealed that, had they worked collaboratively with the self-styled commander, Eswatini would have long been liberated. He alleged that they ill-treated him and spoke to him like he was a child, something he claimed was pushed by greed and less desire to see emaSwati liberated.
One of the ‘struggle soldiers’, who made submissions on the video, shared that ‘Bhabuli’ and his counterparts had personal targets, which they were against. “What we do as struggle soldiers is look at what is happening in Eswatini, what emaSwati are saying and we draw conclusions from such observations and craft a way forward. We do not get orders from one man, who wakes up and dictates to us on the next move. We gave up a lot of important things back home, including families and employment and we did it out of love for emaSwati,” he said.
When engaged on these allegations, a leader of one of the political formations in the country said he had forwarded questions to his party and he was confident that they would issue a statement on the issue.
Source: TIMES
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