By Wendy Magagula

MBABANE: Human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko has, on behalf of the  Multi-Stakeholders Forum released a statement urging both the progressives and conservatives to refrain from acts of violence as a second wave of the political unrest looms in eSwatini.

This comes after King Mswati’s police and soldiers intensified a crackdown on pro-democracy activists while protestors  allegedly targeted structures and loyalists of the King.

The Multi-Stakeholders Forum is a collaboration of political parties and civil society groups working towards amplifying the calls for democratic reforms.

“We, the leaders of the Mass Democratic Movement as represented by the Multi-Stakeholders Forum (MSF), wish to express our deepest concerns and trepidation about the increasingly frequent and escalating violence we are witnessing in the country. We have seen both unfettered arson attacks on national infrastructure and a brutal and violent crackdown on peaceful unarmed citizens by the state security cluster, especially the Operational Support Services Unit (OSSU). It is our belief that violence benefits nobody but it instead retards national development, peace and human security. We hold the view that not even the Tinkhundla regime can sustain its stay in power using violent means and the barrel of the gun.

We call upon everyone in the country to immediately eschew violence as a means to resolve the political and governance crisis we face as a nation,” reads a statement signed by Thulani Maseko, the Chairman of the Multi-Stakeholders Forum.

The Multi-Stakeholders Forum said while they accepted that the political impasse on the dialogue process was a creation of the country’s authorities, they also understood that it would take all sides to ensure that violence ends and that the country finds a lasting and sustainable solution to the socio-political and economic challenges it faces at this juncture of its history.