By Zweli Martin Dlamini

The reports suggesting that a chaos erupted during the May Workers Day celebration are very disturbing and cannot be ignored.

Firstly, it is important to clarify that by allowing all political parties to address the workers, the federation did that in the spirit of unity and solidarity on issues of democracy and or political governance that impact the welfare of workers.

But after the unfortunate incident, it is recommended that TUCOSWA must engage international partners for resources and conduct an investigation to ascertain as to what really happened and what triggered the unfortunate chaos.

Representatives of political parties must appear before the Commission of Inquiry to explain what happened and the report must be shared with the public and the International Labour Organization(ILO).

As usual, it is alleged that among the workers and members of political parties, there were police officers and soldiers wearing t-shirts for the various political organizations, this should be a subject of an investigation.

I cannot comment further on this, pending further verification but with State spying on rise during such events, there are possibilities that these security agents were there.

Furthermore, the allegations suggesting that statements uttered by some political  leaders instigated violence must be investigated, videos must be analysed to ascertain the reaction of the crowd after those statements.

It is important for political parties and trade unions to account and address such issues not to keep quiet as if nothing has happened.

It would be hard to demand accountability from Government if such unfortunate  incidents are ignored by the pro-democracy movement, the truth must come-out so that the public can know what happened.

We are now receiving different versions on what triggered the violence and I was hoping that by this time, TUCOSWA would have addressed the public and outline what needs to be done to ensure that such violence is prevented in the future.