Times Of Swaziland: FOUR ACTIVISTS SPY ON ARMY FOUR ACTIVISTS SPY ON ARMY ================================================================================ BY TIMES REPORTER on 20/03/2017 07:25:00 MBABANE – Four members of a political party infiltrated their way into the Umbutfo Swaziland Defence Force (USDF) as spies for their entity. The quartet joined the army through a recruitment exercise conducted through all the chiefdoms in the country in 2010. The country has 55 Tinkhundla centres and 385 chiefdoms. In the Hhohho region, there are 14 constituencies and 97 chiefdoms; Manzini region has 16 constituencies and 101 chiefdoms while the Lubombo region has 11 constituencies and 87 chiefdoms. The Shiselweni region has 14 constituencies and 100 chiefdoms. According to impeccable sources in the higher echelons of the army, the recruits were fired four months into their training. The sources alleged that when the foursome enlisted with the army, they presented themselves to be pro-monarchy; yet they were spies seeking to gain access to knowledge and information that compromised the security of the State. It is said the information they gathered while training with the army was forwarded to senior personnel of the political party they are allegedly members of. The sources noted that the four recruits were caught in the act, reporting to superiors of the political formation what exactly they were doing as part of the training exercise. This information was conveyed using cellphones. “After passing all the stages of the army recruitment, the people you are referring to started their clandestine activities but we were able to nip their plan in the bud,” one of the sources said. The alleged spies of the political entity are said to have been caught with mobile phones within the army training base at Mbuluzi. When caught, it was alleged that they were reporting what they had done on the day. One of the sources said the so-called political spies were caught by the army’s intelligence wing. The mobile phones that the four recruits had smuggled in were confiscated and later, data from them was decoded. The impeccable sources, who were interviewed separately, concurred that the quartet, by having cellphones at the training base, had bridged one of the security pre-requisites of the army. The norm is that while recruits are still in training, they are not allowed to bring with them mobile phones or be in contact with civilians while still camped at Mbuluzi.