SWAZI MEDIA COMMENTARY

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JOBS FOR KING MSWATI’S BOYS

The following is a media release issued today (26 January 2011) from the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN). It criticises the Swazi Royal Family for using jobs in the kingdom’s civil service as a way of rewarding supporters. As the International Monetary Fund seeks 7,000 job losses among civil servants, SSN shanes those who are on the government payroll, courtesy of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, but who do no work.

SOURCE

The IMF’s Recommends A Less Effective Civil Service as Mswati's Cronies Take Enemas at Tax Payers' Expense.

SSN PRESS RELEASE –

26th January, 2011

According to the latest Public Information Notice (PIN) released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the 24th of January 2010, the kingdom of Swaziland has the second largest wage bill in sub-Saharan Africa after Lesotho. The country’s finance minister once reported that with this wage bill makes up 54% of the country’s overall budget.

Despite the fact that the IMF has recommended the reduction of this wage bill by taking drastic measures such as not hiring any new civil servants, implementing early retirement exit schemes and things continuing its privatization policy among other things, the government has stalled on implementing this recommendation out of fear that it will spark social upheaval.

What it has since done, however, is to claim to have cut overtime wages, freeze the hiring of civil servants and reduce ghost workers, the latter being a serious problem in the country’s civil service. The wage bill is artificially inflated by the fact that some unscrupulous civil servants draw salaries of nonexistent workers. This is one of the many fruits of the royal blanket covering corruption.

Due to the Royal family’s extended patronage systems many other registered civil servants draw salaries that they never work for. This is most prevalent in the armed forces, particularly in the defence force, which has gone to the extent of hiring the king’s two sons despite the fact that they are rarely ever in the country and do no soldier work.

The king’s brother in law, Sibusiso Mngomezulu is another well connected individual who draws a high salary in the country’s defence force despite the fact he has a job as a financial director at Chancellor House, the ANC’s private investment firm that recently bought a coal mine in Swaziland. All this rot is happening while both countries are struggling to create quality jobs for its citizens.

A large number of civil servants in less senior positions are also guilty of this grossly unprofessional behaviour. Many of them during this time of the year are found relaxing at the country’s natural hot spring in Lobamba bathing and taking enemas during working hours having told their superiors that they are on official royal duty.

As the financial crisis deepens in the kingdom these are the issues which should be dealt with immediately before any hard working and vastly experienced civil servants are pressured into taking early retirement schemes, a move that will render the civil service less effective than it currently is and in the end add to the country’s economic woes.

Issued by the Swaziland Solidarity Network [SSN] South Africa Chapter.

STUDENTS DEFY SWAZI POLICE

The following message was sent to member of the Swaziland National Union of Students (SNUS) Facebook site on Monday (24 January 2011). It concerns harassment by the Swazi Police of activists in the student movement.

Brave Swazi Students defy Royal Swaziland Police

Comrades and friends of the Swaziland Revolution are informed that the students of Swaziland now live in fear of their lives as the Royal regime of Swaziland keeps harassing the students of Swaziland, especially those affiliated under the Swaziland National Union of Students [SNUS].

It all began on the day the youth of Swaziland, led by the Swaziland Youth Congress [SWAYOCO], were on their way to attend the World Festival for Youth and Students,held in South Africa. The bus in which they were travelling in had to be stopped a number of times by the Royal Police of Swaziland and subjected to arbitrary search whilst other vehicles were allowed to pass without any hassle. This happened on the 12th of December, 2010. When they reached the Ngwenya [Oshoek] border post the Royal Swaziland Police recorded their names on a separate sheet of paper, an act which is never done normally.



Problems continued when they came back from the festival. After some rigorous search on the students by the Royal Police two students were placed aside by the police. These are Comrade Thembela Ngcamphala and the Deputy Secretary General [DSG] of SNUS, Comrade Samkelo Ginindza. According to Ngcamphala ‘upon our arrival at Ngwenya (Oshoek) border post on the morning of Wednesday 22 December, 2010, the Swazi delegation was subjected to rigorous search by the Royal Swaziland Police for any material they felt was not allowed into Swaziland. I was in possession of the daily publications of the World Festival for Youth and Students. I also had the Festival and the World Declaration documents in my possession. I was taken aside together with Comrade Samkelo and we were led to a Royal police officer known as ‘Dube’ where they confiscated our documents on democracy and took our passport numbers and phone numbers’. They were both informed that police needed time to go over the documents and that they would be called later. On Tuesday 28 December 2010 the two Comrades received a call from Dube, the police officer, ordering them that they appear at the Police Regional Head Quarters in Mbabane on Thursday 30 December 2010.



Owing to the revolutionary spirit that these two comrades have, they, after consultation with leaders of SWAYOCO, decided to defy the Royal Police. This dealt an embarrassing blow to the Royal police since they had ordered these two Comrades to leave holidays and report to them. This prompted the same Dube to call the two Comrades on January 3, 2011, and threaten them with death for defying the police. ‘Dube posed some threats stating that they were going to deal with me, even if I can switch off my phone for good and that they had got all the gadgets to do that. He then ordered me to call them, but I continued to defy them. I am not answerable to the police’, stressed Comrade Thembela. The Royal police continue intimidating the two students up to this far.



It is not the first time that police have harassed progressive students of Swaziland. Pius Vilakati, a former President of the Student Movement in Swaziland, is currently in exile. He escaped Swaziland following similar threats by the Royal Swaziland Police, after he was said to have made ‘terrorist statements’ during the memorial service of Sipho Jele who himself had been murdered by the Royal police.

Comrade Thembela is one of the student leaders that were abducted together with Comrade Pius on the 10th of February, 2010. Comrade Thembela was later dumped about 60 kilometres East of Swaziland after undergoing some torture in the forests there that same day.



To this day the two Comrades receive threats from the Royal police and yet they remain defiant. SNUS calls for the continued support of the two Comrades from all democracy-loving people in Swaziland and around the world.

PLOTS, INTRIGUE AND THE SWAZI KING

King Mswati III of Swaziland must be a very worried man at news that court papers relating to a treason trial held in secret shortly after he came to the throne have come to light after 23 years.

The papers, which were deliberately removed from Swaziland after the trial in 1987 and have been unearthed in Namibia, could contain details about the plotting that surrounded King Mswati’s rise to power. The papers might also remind the King’s subjects that he is really only where he is today because of political intrigue. Put simply, a political group plotting within the ruling elite of Swaziland supported him. Does he owe his position and wealth to them – and who knows, if today that same group wanted to withdraw its support, what happens next?

Unlike in many societies that still have monarchs, in Swaziland the eldest child (often only the son is eligible) of a deceased monarch doesn’t simply become king once the reigning monarch dies. In Swaziland, the king is said to be chosen in accordance with Swazi law and custom. But the part of Swazi law and custom relating to the selection of a successor to a king is unknown to a majority of ordinary Swazi.

The story of how King Mswati, who was known as Prince Makhosetive as a child, became the monarch goes like this, according to one biography.

‘King Sobhuza II had deftly managed to hold rivalling power factions within the royal ruling alliance in check, and so his death in August 1982, left a power vacuum.’

At this time Makhosetive was 15 years old and a schoolboy at Sherborne in England.

‘In keeping with tradition, Makhosetive’s appointment by his father was not publicly announced. Before his death the King had chosen one of his queens, the childless Princess Dzeliwe, to preside over the monarchy as regent until the prince turned 21 years of age.

‘It was in keeping with tradition that she be childless, so that she would not involve herself in a factional struggle to advance the position of her own son. Factional quarrels broke out into the open, however, in the interregnum period, while the prince was [at school] in the United Kingdom.

‘Continuing disputes led members of the Liqoqo, a supreme traditional advisory body, to force the Queen Regent to resign. In her stead the Liqoqo appointed Queen Ntombi, Prince Makhosetive’s mother, who initially refused to take up the position.

Further disputes between royal factions led to his coronation as King Mswati III, in April 1986, three years earlier than expected.

At the time, the King was the youngest monarch in the world.

‘Observers saw the early coronation as an attempt on the part of the Liqoqo to legitimate the usurpation of Dzeliwe and consolidate their gains in power. Prince Makhosetive, now King Mswati III, acted quickly however to disband the Liqoqo and call for parliamentary elections.

Another biography takes up the story.

‘In May 1986 Mswati dismissed the Liqoqo, the traditional advisory council to regents, which had assumed greater powers than were customary. In July 1986 he dismissed and charged with treason Prime Minister Prince Bhekimpi and several government officials for their role in the ejection of Queen Regent Dzeliwe, though he eventually pardoned those who were convicted.’

Another biography of King Mswati says,

‘King Mswati’s first two years of rule were characterized by a continuing struggle to gain control of the government and consolidate his rule.

‘Immediately following his coronation, Mswati disbanded the Liqoqo and revised his cabinet appointments. In October 1986 Prime Minister Bhekimpi Dlamini was dismissed and for the first time a nonroyal, Sotsha Dlamini, was chosen for the post.

‘Prince Bhekimpi and 11 other important Swazi figures were arrested in June 1987. [Prince] Mfanasibili, [Prince] Bhekimpi, and eight others were convicted of high treason. Eight of those convicted, however, were eventually pardoned.

‘In early 1989, rumors circulated to the effect that Prince Mfanasibili had attempted to orchestrate a coup while in prison. Other rumors suggested that Mfanasibili was planning an escape from prison for the purpose of mounting a coup. After Mswati's coronation, royal infighting and intrigue remained very much an aspect of Swazi governance.’

According to the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, the court papers that have just come to light relate to the trial of Prince Mfanasibili, Robert Mabila and George Msibi, three of the men convicted of treason. They are now said to want redress from the present Swazi Government. Mabila had been sentenced to eight years imprisonment and Prince Mfanasibili and Msibi were given 15-year jail terms. They were released after an order from King Mswati III in 1988.

I doubt if it is entirely a coincidence but on 15 January 2011 Prince Mfanasibili called his family together for a private meeting in which he is said to have given his version of the events surrounding the treason case. Some details of the ‘private’ meeting were reported in the Times of Swaziland yesterday (24 January 2011).

Until now the treason court judgement has remained secret. If the three men seeking redress from the government press their case, it is difficult to see how the details can remain secret much longer.

EU NOT FOOLED ON POLITICAL PARTIES

Nobody needs to worry that the European Union (EU) is being fooled into thinking that King Mswati III is about to allow political parties to operate in Swaziland, the kingdom he rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

The idea that the EU is being misled surfaced after news that David Matse, the Swazi Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, met with members of the African United Democratic Party (AUDP) surfaced in the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper.

The Times reported, ‘Political observers we cannot name said the government meeting with AUDP was a smokescreen as it was solely convened to lead the EU into believing that there was a genuine dialogue over the registration of political parties.’

AUDP has been pressing the Swazi Government to unban political parties in time for the next election in 2013. Parties have been banned since 1973 following a proclamation by King Sobhuza II, after Swazi people dared to elect a political party that King Sobhuza didn’t like.

The EU became involved because Matse and some of his colleagues met with an EU delegation the day after his meeting with the AUDP.

If it really was Matse’s intention to fool the EU, he is wasting his time. The meeting he had with the EU was a regular ‘Article 8’ meeting that is held every six months. The EU delegation members are old hands at dealing with the Swazi Government. They have been around long enough to know that you can’t trust a word the government says.

The government can make as many promises as it wants, but it’s what it actually does that matters. And as we all know Barnabas Dlamini, the illegally-appointed Prime Minister of Swaziland, who is presently embroiled in a corruption scandal about government land, is not a man to be trusted.

As an example, just think of all the international conventions Swaziland has signed on subjects such as human rights, civil rights and gender rights. All signed, but not implemented. And as for the Swaziland Constitution – we all know that’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.

Meanwhile, what about the AUDP? It wants political parties to operate in Swaziland, but it supports the present Tinkhundla system of government. Like the Imbokodvo National Movement, that has been in the headlines for the past three weeks after news emerged there were attempts to reform it, AUDP seems to pose no threat to the established order.

Or maybe it does. One source told me of being approached by a leader of the AUDP who wanted to know where he could purchase weapons. Leaders of the AUDP have also been approaching foreign embassies seeking to raise funds. The Times reported that Canada had been approached for E5 million (about US$ 450,000).

I hear that the AUDP has had its approaches to embassies rebuffed. This is hardly surprising because no foreign government could be seen to be openly financing an opposition party in Swaziland. It was naive of the AUDP to make the approach. Even more naively, I am told, upon being told that it could not be openly supported, the AUDP, asked to be funded ‘indirectly’.

The AUDP has also angered the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), the best known of the opposition groups in Swaziland (and one that wants to see the present political system in Swaziland changed radically). The media constantly refer to AUDP as a ‘breakaway’ from PUDEMO.

In a statement yesterday (23 January 2011), PUDEMO said, ‘PUDEMO has neither links nor history with the AUDP. We share nothing in common ideologically and otherwise. The formation of the AUDP has got nothing to do with PUDEMO – period! We cannot recall in our history where the founders of the AUDP decided to walk out of PUDEMO and announce they were breaking away to form their own organization.’

That seems clear enough.