MORE WASTE AT SWAZI KING’S AIRPORT

Some fantasies can be very expensive and none more so than King Mswati III’s white elephant, the Sikhuphe International Airport.

Just before Christmas the Swaziland Government gave out tenders for work at the airport that is being built in a Swaziland wilderness to a total cost of more than E37 million. (5 million US dollars).

This includes a tender awarded to Ramashhka Architect and Interior Designs for design and construction supervision of something called ‘the Royal terminal’ at a cost of E6.3 million.

King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, told the world last year that the airport would be open by March 2010. Barnabas Dlamini, the man the king illegally appointed as Prime Minister, said the airport would open by June 2010.

It was obviously a fantasy, but instead of admitting the airport is a non-starter, that Swaziland doesn’t need the airport (which is estimated to cost at least E1.5 billion if it ever gets finished) and that international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have criticised the project as a waste of resources, the Swazi Government continues to throw good money after bad.

The E37 million spending comes at a time when Swaziland is on the verge of bankruptcy. The decision to spend on the pointless airport came at the same time that the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) announced that Swaziland’s income from its fund this year would fall to E1.9 billion from the previous year’s E6 billion.

Even Swaziland’s inept Minister of Finance Majozi Sithole admitted this plunged Swaziland into a financial crisis.

When will the Swazi Government get it: Swaziland is broke and will not be able to feed its own people this year. The government will have to get out the begging bowl and go to the international community for help but why should anyone help them when it wastes money on vanity projects for a king who is completely out of touch with reality?

RACISM AND THE 'TIMES OF SWAZILAND'

Racist hysteria has gripped one section of the Swazi press following the claim that a group of Asian members of al Qaeda are hiding in Swaziland.

Vusi Sibisi, a top columnist of the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent newspaper, makes the absurd claim that Swazis ‘should be very much afraid’ of Asians in their midst.

He writes, ‘Initially the response likely to be triggered by the news that we might have terrorists within our midst is alarm and panic accompanied by the pungent smell of fear. And we should be very much afraid because we do not know what the mission of these terrorists is or if they are merely using this country as a hideout or a launch pad for their murderous missions.’

He then goes on to claim that ‘the frightening inward flood of Asians’ into Swaziland over the past few years has infiltrated ‘every fibre of Swazi society within every nook and cranny of this country to the extent that by and large they have become the second citizens – far better treated than the majority of the people’.

He then goes on to talk of Asians ‘flooding’ the kingdom and bringing nothing of value in terms of investments.

Complete and utter rubbish of course, and Sibisi, who has a fine record of speaking up for democracy and writing against the ruling class in Swaziland, should know better.

Asians are treated just as badly as Swazis by the ruling elite and have no special privileges.

The Swazi media have an inglorious history of racism and have many times attacked Muslims. They have also allowed the arch racist and businessman Walter Bennett space to peddle his own filth against immigrants.

One of the main ‘concerns’ of the racists is that the Asian immigrants run small businesses (‘fish and chip shop businesses’ they call them in Swaziland) and the implication is that they are taking away businesses that Swazis could do.

I’ll leave it to you to decide whether local Swazis would be setting up the businesses if the Asians weren’t there.

SOLDIER BRAGS OF KILLING CIVILIANS

One of the soldiers at the centre of the cold blooded shooting of two unarmed civilians has been boasting that he killed one of them – a woman - to shut her up.

He also says that killing people is no longer an issue for him as he has now killed eight civilians in total.

The news is just one in a string of revelations about how out of control the Swaziland Army are. Complaints about the way soldiers disregard the law of the land go right the way to the top army commander.

The Swazi News, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, reports that one of the soldiers ‘was recently bragging in one social gathering where he told anyone who cared to listen that the woman was shot because she was a loud mouth and was threatening their jobs, so the best thing to do was to eliminate her.

‘The soldier went on to brag that killing people was no longer an issue to him because he has killed eight people in a similar fashion.’

The Swazi News reports from family sources that Thabiso Fakudze (26) was heavily beaten before he was shot.

‘This was despite that he was not resisting arrest or a threat to the soldiers. Swazi News was told how the soldiers were angered by Lucia Dlamini’s utterances; a wife to Makholweni chief’s inner council in Manzini, she is said to have told the soldiers that their conduct was unprofessional. She was said to have objected to the way they beat Thabiso and later shot him’.

The two were shot during an alleged attempt to cross the Swaziland South Africa border with a stolen Toyota Quantum kombi.

ANGER AT SWAZILAND CENSORSHIP

The following is a statement issued by the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), an organisation banned in Swaziland, today (5 January 2010).

PUDEMO STATEMENT ON THE BAN OF COMRADE MARIO MASUKU

FROM THE SWAZI MEDIA

We wish to address ourselves to the recent outrageous abuse of human rights by the Swazi regime.

Through the Attorney General, who happens to be a prince, the regime issued a stern instruction to the Editor of Times Sunday, a local publication, to stop publishing articles authored by the PUDEMO President [Mario Masuku]. This was an unfortunate incident indeed.

It is only a state that still languishes in backwardness and survives through oppression and suppression that can come to such a stupid decision. In modern societies, all human beings enjoy the right to freely express their opinions.

That the Swazi regime at this day and age still dictates as to who should or should not freely express their opinions is a direct challenge and an insult to the world community as represented by the United Nations Organization. An organization that unapologetically promotes the fundamental rights of humans that include the freedom to express one’s opinion. PUDEMO strongly condemns such and urge the international community to take the Swazi regime to task and be harshly disciplined for undermining the rights of its citizens.

It must be noted that this does not only undermine the rights of citizens, also the rights of the media itself. In many instances, the Swazi regime has come out to deceive its people and the world that its press is operating in a free environment, but this has proven to be an untruth! It must further be noted that this is not the first time that the press in the country has been threatened and intimidated for publishing stories and ideas that are perceived by the state to be in ‘bad taste.’

The people of Swaziland under this oppressive regime urgently need a free media that will inform as well as educate them on critical issues and situations around them. However, this is impossible in Swaziland where the media is constantly intimidated, harassed and threatened by the state.

We feel it makes no sense why the international community should still recognizes the Swazi regime as part of it when the same regime continues abusing human rights with impunity. Surely this must be condemned and the regime be disciplined for the sake of the oppressed people of Swaziland.

However, as PUDEMO we remain unfazed by this senseless ban for we know that our ideas have long permeated into all sectors of Swazi society and no amount of political trickery will by the regime will reverse the situation.

MURDER AND GAY HATE IN SWAZILAND

The following is an extract from the sexgenderbody website about the murder of Swazi woman Pitseng Vilakati who was vilified by the Swaziland press after she announced that she and her lesbian partner Thuli Rudd were to marry each other. Thui Rudd was arrested late December 2009 and charged with the murder of Vilakati.

‘Since August 2009 when Rudd went public with her engagement to the late Pitseng Vilakati, they have been in the spotlight with many people in Swaziland condemning their relationship. They have been under extraordinary pressure and both women demonstrated incredible courage in the face of this pressure.

‘Whilst in South Africa, Thulani had met with activists and discussed the endless violations of her and her partner’s human right to dignity, freedom and equality throughout 2009. There had been major media coverage of their relationship with numerous distortions and misrepresentations as well as a massive public reaction which was largely hostile, insulting and deeply disrespectful.

‘Monica Mbaru of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in Africa expressed concern that Thulani is being tried and convicted by the media and the public before the investigation has been completed and that a strong possibility of this being a hate crime by homophobic persons may be ignored in the haste to prove Thulani guilty and further feed into the already high levels of homophobia.

‘Fikile Vilakazi of the Coalition of African Lesbians, a pan African network of over 20 member organizations of lesbian women and transgender people in 13 countries across Africa, expressed concern about the levels of homophobia in Swaziland and elsewhere on the continent and appealed to all fair-minded and freedom loving people in Swaziland to continue to resist and challenge all forms of discrimination, including that based on homophobia in this country.

‘The Coalition of African Lesbians also extends its condolences to the family of the late Pitseng Vilakati. We remember Pitseng Vilakati as a powerful activist for human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as well as of people living with HIV and AIDS. She was a leader and showed enormous courage in a context of the hostility and discrimination against people in same sex relationships in Swaziland.’

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