SWAZI NEWS TAKES ON ROYALTY

I wrote yesterday about how the Swazi News was publishing material critical of Swaziland. This is dangerous at a time when the king has instructed his new prime minister to take on the ‘terrorists’ and those who support them.

The News seems to be intent on sticking its neck out.

In an article on Saturday(25 October 2008) from the Ngwane National Liberatory Congress, these paragraphs explicitly attacking the Royal Family appeared.

‘The recent appointment of almost the entire royal household to the House of Assembly, Senate and emabandla, clearly shows the desire to feed themselves at our expense. The majority of members of the royal family appointees are basically politically ignorant and cannot make any meaningful contribution to the nation, and will contribute nothing in Parliament.

‘They have been put there to take care of their upkeep. Parliament is being used as a source of employment rather than to advance the cause of all Emaswati via legislation. Those who claim to have joined this authoritarian system in order to ‘change it from within’ are wasting their time. The system has galvanised itself by bringing the whole family and its minions to Parliament. That the system is a feeding lot is evidenced by some people leaving high paying jobs elsewhere to come and join in the plunder.’

The article goes onto attack the traditional structures and government ministers in Swaziland who have robbed the Swazi people blind.

It also attacks King Mswati III, who recently told university graduates they needed to go abroad to find jobs because there were none for them in Swaziland.

In view of the attacks the new Prime minister made on journalists during his last term in office from 1996 to 2003, I don’t hold much hope for the Swazi News going unpunished.

Click here to see the full article.

SWAZI KING WATCHES HIS OWN BACK

Last Week the Swaziland media were heaping praise on King Mswati III for the tremendous role he played in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) efforts at mediation in the Zimbabwean elections impasse.

Quite what he is supposed to have accomplished is beyond me since the meeting he chaired in the Swazi capital Mbabane broke up in disarray. They will start again today (27 October 2008) in Harare.

The Sowetan newspaper in South Africa was equally confused. But unlike its counterparts in Swaziland the Sowetan doesn’t have to pretend that King Mswati is all-knowing and infallible (the worst that the Swazi media will ever say against the king is that he was ‘ill advised’).

The Sowetan (22 October 2008) wondered aloud about the king and the ‘curious idea of having that beacon of feudalism, Swaziland, as the venue where discussions pertaining to returning Zimbabwe to a democracy took place.

‘Even the arch despot, King Mswati III, found a moment from his busy schedule of shopping or finding young brides to lecture the Zimbabweans about how they should go about finding national peace and stability.

‘How rich, coming as it did from a man with a penchant for looking the other way as his own subjects die of hunger and Aids while he and his wives frolic merrily in the shopping capitals of the world.’

The Sowetan misses the point. King Mswati is an obvious choice for these talks which involve one illegitimate leader (King Mswati) finding excuses to allow another illegitimate leader (Robert Mugabe) to cling to power. Sometime in the not too distant future the king of Swaziland will need similar help himself.

ILLEGAL SWAZI P.M. BULLIES PRESS

The Times of Swaziland editor Martin Dlamini has been writing about how Barnabas Dlamini operates with the media.

Dlamini was illegally appointed Prime Minister by King Mswati III earlier this month (October 2008) and given the public mandate by the king to get the ‘terrorists’ and all who support them.

Dlamini was previously PM in Swaziland from 1996 to 2003 and his term in office was characterised by a reign of terror against the Swazi people and a complete disregard for the rule of law in Swaziland.

Now, it seems, Dlamini also had a high hand with journalists in the kingdom.

Martin Dlamini writing in the Times on Friday (24 October 2008) recalled that the PM would insist that he saw any report about him that was destined to go in the newspapers before it was published.

Martin Dlamini didn’t comment on this but, of course, in Swaziland, where all broadcasting is state controlled this is not unexpected, but the fact that the man assumes he can do this with the free press tells us a lot about how he will not allow any dissent in the kingdom.

In the past the PM would also inspect every report that had been published about him and complain about anything he disliked – right down to the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. (He has my email address if he wants to comment on this blog).

Get it wrong and ‘all hell lets loose,’ according to Martin Dlamini.

‘He politely requires a correction but with firmness in his voice that has all the characteristics of a military order.’

This is bad news in Swaziland where censorship and self-censorship is rife. If the PM continues his bullying tactics against the press we will get less information about what is really going on in Swaziland than the little we do already.

Last Thursday when the PM announced members of the king’s new cabinet, he walked out immediately the list was read and refused to take questions from journalists.

The clock really is turning back in Swaziland.

See also

BARNABAS DLAMINI

‘TERRORISTS’ ALL OVER SWAZILAND

Things are so bad in Swaziland now that everybody is suspected of being a terrorist.

This comes after King Mswati III illegally appointed Barnabas Dlamini as Prime Minister and publicly told him to get the ‘terrorists’ and all those who support them.

Now there is news that the Swaziland army public relations officer Captain Khanya Dlamini has been dismissed from office because he is suspected ‘to be working with local progressives and their counterparts in Kenya, who have experience in guerrilla warfare’.

The Times Sunday reported yesterday (26 October 2008) that Capt Dlamini’s superiors suspect that he had been making telephone calls to terrorists in Kenya. Once this was discovered Capt Dlamini was immediately transferred from a central office to a remote post in Siteki to look for cattle rustlers.

The Times Sunday goes on to give the background to the case, but nowhere does it or the army authorities give one shred of evidence of wrongdoing on Capt Dlamini’s part.

It seems that suspicion of ‘terrorist’ involvement is enough to be considered guilty these days. The Times Sunday reports that Capt Dlamini was not subjected to any formal investigation and instead was simply instructed to reimburse the army for the E4,200 (about 525 US dollars) cost of the calls to Kenya.

Asked by the Times Sunday if he has any contacts in Kenya, Capt Dlamini said there were none.

‘I am not a terrorist, and I am not assisting anyone who carries out acts of terrorism. I also have no links with people who are against government, so I do not understand why I should be associated with these allegations,’ the newspaper quotes him saying.

The Times Sunday gives further background that suggests that Capt Dlamini may have been targeted because he had previously upset his bosses.

To read the full story click here.

SWAZI KING UNDER FOREIGN SPOTLIGHT

I take my hat off to the Swazi News for daring to publish an article that is damning of Swaziland.

In the present climate, following the illegal appointment of Barnabas Dlamini as Prime Minister, where everyone who is critical of the state is considered a ‘terrorist sympathiser’ and liable to be ‘dealt with’ by the authorities, it takes some courage to print something that says that King Mswati III is in effect unaccountable to his people.

The article, published yesterday (25 October 2008), is written by Terence Corrigan, a researcher and seminar facilitator at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg, South Africa. I wrote about this article when it first appeared on AllAfrica.com in September 2008.

Corrigan uses the recent election in Swaziland as a springboard to unpick the problems in Swaziland today.

He writes, ‘Swaziland’s parliamentary elections have underlined the dire and longstanding problems that confront the small southern African nation.

‘The country needs seriously to reconsider its political arrangements if it is to deal with the challenges it faces.

‘Voting in the nation of a little more than one million people went ahead smoothly – in a technical sense – last month. But the country cannot be called a democracy; it is an absolute monarchy in which parties are banned and candidates must stand as individuals.

‘The country’s constitution is quite explicit on this: the king – currently King Mswati III – is “immune from suit or legal process in any case in respect of all things done or omitted to be done by him.” This is not unique for a monarch, but in Swaziland the king has a direct role in governance, so the provision severely abridges his accountability.’

On the monarchy, he writes, ‘[...], it is difficult to gauge what Swazis truly feel about the monarchy. The country is heavily rural, and most rural people depend on land and therefore their livelihoods on chiefs who are answerable to the king. The society is a deeply traditional one, and throughout history people have venerated their monarchs as rulers ordained by God, fathers and protectors of the nation and custodians of culture. Swazi royalists have played on this, to the extent that clergy who support them have condemned democracy as anti-Christian. But the mystique is fraying: for example, women demonstrated against the recent royal shopping trip, saying the money should have been used for anti-retroviral drugs.’

He concludes, ‘Right now, Swaziland’s royal order faces no imminent threat, internal or external. If King Mswati III does not seize the opening he still has to initiate reform – albeit at the cost of some of his own power – the alternative is likely to be a gradual crumbling of the country, sometimes violently, which will bring a disorder.’

To read the full article, click here.

See also

SWAZILAND ELECTION ANALYSIS