DAFT STORY OF SWAZI ARMY DEMONS

Somebody is having a laugh: the trouble is I’m not sure who it is.

It is reported that the brave Swazi Army was attacked by demons and 500 soldier recruits had to be sent home to recover.

The demons were ‘evil spirits’ and created ‘hysteria’ among the army personnel.

The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, took this information at face value and made it the paper’s main front page story today (4 January 2011).

The paper reports that the demons struck at Mbuluzi Barracks just before Christmas and the ‘hysterical’ soldiers were released to spend the holiday season with their families.

It all started when one woman recruit ‘suffered an attack’ from the demons and ‘screamed out loud like she was seeing weird creatures’, the Observer reports.

Then a lot more women behaved the same way and screamed and spoke in tongues.

The Observer reports that a day later the demons attacked male recruits and as with the female recruits they also screamed and some attempted to run away.

It was then that the army priests were called because the administration feared that the situation might get out of hand.

After they were all prayed for, army headquarters sent the recruits home for a week.

Well you can knock me down with a feather. What a great trick by the recruits to get an extra week’s holiday and just how gullible are the army commanders who let them get away with it?

It gets worse. Because it seems no one at the Army even thought for a moment that they were being taken for a ride.

The Observer quotes an anonymous ‘highly placed source’ who said the Army really got worried once the male soldiers were also attacked.

The source said, ‘We all know that hysteria normally attacks women, but it was not the case at Mbuluzi.’

Army Public Relations Officer Major Khanya Dlamini confirmed the story, but said there was nothing to worry about. The army believed in prayer more than anything and so were not shaken by the attacks, he told the Observer.

‘Even though we knew that the recruits were somehow in danger, we were ready to fight the attacks through prayer and be successful; we believe in prayer.’

Dlamini added that they had no alternative but to suspend classes as well as physical training for the recruits.

The Observer said, ‘He assured parents of the over 500 recruits and the nation at large that even though the aspirant soldiers had not been training for almost two weeks they would be able to catch up.’

The recruits returned to barracks after the New Year. ‘It is business as usual for the recruits and they are lucky to rest for such a long period as this was the first time for recruits to get so many days off,’ Dlamini said.

So you tell me: who is a having a laugh? Is it the recruits who pulled a trick to get an extra Christmas holiday? The Army commander who let them do it? The Army PRO who reckons that prayer saved the day? Or is it the Swazi Observer for going along with the story?

What? You don’t believe it is a joke. You think everybody involved in the story really believes the recruits were attacked by demons.

No, that can’t be the case. Swaziland is fast becoming a ‘First World’ nation. Remember? King Mswati told us so.

SWAZI WOMEN 'ARE MINORS FOR LIFE'

The next time King Mswati III, Barnabas Dlamini, the man he illegally-appointed Prime Minister, and their hangers-on, say that Swaziland is on its way to becoming a ‘First World’ nation, show them this blogpost.

A Swazi High Court judge ruled this week that women are the property of their menfolk.

Justice Mbutfo Mamba was hearing an argument between the husband and father over who had the right to decide on the burial of a deceased woman.

The husband believed he had the right, but the in-laws said this wasn’t so because they had never sanctioned the marriage.

Attorney Mbongeni Simelane, on behalf of the in-laws, told the High Court that even if the deceased woman was married she was still a minor and therefore her parents still had the rights to determine where she would be buried.

‘In Swazi Law and Custom women are perpetual minors and the deceased was no exception,’ he said.

The court was told about the marriage customs in Swaziland (that definitely have no place in a First World nation).

They go like this: the husband’s argument was that he was legally married to the deceased by virtue of smearing her with the red ochre (libovu). He said that he sent to his in-laws the ceremonious meat (Umsasane), which he said was accepted by a member of the family.

The Swazi Observer reported that the in-laws argued that though the family member was present, he was not the rightful person to accept umsasane. Further they said umsasane was never accepted by them.

The husband’s lawyer, Ian Carmichael, argued that in Swazi Law and Custom, the smearing of the red ochre constitutes marriage. ‘However, his in-laws disputed this, saying the marriage was invalid because they rejected umsasane. By rejecting it, they stated they did not approve the union between the two.

‘They said the purported marriage did not comply with all the customary requirements validating marriage such as lobola,’ the Observer reported.

Simelane, for the in-laws, said that smearing the deceased with the red ochre was not enough validation to the marriage.

‘Further, the rejection of the ceremonious meat was proof that the marriage was not accepted’ by the in-laws, Simelane argued.

Justice Mamba found for the in-laws on the grounds that he was not convinced that the deceased was married in terms of the Swazi Law and Custom.

Readers will notice that in this dispute over the marriage, the views of the woman concerned were never taken into account. This High Court case conforms what all Swazi women know: when it comes to their rights the Swaziland Constitution (s28 (1) is a good place to start) isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

We should also be worried about the High Court judge’s willingness to ignore the constitution, which we should consider as a ‘modern law’ (befitting a ‘First World’ nation) in favour of ‘Swazi Law and Custom’ (which is a feudal law).

But, this decision is hardly surprising because feudal law favours King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, who sits at the top of the feudal pile. All people below him must defer to his wishes.

Swaziland on its way to becoming a First World nation? You decide.

SWAZILAND'S FIRST WORLD MYTH

King Mswati III of Swaziland is misleading his subjects when he says his kingdom is on the way to becoming a First World nation.

He has been plugging away at this theme for many months now and his hangers-on in Swaziland, where he is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, have jumped on the bandwagon. The king even said that Swaziland would achieve First World status by 2022.

But none of them seem to understand what a ‘First World’ nation is. Put simply, the First World nations are the multi-party democracies who align themselves (some more formally than others) to the economic and foreign policies of the United States. They would include Canada, northern and western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Swaziland does not have the potential to become a First World country. It is not a democracy and if King Mswati has his way will never become one. Only this week he restated that there will be no dialogue in Swaziland with groups advocating for democratic change.

Swaziland’s foreign policy makes it ineligible to ‘join’ the First World. By aligning itself with Taiwan (and therefore against China) it places itself outside of the political mainstream.

I assume that when King Mswati says he wants Swaziland to become ‘First World’, he means he wants his kingdom to be prosperous. But there’s not much chance of that. Last week the Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by the king, reported unemployment in Swaziland averaged 40 percent and in the Shiselweni region it was more than half.

We already know that the economy of Swaziland is in freefall and since the kingdom’s income from the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) was slashed this year from E6 billion (250 million US dollars) to E1.5 billion, budget cuts of 14 percent have been imposed by the Swazi government.

And this is not a one-off. No matter how much the king bleats, the income from SACU will never again reach the heights of the past.

The king has no answer to the financial crisis, except to distract attention from the true dire situation in Swaziland and mislead people about the prospects of achieving First World status.